Over at Facebook the private users are up in arms about the conversion of their profiles from the next-to-the-last version to the latest "Timeline" version.  The outrage expressed in the reposting of images that "demand" the option to use the old format or to deny the Timeline format entirely is unfortunately misguided, I feel.

I have tried to point out to folks that they should not be operating with the thought that they actually have a say in how any of these social networking sites operate.   Statiing it plainly, as long as Facebook remains a user-fee-free service they can and will do whatever they want with THEIR site. YOU and I are borrowing their space for free. They can have pink pig butts squeal into the center of the screen advertising bacon-flavored toothpaste everytime you change pages and WE have no "right" to "demand" that they stop. Like politics, one should not simply complain, one should take action: vote with your browser. There ARE other social networking sites, Google Plus, Tribe, Friendster, etc. If you don't like Facebook, move to another site with a better interface and bring your firiends and family with you. THAT they will pay attention to as they are making themselves filthy rich by mining every iota of personal data that you enter into your profile pages and are selling it to advertisers. (Someone pays for the site, after all.) 

For me, I roll with the changes.  And though I know that every name, date, event and brand name that I enter into my personal profile is being scanned, analyzed, measured and turned into a commodity I accept that as the cost of being able to discover lost friends, maintain a connection with distant friends and relatives or important business and entertainment contacts.  Until the system starts calculating how long it has been since I last bought milk and automatically sends a delivery truck to my door without my knowedge or approval I consider this a fair trade.

What I do NOT do is support are games and apps unless they are from reputable and known sources.  I have been working with CDBaby for years, for instance, and I have no issue using their Facebook tool to promote and sell my vocal group's music.  Now, I can't say for certain, but it can't be a coincidence that the people on Facebook who complain most often about their accounts being hacked are also the same ones that add dozens of games and weather apps and other "useful things" to their site.  In the terms of use for these apps they clearly state that they are accessing all of your data, including your user name and password.  Well, does it really take much of a stretch of imagaination to think that either the "developer," through malice or lack of secure coding has allowed access to user information to unscrupulous employees or outside hackers.  Someone is taking this access and are cracking into people's accounts and are spamming their personal networks or are using the username and password sets to log into other sites that they users have connected to themselves in their profiles.  (Are YOU one of the people that use the same user name and passwords for most of your accounts?) 

All of that said, these dangers are part of using the internet, just like driving a car means you could get boxed in and forced to rear end a car by insurance scammers or carjacked in a parking lot.  Dangerous games, but no one said life would be easy.

I just heard about this young lady who accomplished something truly remarkable:  at 14 years old she purchased a house with money she made on Craigslist.  No kidding.  Read the article here.

There are three important lessons here:

1.)  An individual can do, pretty much, anything they set out to do.

2.)  Mentoring is vastly important to the fiscal future, but also to the emotional future of the world.

3.)  Family matters.

Clearly this young lady would have struggled to accomplish some of her endeavors without the help of her experienced mother.  That the girl chose to reach for the stars is a testimony to both the girl and her family.

There is not enough of this in the world today, I feel.  America has a history of success because people took risks, taught themselves how to achieve a goal and persevered until they accomplished what they set out to do.  Today our businesses are starving for skilled engineers and mechanics in a day and age where unemployment is holding at record levels.  Where is the mentoring?  Where are the apprenticeships and training.  Moreso, why are parents not guiding their children to be bold and work hard and succeed?  There is an absured prevalence in the American political climate to blame teachers for not educating our children; clearly we've forgotten that the most important education is at home.

Willow Tufano just bought a house.  What are YOU doing for the next generation?

It was a long day on my feet at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sport Show promoting Bounding Main, The Portico and Port Washington Pirate Festival. I've met a lot of nice folks there and sold some stuff at the booth. I've always enjoyed trade shows; this is different, though - it is really like a portable mall for outdoorsmen. I'm also doing all the networking that I can looking for a full-time job; I hope I'm not coming across as desperate ...

The lovely Bounding Main house concert  at Theobalds in Chicago is this Saturday - I hope a bunch of our friends can join us for that.

I am an absolute Twitter newbie, but I have two accounts set up now:  one for myself and one for Bounding Main.

Here is mine:  https://twitter.com/#!/DeanCalin

Here is Bounding Main's:  https://twitter.com/#!/BoundingMain

I have my account set up to repost my LinkedIn and Facebook posts.  Bounding Main's is reposting Facebook posts.  For a long while that was sufficient for me until I saw that there is a whole level of communication on Twitter that is not happening on Facebook.  Most of it is pretty fluffy, but following Time has been very useful.

If you want to read a great article about some Twitter basics check out this link:  http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222955.  I'm still reviewing it, hoping to "get" more of the utility of the portal.  Until then I will read about Jeri Ryan's studio experiences, George Takei's humor and various other "fan favorites."

If you've not seen the movie or understand the concept of Pay it Forward it can be summarized by doing something nice for someone else with the expectation that they will not respond in kind to you, but do something nice for someone else.  What a beautiful concept, and I believe one that we can easily insert into our daily lives.  Whether it is to compliment a stranger on the street by saying something kind, or to give someone a seat on a bus or to pick up something that someone has dropped these kindnesses are effortlessly accomplished and does nothing but good. 

I am proud to say that when it snows my wife almost always uses our snow thrower to plow the entire block and the music school across the street.  Some very dear friends of mine will often anonymously pick up the tab at a restaurant if they see naval cadets dining, knowing that many of them come from modest families and are doing a great service to our country.  These are things they absolutely don't HAVE to do, but are great things to do.  As some might say, "it is good karma."

For myself I have tried to mentor talented individuals in the performance arts.  Because I have business experience as well as entertainment experience I am able to build web sites, create marketing campaigns, help get bookings and otherwise get people started on their way.  In a smaller way I try to hold doors open, tell retail clerks when they do a good job, wave to the local police, say hello to the neighbors and otherwise be as positive as I can.  I find that even in this somewhat lengthy stretch between jobs I can keep up my outlook by being positive and interacting well with the folks that I meet.

I've been a business professional for a few years and I've worked in some high-stress environments.  I've observed some behaviors, good and bad, that influence how your boss and coworkers regard you.  I urge you to consider these five basic technology tips for the workplace environment.

1.)  When texting someone don't assume that you're in their phone's address book; tell them who you are at the beginning of your text.  Not everyone has the time or know-how to synch their contact lists.

2.)  Summarize your email in the subject line.  In a work environment people can get hundreds of emails and they don't necessarily have time to read them all.  If you have an item that is urgent, SAY SO in the subject line.  Here are some examples:

• Latest ad edits for Moldmakers Digest; please review before Friday
• URGENT Mr. Takadaki bringing wife to dinner tonight; rez already changed; want assistant to buy gift?
• PLEASE CALL THE OFFICE Smith at Crescent wants to change PO 13341

What should be obvious is that urgent items should be handled with a phone call, but I've worked with people who wanted emails to document or accompany the phone call so they have a reminder.

3.)  LinkedIn has become a valuable business networking site.  If you are wise you have joined groups and participate in discussions.  When you DO you should neatly summarize your subject line (much like the email subject lines above) and then in the body of the message, open with who you are, what company you represent and then write your message like a college-educated business professional.  LinkedIn is NOT Facebook!  There is no excuse for "phone shorthand" (i.e. "tht is gr8," etc.)  If you can't string words together to make a legible sentence and sentences into paragraphs please hire someone who can before you embarass yourself.

4.)  If you use Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail or AOL for your professional email instead of a domain-associated email (i.e. bob@greatmachines.com) don't be surprised if your email is erased without review at worst or not taken seriously at best.  If you have a company web site you should have company email.  If you don't have a company web site by this time in 2012 ... I don't know if I can help you.

5.)  Unless you're in the marketing department in charge of social networking outreach you have no business being on Facebook, Twitter, Tribe, MySpace, etc.  Save it for your lunchbreak and don't do it on your work computer.  Even if you don't have any expectations of privacy (and you should not) it looks bad to be "goofing around" at your desk while other people are working.  The same goes for personal phone calls and personal emails:  unless you have a serious family issue leave your work time for work.

Dean

Just updated 3/12/12:

I am forced to add this one after looking at LinkedIn today.

6.)  When writing, whether in blog posts, newsgroups, email or letters, no matter how important the question or how big the news there is never, ever a need or logic to stringing multiple question marks ("What is a good vacation to you???") or exclaimation points ("Bad News for AMR!!!!!") together.  Convey the importance of your news with your words, not your punctuation.

If you're in a small company, a volunteer organization, an advocacy group or a band you have likely discovered that keeping information distributed and current is very difficult.  Often times documents are kept by one person who is asked to maintain and distribute them on demand.  Other times copies are printed and handed out at meetings, only to be scribbled on and misplaced.  This is challenging.

After experimenting with Google Docs we have discovered the joy of Drop Box.  Now we can all download a copy of the master documents, update our sections and load the document back up to the cloud.  I am NOT a big fan of cloud computing in general, but for this small but important task I find it to be wildly useful.  It is easy to set up and it is FREE!

Hello out there.

My name is Dean Calin and after years of being an advocate of social media and internet marketing I have finally generated my own web log.  Yes, "web log."  I know I should call it a "blog" but in this and other things I resist certain grammatic evolutions.  I love the English language and have strong feelings about the considerable dumbing-down of Generations X, Y and Z.  It concerns me when I see emails from college graduates where their/there/they're is still an unconquerable issue or from business owners whose written communications "AR ALOT OF NITEMARS."  Oh, what a world.

I intend to make this web log a personal reflection of past events as well as a repository of reflections and commentary both professional and personal.  My goal is to record my thoughts as much for my own record keeping as well as to perhaps share with anyone interested.  I have few illusions about my place in the grand world; I am merely a small and insignificant spark of life in this billions of year old entity upon which we live.  I hope I can do my part to make it a good place for others as well as a good place for myself.

See you out there.

Dean