School - Mothers Without Borders

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School - Mothers Without Borders

This weekend was crazy,  I have so much going on at once and no time to do it all.  I did not sleep at all friday night...  and Saturday morning I met with my senior projects group and set up and shot 2 families on a green screen for our video project.  The footage turned out really well, but I can't wait to be finished with this project so I can focus my time on other things.

It worked out really well shooting at the studio at Utah Valley University.  Last time we shot interviews it was really a joke...  We didn't have the right lighting equipment, didn't boom mic it, and there was a lot of background noise and other stuff going on that made it difficult to get quality footage.  I am still getting used to shooting video on the DSLR's and for the most part everything is going good.  I did forget to switch the framerate on one of the cameras so one was shot at 24p and the other 30p so hopefully that won't pose a problem when it comes down to editing later...

The Jensen family were very nice and saved us by bringing a lot of 720p footage from their last trip to Africa.  A lot of the other footage we have recieved from other people that have gone haven't been of the best quality.

Thanks to all the volunteers from Mothers Without Borders!  I wish I could go to Africa and help out... maybe some day.

I really can't wait to be finished with school so I can start making money for the work I do.  The projected estimate for this project had we been able to do it for a paying client would have been in the range of $20,000-$30,000.  Later that day on Saturday I went to Talecris Plazma Resources and donated plazma for the first time so I can have money to pay my phone bill and get some groceries every once in a while, (and make up for my losses haha).

School - Intercultural Comunications

James Vreeken
Intercultural Communications
Assignment #5 Perceptions

For this assignment we are to make a list of 5 different exotic foods we enjoy eating and then think about the context as to why and how I learned to enjoy it. Then we are to list 5 foods that I am likely unwilling to try and explain why I don’t want to try eating them.

5 Exotic foods I enjoy eating:

#1) Sushi: Sushi is one of my favorite foods. I went on a LDS mission to Japan where I lived for 2 years. I came to love sushi, especially raw salmon.

#2) Rattle Snake Meat: Rattlesnake meat is light and tender. My step dad Alan introduced this to me. I just think of it as any other meat, but even more delicious.

#3)
Calamari:

Calamari is fried squid. I have always liked it even when I didn’t know what it was made of when I first tried it at the Olive Garden. Anything fried is usually good. In my family we grew up not ever frying anything. But this past Christmas our family got a deep fryer and we had fun frying all kinds of stuff, from bananas, to oreos.

#4)
Fugu (Blowfish):
This rare delicacy in Japan is only for risk-takers. It is intensely dangerous to eat due to its high tetrodotoxin content, which can mess up your nervous systems in minutes and kill in only a few hours, this dish is served strictly in licensed restaurants. It is thinly sliced and often served as sashimi (raw). Dip the meat with wasabi or Japanese soya sauce and pop it gently into your mouth. Some professional chefs prepare this delicate sashimi so there is a minute amount of poison in the meat, giving a prickling feeling and numbness on the tongue and the lips. I first tried fugu when I was living in a city called Shimonoseki, which produces 80% of Japans Fugu. It was a lot easier to find and a lot cheaper. I guess I like it because I can say I have tried it. It really wasn’t that good, but fun to talk about.

#5)
Durians:
Where to find: most Asian countries. I first tried Durian at a Japanese person’s house. I was apt to try new things. The smell put me off, but once I tried it I really enjoyed it. Either you love it or hate it. This fruit is often times called the “King of Fruits” and has lovers and intense haters alike. So powerful is its aroma (or stench), it can be detected miles away, and the smell lingers in your breath and fingers long after you are done with it. In some areas they are even banned, such is the powerful odor that comes from it! The durian has a shell full of “spikes” which you cut open and take out the fruit, and they look really cool too. The actual fruit are the size of a ping pong balls, and the flesh is yellowish, sticky and gluey. Coupled with its distinctive aroma, durians come in two “flavors” - sweet and bitter. It is worth a try, or at least a sniff to experience the acquired taste of the King of Fruits.

5 Exotic foods I will not eat:

#1) Buffalo Rocky Mountain Oysters: I just can't bring myself to eat any kind of reproductive organ, esspecially that of a gross fat cow. Who cares if it "tastes good" or whatever, the fact is you are eating cow balls. GROSS!!!

#2) Casu Marzu - maggot cheese: This one is discusting! I can't even eat blue cheese let alone cheese that is filled with maggots! Who came up with this?

#3)
Tuna Eyes:
Where to find: Japan. I just can’t handle my food staring back at me. Its one thing to eat ground beef, but I don’t have having to look the cow in the eye when I do it. Some people say that they are actually pretty tantalizing because of thier fatty, jelly-like tissues around the eyeballs. Some prefer to eat it raw, albeit the fishy taste, others would rather steam or fry it alongside garlic or soya sauce to spice it up. They sell for less than 100 yen (approximately US$1) in Japan.

#4)
Tarantula:
Where to find: Skuon, Cambodia. During the years of terror under the Khmer Rogue, starvation was rife across Cambodia, and the people began eating anything they could get their hands on. The tarantula was one such subject, and the people of Skuon, Cambodia, developed a taste for them, even long after the regime change. These distant cousins of the crab are crispy on the outside and gooey in the middle, with the white delicate meat in the head and body tasting rather like a cross between chicken and cod. I just can’t bring myself to eat an arachnid. I guess I have a little arachnophobia from watching the movie when I was a kid.

#5
Balut:
Native to Phillipines, Baluts are half-fertilized duck or chicken eggs boiled with its shell. It doesn’t exactly look inviting as the semi-developed ducklings are already visibly formed. However, the Balut is a popular local dish eaten throughout the Phillipines, believed to be an aphrodisiac and considered a high-protein, hearty snack. Often served with beer, the biggest challenge in trying out balut is overcoming its unappetizing sight, but most people would agree that it tasted much better than it looks. There is no way that I would be able to eat this. I am a very visual person. What looks good, will taste good. Conversely, what looks like it is a rotting pile of poo, will never be able to taste good to me.

School - Intercultural Comunications

Diffusion of Innovations, by Everett Rogers (1995)

Reviewed by Greg Orr
March 18, 2003

Made to 8^th grade Reading level by James Vreeken
January 1, 2010

Introduction:

A lot has been said about the “tipping point”, which is the point when a trend becomes trendy.  The idea of “tipping point” is that for good or bad, change can be made like a domino effect.  In this review, I will define the tipping point.  I will show the ways that speed it up.  I will evaluate the claim that the tipping point makes it easy to spread change.

What is Diffusion?

Diffusion is the process that an innovation is made through certain channels over time in a social system.  When decisions are not authoritative or collective, each member of the social system faces his or her own innovation and decision that follow a 5-step process:

1)   Knowledge – person knows of an innovation and knows of how it works,
2)   Persuasion – person forms a good or bad attitude toward the innovation,
3)   Decision – person is in activities that lead to a choice to accept or reject.
4)   Implementation – person puts an innovation into use,
5)   Confirmation – person evaluates the results of an innovation-decision.

For most members of a social system, the innovation-decision depends on the innovation-decisions of the others in the system.  The spread of innovation makes an S-shaped curve.  After about 10-25% of system members adopt an innovation, adoption by the remaining members and then a period that the rest finally adopt.

The innovation-decision is made by a cost-benefit analysis where the major obstacle is uncertainty.  People will adopt an innovation if they believe that it will help.  They must believe that the innovation will be of use to the idea it comes from.  How can they know for sure that there are benefits?  Also, in consideration of costs, people determine to if the innovation will change their daily life.  Is it compatible with existing habits and values?  Is it hard to use?  It sounds good, but does it work?  Will it break?  If I adopt it, will people think I’m weird?

Since people don’t like taking risks, their uncertainty will usually make them wait until they can decide.  But this is not the case for everyone.  Everyone’s innovation-decision is made personally, which is what makes diffusion possible.  For a successful innovation, the adopter distributions follow a bell-shaped curve.  Diffusion scholars divide this bell-shaped curve to make five categories of innovativeness, where innovativeness is defined as the degree to which an individual is earlier in adopting new ideas than other members.  These groups are: 1) innovators 2) early adopters 3) early majority 4) late majority, and 5) laggards.

The Domino Effect:

Innovators enjoy being on the cutting edge.  Innovators imagine possibilities and want to give things a try.  Early adopters make their own adoption decisions.  Opinion leaders observe that the innovation has been effective for the innovators, and are encouraged to adopt.  This group earns respect for its well-informed decision-making.  This group is where most opinion leaders in a social system are.  A lot of people are not able to stay aware of the most recent information about innovations, so instead they trust the decisions made by opinion leaders.  A lot of people want to just be like everyone else.   If opinion leaders adopt, is a good indicator that an innovation is going to be adopted by many others.

This is the tipping point, where the rate of adoption rapidly increases.  The domino effect continues for those who are cautious about the innovation.   Then adoption becomes necessary.  Those who have not adopted lose economic status.  This pressure motivates adoption.

The last adopters, laggards, can either be very traditional or isolates.  If they are traditional, they are suspicious of innovations and often interact with others who also have traditional values.  If they are isolates, their lack of social interaction decreases their awareness of an innovation’s benefits and it takes much longer for them to adopt.

We have seen potential adopters’ uncertainty about an innovation is made through a stepwise social process.  The tipping point is marked by opinion leader adoption.  Well-informed opinion leaders communicate their approval or disapproval of an innovation, based on the innovators’ experiences, to the rest of the social system.  The majority responds by rapidly adopting.  This shows that the spread of an innovation depends on whether or not opinion leaders vouch for it.

The Diffusion of an Innovation

Now that we know what diffusion is, we have can consider what is most important in the spread of innovation.  It used to be assumed that the mass media had direct, immediate, and powerful effects on the mass audience.  Diffusion theory shows that opinion leaders affect the tipping of an innovation.  I will examine why mass media and persuasion of opinion leaders in encouraging the diffusion of an innovation.

The mass media’s most powerful effect on diffusion is that it spreads knowledge of innovations to a large audience rapidly.  It can even lead to changes in weakly held attitudes.  Strong interpersonal ties are usually more effective in the formation and change of strongly held attitudes.  Research has shown that firm attitudes are developed through communication exchanges about the innovation with peers and opinion leaders.  These channels are more trusted and have greater effectiveness in dealing with resistance on the part of the person.

Persuading opinion leaders is the easiest way to make positive attitudes toward an innovation.  Rogers explains that the types of opinion leaders that change agents should target depend on the nature of the social system.  Social systems can be characterized as heterophilous or homophilous.  On one hand, heterophilous social systems tend to encourage change from system norms.  In them, there is more interaction between people from different backgrounds, indicating a greater interest in being exposed to new ideas.  These systems have opinion leadership that is more innovative because these systems are desirous of innovation.

On the other hand, homophilous social systems tend toward system norms.  Most interaction within them is between people from similar backgrounds.  People and ideas that differ from the norm are seen as strange and undesirable.  These systems have opinion leadership that is not very innovative because these systems are averse to innovation.  For heterophilous systems, change agents can concentrate on targeting the most elite and innovative opinion leaders and the innovation will trickle-down to non-elites.  If an elite opinion leader is convinced to adopt an innovation, the rest will show excitement and readiness to learn and adopt it.  The domino effect will begin with enthusiasm rather than resistance.

For homophilous systems however, encouraging the diffusion of an innovation is a lot harder.  Change agents must target a wider group of opinion leaders, including some of the less elite, because innovations are less likely to trickle-down.  Opinion leaders who adopt innovations in homophilous systems are more likely to be regarded as suspicious and/or dismissed from their opinion leadership.  Often, opinion leaders in homophilous systems avoid adopting innovations in hopes of protecting their opinion leadership. Generally, in homophilous systems, opinion leaders do not control attitudes as much as pre-existing norms do.  Change agents must, if possible, communicate to opinion leaders a convincing argument in favor of the innovation that shows the compatibility of the innovation with system norms.  The opinion leaders will then be able to use this argument, which will hopefully agree with the masses, to support their own adoption decision.

Successful efforts to diffuse an innovation depend on characteristics of the situation.  To eliminate a deficit of awareness of an innovation, mass media channels are most appropriate.  To change common attitudes about an innovation, it is best to persuade opinion leaders.  Further, what we find is that in homophilous social systems, people are likely to make change difficult because of their resistance to innovation.  In heterophilous social systems pushing an innovation to the tipping point is relatively easy.

Conclusion

Why has the tipping point become such a popular idea?  Carefully researched analysis has shown that it is an undeniable phenomenon that once understood provides simple and valuable prescriptions for efforts in encouraging diffusion.  There seem to be many innovations that are valuable for the masses, yet to date have resisted diffusion.  For example, we still use the QWERTY keyboard even though the development of another keyboard that allows much faster typing for the average user has been invented. 



Also, there are many social ideals that a large number of people are very interested in spreading.  In particular situations, such as our own relatively heterophilous nation, the research suggests that there is a reasonable chance that, given effort, support for these products and ideas may be pushed to the tipping point.  As our communication networks become bigger through technological advances, the diffusion process is happening faster and faster.  It seems that understanding and making use of diffusion networks can help to make a quicker system-wide change.