Is importance of UGC (User Generated Content) nebelous?

Thank god it is Saturday, the sun is shining in a windy winter lunch time! I have some much desired breathing space in this mission [im]possible phase of my life to take things off my chest in writing from yesterday's lunch with Helen and et al.

If there is one thing in my life that I'd like to keep despite any challenges at any levels, it would be serendipity itself. Based on this strong feeling of serendipity concept and its mechanism reflected in my day to day thoughts and activities, I conducted a study on technical aspect of UGC (User Generated Content) in my field with the assistance of Associate Professor Tuncay Ercan, which was published last week in the The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, Volume 6, Issue 4, pp.179-188 titled "Issues in User Generated Content Process and a Proposed Model to Solve them"

Yesterday on our traditional Friday lunch (with Helen, her dad Bruce, her research mate Despina and a few members from Helen's show crew), we discussed UGC from various angles. It was interesting to see Helen being totally disagree on my views related to UGC. She said "anyone can say anything even with no context which could be so harmful at times and consequences may be very heavy and unbearable". Well, I said to Helen it could be true but anything sometimes could create something. Saying things could be better than leaving them unsaid which could have tremendous impact on our lives. My points appear to be supported by Professor David Green of Monash whom I have high respect and admiration in his studies on serendipity published in 2004 which has been a true inspiration to me since then.

Despina believed that my technical focus and my co-author Tuncay's literature search on the topic is timely and well balanced to complete the picture in a sense whilst Bruce was raising one of his eye brows with lack of the emphasis from anthropological aspect which I purposefully had hidden in the methodology section itself. However the most interesting review comment came from a CoP (Community of Practice) participant of the study who said that until we conducted this study, he even was not aware that he has been producing content which empowered his communication and maintained his connectedness in his field. For him the importance of the study was the study itself and shedding lights on this controversial and exponentially growing topic from at least one angle creating a kind of awareness. All feedback pros or cons of this study was well received by myself as they all add value for the post follow up phase of my studies.

I'd like to extend my follow up to a wider audience hence have one simple question here that may shed some lights on what UGC is or is not. My question to you is "What is the importance of UGC in your personal and professional life?" By this question, I'd like to understand how important UGC is for you, how it has been affecting your life, your profession, career and more from your own experience.... Do you believe (as Helen alluded) UGC is mainly rubbish and could be toxic for overall life?

Regards,
Mehmet Yildiz

What affects our attention so much?

Attention in our lives determine our success in certain context. Attention is affected by myriad of factors. However, one of the major ones which I have been observing (and recently confirmed by a study conducted at the University of Granada) is anxiety.

The article titled Anxiety Affects Attention Processes highlights that "Being of a nervous disposition and being anxious at a given moment affects our attention to what happens. This finding will help improve the treatment of anxiety disorders, so common in our days. In fact, anxiety has become one of the most common conditions among the population, which can explain the negative connotations usually associated to this term."

Dealing with anxiety in an efficient way may have tremendous affect in our life satisfaction as I believe that attention is the key enabler of this process. Wondering what else may have as much impact as anxiety for our attention? Could it be other strong emotions like fear, love and even other shades of anxiety?

Balance between the more and the less

After a complex problem resolution session, emotions on each person's face were getting more and more complex to describe with words. Definitions were mingling as obscurity prevailed. David believed in more emotions were better than less. He knew I trusted in simplicity however complex my endevours were perceived by others. Once he witnessed how I removed what was perceived as essential from a distance but were only verifiable with referencing fine knowledge and experience in specific setting. My replacement of the meaningful components in that certain context enabled him grant me such an unconditional support when I really seemed to need it at personal level to satisfy the thirst of contribution in a larger scope with higher impact. I was grateful to be given full accountability for re-engeenering a complex solution by taking possible failure responsibility with equanimity. At least by convincing the amygdala as discussed in my previous post as part of our limbic needs. My unique and perhaps the only differentiator in this ocean of talents ironically was the lack of the scary word "failure" in my personal vocabulary replaced by another word some may call it "experience". In a more simple sense, the more experience we gain the less fear we seem to experience, of course with an ongoing mindfulness of limbic systems. Having said that it is almost sunset time here...