Julia Allison Proves She's Serious at Parsons.

Yes, that was pretty serious stuff recommending your students go onto Craigslist and troll for slaves to do their chores for them.

Are you for real?

"Julia told the students that you have to physically meet people to get them to know you and "take" your email or SMS."

I disagree. And if the outward component is really about employment networking and pulling in an income, then I can cite examples where I've never physically met people who have provided me with significant compensation and with whom I still maintain friendly contact.

The disconnect comes, from my experience, not from age but from industry/geo-cultural region. The non-physical examples come from the high-tech industry; San Francisco, New York City, Austin. These people don't have the same expectations of meeting old-school social norms and are much more comfortable working virtually.

The physical "I want to meet you in person" clients come from manufacturing; the most recent being a GenY'er from the Plains launching a start-up.

Consequently, I can't put much stock in what Julia says. And I'm a Baby Boomer.

Many of the comments here, in another thread, http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2009/03/julia_allison_t.html, are based on overtly sexual bias, prejudice, and empty mockery.

I agree that Julia Allison's webpage is poorly designed, hard to navigate, and generally lacking much insightful content. But it does not mean that she achieves nothing.

As a relatively young woman, not terribly rich, nor startlingly gorgeous, she created her own celebrity through a careful use of mass media and the internet platform - basically making her own name out of nothing. This is already quite a remarkable achievement.

Of course, one can say that how she made it is very problematic. People keep mentioning plagiarism, sex appeal, reality-show culture, etc. They are not entirely untrue. And these all can be open for debate. But how can we have a debate if we don't provide a platform for her to say what she wants to say.

And it is a matter of fact that Miss Allison successfully gained a lot of attention. To ignore this fact is to ignore social reality. This self-made fame (no matter you like it or not) is already a convincing reason to do a case study of her.

We should bear in mind that the focus is not just her - Julia Allison, but what culture that makes this "Julia Allison" possible.

In the lecture, Miss Allison proved that she was articulate, and generally smart. And we could understand the whole culture of media celebrity better through her presentation at Parsons.

I should thank Bruce for bringing Julia to the class in spite of all the criticism. It reminds me of last year, when Columbia Univ invited Iran President Ahmadinejad, the loud denunciation provoked from all different levels. But I want to say: This is a university! Diverse opinions are the most crucial asset in all best educational institutes. We do not need to agree with our guest speakers. Nor should we only invite the so-called “role models”. The students here at Parsons do not lack the critical faculty to judge what is good or bad; what is right or wrong. The New School has a long tradition of its openness to different opinions and radical thinking. And only by that, we can constantly advance ourselves at the cutting edge in different disciplines.

"She turned to social media to boost her recognition in order to get editors to read her writing."

Does Julia still write? I haven't seen anything from her for a while. I'd be interested to know if editors are reading her work and if so, who.

You don't need a social media profile to get published or noticed. You need talent and a work ethic, those two factors will get you very, very far.

Did Julia teach that?

you have GOT to be kidding me with this.

If I were your student, I'd be furious that you wasted my time (and tuition money) on some low-brow reality TV wannabe.

"But she's [Arianna] older and didn't have to live her early life totally in public."

Julia doesn't have to live her early life entirely in public either. She volunteers to do it, and it's clearly garnering her some attention so it’s fine. This quote, however, makes it sound like people just can’t be successful these days unless they lifecast every moment of their day. Plenty of successful people keep their public and private lives separate.

I am appalled as to how people have taken this lecture so seriously. It is seriously ridiculous. I think this lecture was a great approach to alternative self PR. She was definitively someone different to the usual speaker, but we can definitively learn one or two things from this girl's self-driven desire to succeed.

If you couldn't grasp what was important about this lecture than I think you should wonder why you are attending to an institution that is known for doing things the unconventional way.

I thank Bruce for bringing her. I was able to remove the pink, bubble gum, girly talk and get the essence out of this lecture.

A lot of people might have complained but God, they stayed 10 mins more!

A year ago at this time Ms. Allison was poised to be "The next Carrie Bradshaw." She was an attractive single girl who wrote a dating column for a popular NY based magazine as well as had a full time gig as an on air pundit for a celebrity magazine. Now? She's Twittering and Blogging about how she can't afford to live on her own (while flying coast to coast for bi-coastal birthday parties w/ faux BFF Randi Facebook CEO's Sis Zuckerberg) and has lost not one of her employment gigs but both. And what lost her those jobs? Her never ending, bottomless need to to take every opportunity she's given and use it to build her "brand" to the detriment of her employers. Well, those companies don't pay Julia to publicly badmouth them or submit subpar work. They pay her to do a job, which she seems incapable of doing unless it involves photo shoots, birthday parties, tutus and face time with people who can give her something for free.

This woman is lazy, self-involved, disturbingly inconsistent with regard to her moods and devoid of ethics. She's also jobless and not generating any content or income. By all accounts, her own tactics in social media self-promotion have backfired in a spectacular way. Why or how would you ever consider her to be a good example for your students to emulate or even listen to?

There's an interesting post here http://tinyurl.com/dxmjlj which further explores the contrasts between circles of friends and networking and looks at how different social media platforms are designed to enable different types of relationships.

Wow, internet guru! That's some groundbreaking, revolutionary material there. Having to leave your desk/monitor and actually go out in the real world to network face to face? Major paradigm shift! Thanks for introducing us to the remarkable Julia Allison to bring us all up to speed on that.
I guess when the Melanie Griffith / Harrison Ford characters in Working Girl illustrated the same concept circa 1988 (i.e., over 2 decades ago!), that was just "fiction".

Julia Allison.
Few people know what to do Julia Allison in her youth. Quite by accident I found a curious video. In her biography about this is nothing!
Such an abomination, I was not expected. I thought it was decent girl and never would be removed in this kind of video even more so in scenes with anal sex. I still do not believe that saw!
Julia Allison-anal sex
I think this should know everyone!