Lena West Critical Response

Another skype chat that we had in my JPW 250 class was with Lena West, a leader for the xynomedia company and web 2.0 professional. She discussed the power of the Web 2.0 world and the capabilities of the web for professional advancement. She also recommended several sites such as micromentor, score, rubyonrails, and djangoproject. These sites offered professional looks into mentoring and web 2.0 strategy and development. I found the web development frameworks useful in the creation of my own personal website. I did not fully take advantage of the first two websites, micromentor or rubyonrails, but I will eventually visit these websites to see if they are useful for my particular branding strategy.




One thing I remember vividly from the Lena West chat was her ideas toward social networking sites. Lena West made me further realize the harms that social networking sites can have on your ability to get a job. It is an employers job to hire the candidate most qualified for the job. Being qualified doesn't just mean having a good resume and grades but conducting yourself in a professional manner. Many of times, facebook pages and tweets are filled with suggestive material that employers can easily gain access to. While these pictures may be unharmful among peers and friends, they are detrimental to a person's ability to get a job. In the Web 2.0 world, almost anything can be found and used against you. The idea of "defining your brand" must be applied to all areas of your life including facebook and twitter.