Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Status and Social Currencies, Ranada 12/13/08
Ranada just turned 27 and lives with her puppy in a run down area slowly being revitalized in SW Atlanta. Ranada is originally from Jackson Mississipi, where she attended Tougaloo College and received a BA in math and computer science. Most of her family is still there. Ranada moved to Atlanta to attended graduate school, she just finished her second masters degree in Urban Policy. Her first Masters degree is in Risk Management and Insurance.
Ranada bought her own 2 bedroom townhouse in July of 2007 expecting the property values to increase as the neighborhood becomes gentrified. She regularly attends the local community meetings to press for more trashcans in the local park, sidewalks, and anything else needed to improver her neighborhood. Ranada sees herself as the bridge between her upper class neighbors and her poor neighbors. She is a self-described young, middle-class black urban profession. As part of this classification, her status is incredibly important. Ranada works as a project associate for a consulting firm specializing in holistic local economic development. In addition to her fulltime job, Ranada is president of the Atlanta Tougaloo Alumni Association, and financial secretary for her regional sorority chapter, Alpha Kappa Alpha. She is also a member of African American Alumni Club, National Black MBA Association, Atlanta Urban League, National Tougaloo Alumni Association, along with a few others which she has either stopped attending or has become mostly inactive with.
Ranada attends parties regularly, she might just show up long enough to have her photo taken. She has to dress accordingly and spends a lot of time thinking about her fashion. It is very important to her that she have her picture show up in as many places as possible. Ranada is highly competitive and ambitious. She wants success in the form of local fame. When asked how she decides which events to attend, she said it was based on which one will get her the most attention and get her picture posted somewhere. It didn’t seem to matter what issue the even was supporting; whether it was local business development, puppy adoption, or just a party.
Technology ecology:
Despite using her Blackberry religiously, she checked it at least once a minute, Ranada says her personal desktop PC is her most important item. It has her personal pictures and music from itunes. It’s where she pays her bills, does her writing, and has all her files from ’04. She also watches TV while working on her PC at home, using a split screen.
During an alumni meeting Ranada and her officer used their phones to check information (rather than the lap top with wi-fi sitting in front of them). As Ranada said, it’s just easier. Laptops are bulky and she does not plan on getting one. She has one from work, but does not use it for things other than work.
Ranada uses her phone for email - gmail (used for friends, alumni association, and, her sorority), yahoo and hotmail (these are reserved for older friends who were never transferred over to gmail). Ranada likes gmail as it allows her to tag different emails and create streams. She also uses her phone for IMing – Blackberry Messenger (anyone in her Blackberry network including her mentor), AIM (family, high school and college friends), google (more general, all her organizations), and yahoo (older friends who haven’t upgraded to google or BBM yet). Ranada also texts about 100 times a day, anyone who knows she doesn’t like talking on the phone will text her. Ranada checks Facebook about 20 times a day from her phone. She uses it to connected to her friends and keep up on events and parties throughout the city. Facebook is nice as it helps her say Happy Birthday to people without having to keep track, helps her be nosey, and most importantly gets her invited to parties. Ranada has her phone synched with her google calendar which she updates 3-5 times a day. When Ranada receives an invitation on facebook or through IM or email, she manually has to update her calendar. Her calendar is open to her friends who can look to make sure nothing is missing.
Ranada used to blog about her life, mostly from 2004-2006. Decided to stop when she realized her friends thought they could comment on the blog instead of having face-to-face or phone interactions. She has though about doing a political blog, but decided it would be too emotional for her. She used to have a travel blog, and might do so again if the opportunity arises.
For her alumni society they use CallingPost to call alumni with prerecorded messages. It is the cheapest method. Thinking about going back to old-fashioned personal phone calls, but too time consuming.
Ranada wishes her phone could synch her event invitations with her google calendar. And believes more sites should be mobile friendly. She plans on getting the 2nd generation BB Storm, wants the kinks to be worked out before she spends her money.
Key status insights:
* "Seeing your face" image of face circulating through party snap-photography, party semi-pro photography, list serves, SN sites, webpages and email forwards accumulates status by volume, ubiquity, and association with the "right" people
* Buzzes per minute: routing all communications through the BlackBerry, even when they are accessed in different channels on the device, results in frequent alerts. I kept a running tally of Ranada's vibrate alerts: they averaged about 3 every 10 minutes, 15 to 20 an hour, throughout our interview and observation. While she did not check each one as they came in, the frequency of the demands on her attention enhanced the kind of status she is cultivating.
* Black american counter-trend: status from entreched institutions. While among other groups participation in civil society instutions is eroding, the centrality of venerable institutional status-granting postitions and officership within these --sororities, alumni groups, civic institutions, awards and honors--was striking.