FINAL BLOG POST

This blog assignment gave me am opportunity to take a look at technology in hotel industry.

Working in the hotel industry has been my passion since high school. Not to mention, I want to build a Korean traditional themed hotel in Las Vegas, NV. Knowing the technology will help me to get closer to my dream! 

Some findings from my research in technology in hotels:

• Transition from traditional room card to smart phone app
• Cutting edge technology help hotels/resorts remain competitive
• Access to rooms and other amenities with NFC technology

Let's move on to MULTI-TASKING!

My initial opinion:

• Multi-tasking = BAD
• Society trend and my surrounding are forcing me to multi-task

Some findings on multi-tasking:

• I am not a good multi-tasking
• Heavy multi-tasking decrease effectiveness and efficiency of performance
• There are GOOD multi-tasking as well!

Last comments on multi-tasking:

REMEDY FOR MY BAD MULTI-TAKSING SKILLS

(From article "How to Multitask")

1. Don't think you can actually do two things at once.

    Having positive mind set can change anything! Quick tip - our brain is not structured as a parallel process like computer. What we call multi-tasking is actually task switching.

2. Prioritize

    I definitely need to work on this. This will be a big step for me.

3. Immerse yourself in your immediate task, but don't forget what remains to be done next.

    This one goes along with "prioritization". Using my planner effectively will be a good starting point.

4. Depend on routines -- and compare new tasks with old ones.

5. Make schedules, not to-do lists.

    I have never thought about doing this! A great idea!

Future:

I am going to utilize my planner more. I will also use it to review my performance weekly and monthly. I hope to see improvement in my task switching and concentration.

Time to look at positive things: How-to on multitasking

Reading through my previous blog postings, it sounded like I was just listing negative aspects of multitasking (which I think it is not a good thing). While I was looking for something positive about multitasking, I came across on this article Multitasking Tips For the Masses. Mark Duplass, an actor, gives the audience a short "how-to on multitasking skills" and shares his experience.

So here is the how-tos:
Step 1. Take notes via a Dictaphone
   When I first read it, I asked "what is Dictaphone?" Wiki enlightened me that Dictaphone was an American company which was a producer of dictation machines - sound recording devices most commonly used to record speech for later playback or to be typed into print.
Step 2. Embrace your Type-A personality
Step 3. Sleep eight hours a night
Step 4. Keep to a schedule
Step 5. Don't take unnecessary meetings
Step 6. Cut way back on "work/social events"
Step 7. Keep other productive people around
Step 8. Stay at home
This might be super hard for me... Since I have to "at least" go out once a day.
Step 9. Make movies cheaply and quickly
Step 10. When you hit a wall, ask for help
Step 11. Weep when you need to




I am going to try these advice and see how well I can do!

Hotels Offer Guests the Latest Technology Tools

Many hotels are under pressure to keep up with the latest technology to satisfy their customers and regain their competitive edge. I traveled to several places last summer and I have noticed advancements in business centers and lobbies of hotels. Providing free WiFi is a basic service that most hotels have, not to mention free boarding pass printing. I also noticed that hotels are trying to make their public places more tech-savvy. Latest technology for the customers can be easily found in the hotel. I was also surprised to find out that some customers most significantly value what kind of technology related services a hotel provides. Technology became a part of our lives, thus people want to have a quick and easy access to it anywhere they go. Leading hotels are the first in line to react to this trend as well as small or medium size hotels. As mentioned earlier, while having new technology brings in competitive edge to the hotel, the cost adds up very quickly. It will be very important for hotels to come up with creative ideas to have the new technology in a cost effective way.


Link to the article

What is your choice? TV or computer? or BOTH?

On Thursday in class, we talked about how we turn on TV and are on our laptops at the same time. Additionally, having two or multiple computer monitors is an example of multitasking mentioned in class. How about listening to music on iTunes when you are working on homework on your laptop. Every day, we are going through daily routine of multitasking involving media. So I decided to look more into MEDIA MULTITASKING.

Article Media Multitasking? It's More Like Multi-Distracting also says that "multitaskers who think they can successfully divide their attention between the program on their television set and the information on their computer screen proved to be driven to distraction by the two devices." This was proven from a research by Carroll School of Management faculty members S. Adam Brasel and James Gips. I was not surprising to read this article since I mostly have found articles and blog posts considering multitasking as distraction. However, the fact that how media multitasking is affecting a large number of people's lives. Furthermore, the researcher mentioned that the subjects of the research were not even aware of their own actions, switching back and forth between different media. Even with me as an example, I usually turn on music when I am working on homework. Some times I sing along, some times I don't. Even some times I tune out the music. Then what is the point of having my iTunes on? I am not sure. Like the researcher said, I "was not aware of my own action". The article ends with an interesting point about getting attention of potential customers. Companies have been using TV ads to advertise their products and online ads have been added on to that. This new trend of media multitasking gave them a homework to solve, an efficient way to grab their customers attention without distracting them.

How good multitasker are you?

Test your multitasking skills.

The New York Times provided a test came out in the video that I mentioned in the previous blog post. "Test How Fast You Juggle Tasks" measures your speed when switching between tasks and when repeating the same task. The link also provides a test to measure your ability to focus when there are distractions.

This was my performance compared to other multitaskers' performance

My test result was very interesting and kind of expected. I knew that I am not a good multitasker. Overall my performance was lower than both high and low multitaskers. The higher the number, the more time it took you complete these task. After completing the test, I relearned the idea of deficiency and ineffectiveness of multitasking. Not to mention, recently  I have been resisting to do various tasks at once. I am sure that (my opinion on multitasking) did not help the test result. BUT, at least, I thought I would be better than low multitaskers. Is this bad?

According to task by task results bar graph, I put more emphasis on getting the correct answers rather than doing it quickly. I cannot juggle tasks fast enough, however, I make sure that my performance is high functional. 

I got better results for measuring my distractibility. It measures your ability to ignore distractions when performing a task. The higher your performance score, the more objects you were able to keep in short-term memory during this test. The test contains numbers of blue bars and red bars. Blue bars are the distractions and you have to memorize the location of red bars. Each test shows two different pictures of those bars. At the end of the test, a question asks whether the red bars rotated in the second pictures. I made 100 percent of the tests correctly when there were 2 distracting blue bars, while I only made 83 percent when there were 6 distracting blue bars. Another question came across in my mind. "Am I that bad of a multitasking? Will I be able to survive through this tough economy and get a job?" 

My distraction test result.

But researchers' comments at Stanford University made me feel much better. They said that "high multitaskers performed poorly when presented with multiple distractions, meaning they had trouble filtering out irrelevant information. Low multitaskers were not affected by the distraction s and could hold more items in their short-term memory."

How fast can you juggle multiple tasks? Why don't you try this and find out more about yourself?

Multitasking? Is it good or bad?


After watching a video clip Distracted by Everything, this idea of "how inefficient I became after claiming myself as a queen of multitasking" hit me pretty hard. A quick summary and my reflection on the video. The video starts with a lady sharing her experience of realization of "being together physically, but, at the same time, each person being in his or her own little world". She kept saying "it just hit me another night". It did not hit me until the video was telling stories about people around my age. Later, the video featured a group of brilliant MIT students during their hang-out with friends time. Everyone was either on their computer or phone but "engaged" in conversations with their friends. Another scene in the video captured a group of students eating out with their friends. While they were eating and talking to each other, they were also texting when their phone went off. According to them, they were MULTITASKING. They said it is okay to text in that situation and they understand each other because "they do that to each other". I was just amazed after watching this video and students' response. Before I really did not like (and still do not like) people doing other things when I am talking to them. I just thought of it as a sign of disrespect. Until watching this video, I did not even realized I have been doing that to my friends too. Like the other students in the video, my excuse was "I am multitasking and trying to be productive." And this idea just hit me. 


"Am I being forced to multitask? Who is forcing me? Is it the society? Is it the new technology? Or is it the trend?"


A researcher at Stanford University who came out in the video mentioned that multitasking is "dumbing down" the work. People think being a multitasker increase efficiency of the work process. Can Before I go further, I decided to search and define what exactly multitasking is.


Multitasking:

• Computer multitasking - The apparent simultaneous performance of two or more tasks by a computer's CPU
• Media multitasking - Usage of a computer, mp3, or any other form of media in conjunction with one another
• Human multitasking - The ability of a person to perform more than one task at the same time

In my blog, I want to talk more multitasking and its positive and negative. Of course, I am going to focus on human multitasking. 

Scribbling some thoughts after the UNPLUG CHALLENGE... 

On the weekends or during break, I usually start a day with turning my laptop on and surfing the internet. This has been a daily routine for me since I have my own laptop except I did not realize until doing the unplug challenge. The unplug challenge gave me an opportunity to observe myself and my daily routine with the internet. I usually fall asleep with having my laptop playing a video or music. When I wake up, my fingers naturally pushed on/off button on my laptop without thinking. Not to mention, my laptop has been right next me on my bed all night long. Once my laptop is on, I go to a Korean streaming website to catch up on what is going on in Korea. On that website, I usually watch Korean dramas or TV shows. By the time I check the clock, it is almost noon and I get up to make lunch. While I am cooking, my laptop is still running and I find myself looking up some recipes. While I am eating, I usually watch another Korean TV show (or sometimes a movie) online with my brother. After cleaning up, I come back into my room and sit on my desk. ‘Time to do homework.’ Before the challenge, I thought this is the only time when my heavy usage of the internet comes in.  When all these things are going on, I do not forget to check and reply emails. Around dinner time, once again, I look up recipes and watch another TV show. Keeping a log of my internet usage for a day brought me to a realization of how addicted I am to the internet.

This scared me a lot. I questioned myself whether I can successfully complete the challenge. On the other hand, I felt relieved in a way because I will be on vacation with Krissy and another friend while I am doing the challenge. Here was my plan. I was going to allow myself to use maps application to get around places and Kakao Talk (a mobile messenger application) to talk with my parents in Korea. Other than these two, I decided to be internet access-less for four days during my vacation.

The challenge started with taking the steering wheel and driving to San Diego. Day 1 worked out well because I drove to Yuma, AZ. I did not even bother to touch my phone since Krissy did a fantastic job navigating us. After switching, I rode shotgun and I accompanied my friend who was driving all the way to San Diego. As soon as we got to our hotel, all of us knocked out from six-hour driving. Day 1 was very successful.

Day 2, this is when it got challenging. We were at Mission Bay Beach and were looking for a place for lunch. I told everyone with confidence, “Guys, I have a solution!” I took out my phone and googled ‘best restaurants in Mission Bay Beach’. Until one of my friends pointed out, I did not even realize I was on the internet. Wow. That was a failure, right there. After lunch, I became conscious about using my phone. I ‘tried’ not to use my phone at all. I did not use internet anymore after this incident, but I felt really guilty. Day 2 was definitely more challenging than Day 1. I prayed Day 3 would be better.

We were at Disneyland the entire day for Day 3 of the challenge. Going on rides and taking pictures definitely helped me stay away from surfing the internet and killing time. Moreover, two other friends joined and we had three experts of Disneyland. Thanks to those three, I followed wherever they were going. No need to use my phone or pamphlet to figure out where I was going. On Day 3, I did not break any rules. Another good day.

Day 4 became very tricky. I was the navigator of the group and maps function on my phone would not cooperate with me. I ended up using google maps on the web. Not to mentioned, I googled location of Korean markets near LA.

The hardest part of the challenge was realizing how much I am on the internet daily. I used to make fun of my cousin who was on her computer 24/7. I was not different at all. Another challenging part was (even though it is very obvious) giving up what I always had like searching on the internet, Youtube, and social media. I sometimes feel nervous when I feel like I do not have compatible amount of information compared to other people. Not having the internet access made me think “what if I miss out on something very important?” Easy part of the challenge was not using text and phone calls. I am already bad with answering my phone in daily basis. Actually the unplug challenge gave me an excuse to continue that. It was also very entertaining watching Krissy and me tapping our forehead and going “ah darn it! We just used internet AGAIN.”