Solutions – Chapter 5 ⚫ 7
and therefore represent a saving for employees. As a result, a casual-dress policy is an
inexpensive “perk” for companies to offer.
5.7 How Professional Are Your Instant Messaging Skills?
This activity can also be accomplished with the help of Blackboard’s chat function, but Yahoo, Skype and
the other IM tools are often more versatile and sophisticated or have a more pleasant interface. It’s
important that all students download the same client because not all of the software is designed to work
together. Yahoo and Windows Live Messenger are compatible, however. Once students install the
software on their computers, distribute their tasks. Various options are possible. For example, two or three
students could role-play while the rest of the class is logged in and watching, IM dialogue could be
projected to a screen, or students could take turns responding to hypothetical business situations.
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5.8 Checking Out a Podcast
E-mail responses to this assignment would enable students to respond to the assignment more
fully and in greater detail. However, practicing professional texting or tweeting by making the
messages very concise yet informative is also a valuable skill. Summarizing is often not
students’ strong suit, and this activity may provide playful practice.
If you are understandably reluctant to give away your cell phone number, create a Google Voice
account, which will provide you with a phone number you can give out and access online or forward
to your home phone or cell phone without disclosing your phone number. If you don’t like
forwarding, Google Voice can also be set up to send you text or e-mail messages alerting you to a
voice mail message left on the Google Voice website.
Examples of tweets or brief text messages:
(Summary of Money Girl, who is discussing the advantages of turning one’s hobby into a
business; using your favorite browser, search for Money Girl: How to Turn a Hobby Into a
Business for more information.)
You get the most favorable tax treatment when you have a legitimate business—you can even
deduct your overall business losses in years you don’t make a profit.
(133 characters with spaces)
Solutions – Chapter 5 ⚫ 9
5.9 Creating a Simple Business Podcast
Answers will vary. Consider helping students select business topics and prepare brief scripts.
Some of these steps could be done in class in small groups or as a peer editing exercise. Students
5.10 Blogging: Learning From the Best
Answers will vary. As an alternative to a blog entry, students could be asked to analyze in a
memo or an e-mail the blogs of the professional bloggers they visited. Students could also
5.11 Composing a Personal Blog Entry
This assignment is purposely limited to a recent survey or study to ensure academic honesty and
discourage copying from the Web. The added benefit is that the students will become acquainted
with reliable sources of many useful statistics, not only for social media. The blog post could be
5.12 Reviewing Corporate Blogs
This assignment allows for a variety of activities. Students could be asked to evaluate a blog
verbally or in writing—in memo form, by e-mail, or as a blog entry. Additionally, Facebook,
Blackboard, or another course management site could be used to post student reviews for
Solutions – Chapter 5 ⚫ 10
5.13 Monitoring Twitter Chatter and Facebook Posts
Ask students to obtain a Twitter account if they don’t already have one. They may not because
the latest user statistics by Business Insider indicate that only one in ten teenagers and young
adults uses Twitter daily, presumably because they are not interested in news, a Twitter staple;
72 percent never use Twitter. [Carlson, N. 2012, July 13. The secret life of teenagers online.
Businessinsider.com.] Twitter use rises to a third of Internet users ages eighteen to twenty-four,
according to a 2012 Pew study. Students don’t need to register to search for and view tweets in
their Internet browsers, but they should open Twitter accounts to enjoy the full benefits of the
free service and to be able to follow others.
Signing up is quick and intuitive. Students simply follow the on-screen directions and watch the
brief instructional video clip, if they like. They will be able to follow not only friends and family,
5.14 The Dark Side: Hooked on Social Media?
Answers will vary, but most students will probably agree that they would consider it a hardship
to relinquish their cell phones even for a day. In the Maryland study, students felt that giving up
their cell phones was the hardest part of being media free for a full day. They felt less strongly
about forgoing television. Some felt out of sorts as a result of not being able to listen to music all
day and missed their iPods. A few selected “sound bites” from the student blogs in the Maryland
study hint at the tremendous change communication technology has wrought on the millennials:
Email is the only kind of mail I’ve ever sent.
I have received 40 texts in the last 15 minutes.
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5.15 Creating Fair Digital Media Policies
Many employers resign themselves to the fact that employees will spend a certain amount of
time during the workday online shopping and visiting social media sites. Some have accepted
that workers goof off approximately one hour a day. Although they understandably dislike this
Arguments for allowing personal use of social media on the job:
Depending on the job, workers take their work home and on the road. Asking them to stay away
from the Internet at the office while also requiring them to work long hours away from the office
seems unreasonable. Even at the office, monitoring traffic to websites, chatting, texting,
Arguments against allowing personal use of social media on the job:
Recreational activities, as well as unintentional yet careless miscues, can gobble up precious
network resources and waste valuable work time. Even more important is concern over lawsuits