Pros and cons of social media
I am not an avid user of social media since I am only on Facebook and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a necessary tool to use for career opportunities and networking, but I am only there as a passive member. This means that I have my profile on there and I read other people’s posts every now and then but basically never post anything myself. LinkedIn, I think is one of the “good” social media sites since you do not get hooked and scroll on there for hours on end and you can still get the benefits, e.g. job offerings, from it by being a passive member. I am on Facebook mostly because it is a great way to keep connected with my foreign friends and family. People also use it for invite purposes, so if I were to leave Facebook, I would probably end up missing an event or two. I also use Facebook to look for events in my area and for second hand shopping. Facebook is definitely more addicting than LinkedIn since it for example promotes short videos and uses targeted marketing.
I think in the examples above you can already see many of the pros and cons of social media. The main negative side of social media for me is the addictiveness since I, like many others, find myself using an increasing amount of time on social media just scrolling endlessly. This can easily have an impact on your mood and cause problems with sleeping. Also, social media can create unrealistic expectations for all aspects of life, not in the least regarding body image. Social media can also predispose you to cyberbullying and misinformation as well as dangers like sexual predators and swindlers. Online interaction can also decrease the amount of face-to-face contact which can lead to depression and loneliness. I think the dangers of social media are especially prevalent for children, teenagers, and young adults.
The main positive side of social media for me is that it enables you to connect with friends and family however far they may be. Social media is also a place for new connections and communities as it provides a space to network with people with similar interests all around the world. It is also a powerful medium for promoting worthwhile causes, spreading news, and raising awareness. For some, social media is also a place where they can grow their business or personal brand.
Elements of successful use of a digital application in a workspace
The key element of successful use of digital applications is first defining your goals. To find the application best suited for the task at hand, it needs to be clear what your objectives are. This way you can ensure that the application has all the required capabilities to reach those objectives. After goals have been defined, you should review and compare several applications to find the best one. Once a selection has been made, take time to familiarize yourself with the application and look up e.g., training videos. Through proper preparation you can utilize the application to its full potential. Once you get going, encourage other colleagues to also join the app since many objectives can require teamwork and collaboration. Finally, take time to evaluate the situation at regular intervals to make sure that the application is still the best option for you to reach your goals.
My job description
I work as a financial analyst for an international company in the biotechnology industry. I act as a finance business partner for the commercial organization of the Benelux and Nordics area. I support the region in for example forecasting, quarter close reporting and budgeting. I also assist the sales leaders with profitability calculations and deal approvals as well as headcount planning and budgeting. In addition, I partner with the credit and collection team to increase cash performance and with HR to make sure bonus calculations are done correctly. The digital tools that I use daily are Excel, Business Objects, SAP, Teams, and Outlook. The last two are used for communication and the rest for performing financial analyses. Business Objects and SAP are used as sources of data while Excel is where the actual analysis happens. In addition to the digital tools listed above, I also use Salesforce and Workforce occasionally. Social media tools are generally not needed in my job description but below I will look into five applications that could have some potential benefits in my daily work life.
Evernote
In my job I am constantly working on multiple projects and getting ad hoc requests daily. To stay on top of everything I have a tabletop calendar where I write to do lists, deadlines etc. Although I enjoy the manual calendar it does not allow me to transfer notes from my phone or computer and I can only see and fill it out while at my desk. Evernote could be the solution to this problem. You can connect it with your calendar, create and assign tasks and to do lists, scan documents etc. It also sends you reminders of due dates, meetings, and anything else you subscribe to. And the best part is all of this can be done wherever you are.
Todoist
In addition to my tabletop calendar at work, I have a manual calendar for the events and to do lists of my personal life. Todoist is a way to combine these two worlds. It helps you keep track of all your professional and personal projects and tasks, all under one roof. I think this will become increasingly important when my kids become older and have hobbies and school responsibilities that I need to keep track of until they become old enough to take care of it themselves. My only criticism for this app would be, that I am unsure of whether I want to have all those responsibilities in the same app or if I want to keep my professional and personal lives separate. It could be especially anxiety inducing to see reminders of work deadlines when checking for personal tasks in the evening. I guess the only way to find out would be to test it out for a while and see how I feel about it.
Miro
My job consists of collaborating with and assisting a commercial team. The team is very international since we have people working across the Benelux and Nordics area. This means that physical meetings are far and few between which requires us to be able to collaborate online. Miro is a tool that helps you do so. It enables a group of people to develop ideas and collaborate on projects with an online whiteboard. Miro creates a team space where you can collect ideas, tables, and graphs. I personally share excels with the team quite often and they are easily lost in the depths of their email so it would be handy to have a space where all those excels lived together with notes and discussion related to those excels.
Youtube
Although my job description does not officially entail being an Excel tutor, it is something that I am faced with quite often since the commercial team is not as accustomed to Excel as I am. This is understandable since it is not an essential tool for their job description. However, for example during the budgeting process, I do need them to fill out information into Excel spreadsheets. I also send them Excel tables quite often with the numbers they need. In order to not need to teach each of them separately each time and allow for them to work on the Excel spreadsheets on their own time, it could be beneficial to upload tutorials to YouTube. There are of course already a lot of Excel tutorials on YouTube but it would be easier for the commercial team if the videos were specific to the Excel tables they use. This could, however, cause some privacy concerns that would need to be looked at before making any videos.
In addition to my official title, I am also part of the committee responsible for organizing recreational activities for the staff at the Turku office. We have a team of five people part taking in this and we meet monthly to discuss the several events we organize during the year. The main event we organize is the yearly Christmas party which is a big event with roughly 400 attendees each year. This requires a lot of planning and one way to improve the planning process would be to brainstorm on the theme, location, decorations etc. on Pinterest. Pinterest is a great place for saving and finding new ideas and enables collaboration through shared inspiration boards.
Self-evaluation
This assignment was quite interesting because up until now I have thought that social media applications are something I use in my free time, but they have no place at work with a job description like mine. However, through this assignment I found that several aspects of my job could benefit from the introduction of social media applications. I think for me, Evernote seems like the application with the most potential because one of the greatest challenges of my job is to stay on top of all projects and deadlines. It was also quite beneficial to contemplate on the elements of successful use of digital applications. By implementing the evaluation process, I discussed above, I could make sure that the social media apps I introduce to my daily work life are truly the best ones for the job. I think social media should be utilized more in the work environment because you can basically get all the benefits of social media but many of the negatives I listed above will fail to materialize in this kind of use.
Veera Marjasto 