Social Technology

What does it take to become an astronaut? How do astronauts train to be in outer space? Listeners will learn all about what it's like to become an astronaut.

Is he a man or is he a carrot? In this groundbreaking autobiography of a YouTube icon, we get to the root of it. In this breathtaking debut, Josh Carrott peels back the curtain to reveal an epic saga of friendship, true love, and a prophecy that will change his life forever. Gird your loins and hold on tight for the unfiltered story of his fascinating and vitamin-A-infused life.

To market your business, reach new customers, and create long-lasting loyalty, you need one indispensable element: CONTENT. Whether it’s bite-sized tweets that allow you to forge relationships on Twitter, blog posts that give your readers must-have advice, ebooks or white papers that engage (and don’t bore), videos that share the human side of your company, interactive webinars that deliver a valuable learning experience, or podcasts that can be downloaded and listened to on the fly (and more!) . . .

Through narratives and case studies spanning the brilliant history of engineering, Madhavan shows how the concepts of prototyping, efficiency, reliability, standards, optimization, and feedback are put to use in fields as diverse as transportation, retail, health care, and entertainment. Equal parts personal, practical, and profound, Applied Minds charts a path to a future where we apply strategies borrowed from engineering to create useful and inspired solutions to our most pressing challenges.

With Obfuscation, Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum mean to start a revolution. They are calling us not to the barricades but to our computers, offering us ways to fight today's pervasive digital surveillance - the collection of our data by governments, corporations, advertisers, and hackers. To the toolkit of privacy-protecting techniques and projects, they propose adding obfuscation: the deliberate use of ambiguous, confusing, or misleading information to interfere with surveillance and data-collection projects.

You see, most people think that social media is little more than a time-vampire sucking away attention from more important aspects of your business...but it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, social media marketing needn’t take much more than an hour of your day. And whats more, your social accounts can be automated - allowing you to grow your brand, audience, and customer base on auto-pilot!

The last decade has seen an exponential increase in the development and adoption of language technologies, from personal assistants such as Siri and Alexa, through automatic translation, to chatbots like ChatGPT. Yet questions remain about what we stand to lose or gain when we rely on them in our everyday lives. As a non-native English speaker living in an English-speaking country, Vered Shwartz has experienced both amusing and frustrating moments using language technologies: from relying on inaccurate automatic translation, to failing to activate personal assistants with her foreign accent.

A groundswell is sweeping through your customers. Right now, they are writing about your products on blogs and recutting your commercials on YouTube. They're defining you on Wikipedia and ganging up on you in social networking sites like Facebook. These are all elements of a social phenomenon - the groundswell - that has created a permanent shift in the way the world works. Most companies see it as a threat. It's time to see it an opportunity.

From New York Times bestselling author Ben Mezrich: the book Elon Musk doesn’t want you to read. Breaking Twitter takes readers inside the darkly comic battle between one of the most intriguing, polarizing, influential men of our time—Elon Musk—and the company that represents our...

Many books teach the mechanics of using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to compete in business. But no book addresses how to harness the incredible power of social media to make a difference. The Dragonfly Effect shows you how to tap social media and consumer psychological insights to achieve a single, concrete goal.

I used to think LinkedIn was a colossal waste of time - until I discovered the simple secrets to success on LinkedIn. If you want to know how to double your leads and sales using LinkedIn beyond what you thought possible...without spending hundreds of dollars on ads...or trying to become a "viral" hit.... Then this will be the most important message you ever read. Here’s why. If you've been on LinkedIn for a while, the scenario I’m about to describe may be familiar to you.... You’ve found great companies on LinkedIn, that need what you have.

Cyberspace is all around us. We depend on it for everything we do. We have reengineered our business, governance, and social relations around a planetary network unlike any before it. But there are dangers looming, and malign forces are threatening to transform this extraordinary domain. In Black Code, Ronald J. Deibert, a leading expert on digital technology, security, and human rights, lifts the lid on cyberspace and shows what's at stake for Internet users and citizens.

Activists, pundits, politicians, and the press frequently proclaim today's digitally mediated racial justice activism the new civil rights movement. As Charlton D. McIlwain shows in this book, the story of racial justice movement organizing online is much longer and varied than most people know. Beginning with the simultaneous rise of civil rights and computer revolutions in the 1960s, McIlwain, for the first time, chronicles the long relationship between African Americans, computing technology, and the Internet.

Ben Barres was known for his groundbreaking scientific work and for his groundbreaking advocacy for gender equality in science. In this book, completed shortly before his death, Barres (born Barbara Barres in 1954) describes a life full of remarkable accomplishments. Barres recounts his early life and felt even as a very young child that he was assigned the wrong gender. After years of being acutely uncomfortable in his own skin, Barres transitioned from female to male. It was after transitioning that he realized how differently male and female scientists are treated.

What do today’s young influencers know, that you don’t? Content Creator is a handy guide that will lead you through the process and give you proven tips for creating content that connects with people. It’s amazing what you can learn about yourself when you start creating instead of consuming. You never know how creative you are until you consistently come up with new ideas and produce great content.

A biblical perspective on technology goes far deeper than how tools are used, and involves much more than the electronics that pervade today's world. Technology is, in fact, a foundational part of what it means to be human—and it extends back to the very beginning of Creation. Technology was included in what God declared "good." But like all things impacted by the fall, it has immense power to rewire us for good or bad. From the Garden to the City is back, moving beyond moralism in order to examine the very nature of technology as essentially human and totally transformative.

Ever felt overwhelmed at the idea of making a professional video? Whether it's for work, social media, or content marketing, diving into video production can be daunting. But did you know? The average online user watches more videos than reading texts or browsing images. In fact, over 70 percent of online traffic is video content. Despite its growing popularity, only a few master the art of high-quality video production.

Virtual reality is able to effectively blur the line between reality and illusion, pushing the limits of our imagination and granting us access to any experience imaginable. With well-crafted simulations, these experiences, which are so immersive that the brain believes they're real, are already widely available with a VR headset and will only become more accessible and commonplace. But how does this new medium affect its users, and does it have a future beyond fantasy and escapism? In Experience on Demand, Jeremy Bailenson draws on two decades spent researching the psychological effects of VR and other mass media to help listeners understand this powerful new tool.

"Be Open, Be Transparent, Be Authentic" are the current leadership mantras - but companies often push back. Business is premised on the concept of control and yet the new world order demands openness-leaders do not know how to be open and be in control. This must-have resource will help the modern leader understand how to lead in the new open world-where blogging, twittering, facebooking, and digging are becoming the norm.

Everywhere we turn, a new device promises to transfigure our lives. But at what cost? In this urgent and revelatory excavation of our Information Age, leading technology thinker Adam Greenfield forces us to reconsider our relationship with the networked objects, services, and spaces that define us. It is time to re-evaluate the Silicon Valley consensus determining the future. We're told that innovations - from augmented - reality interfaces and virtual assistants to autonomous delivery drones and self-driving cars - will make life easier, more convenient, and more productive.