Co-agitating

LinkedIn webinar for Career Services

2009-07-23T14:09:00.000-06:00

LinkedIn has prepared a webinar for Career Services professionals about using LinkedIn and how to use it to help students, teach about networking and use it for research. I've been a long time member on LinkedIn and I found the tour to be very useful and easy to follow (so you don't have to take LinkedIn 101 first). Lindsey Pollak, the author of Getting from College to Career, was the presenter and she did her homework: she had spoken with career services professionals and had looked at how they had used LinkedIn (sometimes, presenters just do a surface presentation and don't understand how career service business rules work, but she was well-versed).

LinkedIn has also opened a Career Services Professionals group and you have to attend the webinar to gain admittance to the group.

Cross-posted at FirstLibrarian

The email list is dead?

2009-07-03T11:51:00.000-06:00

Is the email list, or the listserv, dead? wonders Jeffrey Young on College 2.0 from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

I don't know if it is dead, but I am not convinced that people are using lists as much as they used to--or making them their first choice of communication when founding a new group. When I founded a new group, I purposely used Facebook or LinkedIn (depended on the needs of the group) to communicate with people. I backed it up with a blog with comments.

I hope listserves aren't dead, since I haven't got my moving notice to the next locale. Expect a bunch of people to show you how to write just such a notice.

I think that email is so much more acceptable than social networking or Twitter--everyone has an email address, but not everyone is on Facebook, or on Twitter.

Email has fewer geopolitical borders: when communicating with my friends in Japan, I use email, since they aren't on Facebook. They are actually more likely to be on Mixi. Until we overcome the geographic preferences when social networking (or let the networks use apps to bridge the gaps) email is going to remain the preferred method for spreading information internationally--at least greater than 140 characters. And when academics talk across borders, email is the best facilitator.

It is also more difficult to have multiple Facebook and Twitter aliases (difficult, but not impossible) unlike email, where people can have a variety of emails depending on the nature of the information that they want flowing toward them. It is also much harder on social networking to hide my political affiliation or interests--I don't want people on LinkedIn to see me affiliated with the Knitting Guild, not because I am ashamed of my needles, but because I want to talk with them on Ravelry.

I do think that listserves/email lists are spot on for this type of communication:

Researchers and administrators from a range of disciplines joined that chorus. Eran Toch, a postdoctoral fellow in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, said that all of his colleagues use them, too. "Not everybody has Twitter/Facebook accounts, and social networks are too public for most of the content flowing through mailing lists," he wrote.

Now you can argue that email is not private and that you have to rely on the discretion of members to keep a what happens on the list, stays on the list attitude, but this is one reason why people still prefer email: unless it is posted online, it isn't indexed by a search engine and accessible through the Way Back Machine for the rest of your professional life--which may be short-lived, depending on what you wrote.

So, the listserv isn't dead, but you may see more and more moving notices, when geography and language aren't issues.

Applicant Explorer

2009-06-30T10:24:00.001-06:00

Thanks to Jobacle, I found out about a partnership between Bing, Microsoft's new search tool, and CareerBuilder, an online resume and job posting service, to offer Applicant Explorer.

Applicant Explorer will allow a resume database subscriber, an employer, to look at an applicant's digital footprint while examining their resume. It is meant as a tool to help decide if the applicant will fit into the corporate culture. According to the video that describes the service, Applicant Explorer will call up information from publicly available sites, including social networking, blogs, forums and other services that will give a "clear picture" of a candidate.

Alright, there are some problems with this, though a few can be overcome with a clear policy on how to run background checks. First, you can't run a background check on your favorite applicants--and just those applicants. Your background check may end up showing information that could be protected--like sexual orientation, race or a disability. The last two may be clearly visible in a profile picture, so if a candidate thinks that you have decided not to hire him or her based on the picture that you found. You have to check everybody--just like you would if you were conducting a real background check that had a policy behind it.

And just how do you know whose digital tracks you are following? Are we assuming, 1) that I gave up all my handles with my resume for the privilege of posting on CareerBuilder? (Ummm, go find Bozeman, MT and read what happened there.) And 2) if I don't give up my handles, and you just use my name, are you sure that is the real me you're reading about online?

Sometimes, I really wonder if people think this stuff through. What does sailing tell you about my "fit", if being nauti is not a bona fide job requirement?

Cross-posted on co-agitating.

Facebook and recruitment

2009-06-29T10:25:00.000-06:00

I'm working on a new article on using Facebook for recruitment purposes. I'm going to keep track of some of the presentations that I found useful.

I like this first one because it helps to orient users to what Facebook looks like and some of the tools, like Groups and the Directory.

Using Facebook For Recruitment

View more documents from Thomas Shaw.

This next one I liked because it gave a nice general background about who uses Facebook and who the fastest growing groups (demographically, not Facebook groups) are. I also liked how it explained the difference between groups and pages and when to use them, as well as success stories.

Facebook 101

View more documents from First Last.

Stop the presses seminar series

2009-06-22T11:33:00.000-06:00

College Web Editor is launching a series of seminars on how to take your print publications digital Since I have a very hard time convincing our students to take print items, which means I have to cut back on third party publications--a lot--I think these seminars would be worthwhile to post-secondary institutions and third-party publishers who want to distribute their mags to students.

Domains within Facebook

2009-06-15T10:24:00.001-06:00

You might not have noticed--I mean, I just went meh--but Facebook is allowing users to grab their own name, or create their own domain within Facebook. Of course, according to this post on Wired's Epicenter, there was an explosion of users who wanted to take over the possible domains of famous (infamous?) people and create their love-in/hate-on Facebook pages.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking I have finally convinced a few of them to spiff up their email addresses, now this? I'm waiting for the first person to drop by my office with http://www.facebook.com/wildgirlz complete with pictures of her teasingly cutting holes in her t-shirt above her nipples--clearly a protest against Facebook and their policy about breasts and nursing--drinking boilermakers while on Santa's lap. She will then ask why big five acounting firm hasn't called her in for an interview.

Honestly, it will affect you if you have group pages or fanpages on Facebook: I've been getting some messages from the organizations that I follow on Facebook that they are about to move, so you may want to stop deleting any additional reminder messages and start following their directions.

Bing

2009-06-04T13:59:00.000-06:00

In early June, Microsoft launched Bing, their new search interface, which replaces MSN Live search.

You can watch an edited conversation with Steve Ballmer at D7 (where they pole Americans about search. Is that like caning, or should I say, canning?). As an aside, I think his comments about netbooks, based on their "pole" numbers that said that 52% of non-owners didn't plan to buy one, are very insightful. Ask again in September when those "poled" are sending their kids back to school. If they're willing to talk to you again.
PCWorld describes Bing
PCWorld Smackdown between Google, Yahoo and Bing, where Bing seems to edge ahead of the competitors
CNet also liked Bing
Wired says "meh"

Bing is meant to cover the areas of travel, health, local and shopping. They should have added jobs and finance if they really wanted to take no prisoners in this economy IMHO. According to PCWorld's Smackdown, Bing comes out ok in relation to Google.

Bing has a had a few bungles in the opening days, like when a reviewer remarked how easy it was to get sex videos and to turn off safe search. But the top level results led to some pretty soft sex scenes from feature films (famously Alyssa Milano's) that have more to do with bootlegging than they do with access to porn on the net. You can turn off safe search on any search engine with a computer that has no filtering software inside by just clicking in a radio button, so this wasn't a revelation.

Foreign sounding names have less chance of getting an interview

2009-05-21T08:44:00.000-06:00

This is based on a study conducted at the UBC with researchers sending out 6000 mock resumes to 2000 online job postings. Don't just read the article: watch the video of the full interview with the principle researcher who conducted the study to see where he got his more likely/less likely statistics.

From the article and interview:

A person with a foreign sounding name was 35% less likely to receive a call back (interview)
"The study also found employers preferred Canadian work experience over Canadian education. For resumés with foreign names and education, call backs nearly doubled when the applicant had held one previous job in Canada." (article)
However you cut the data, foreign born immigrants are doing distinctively worse in the labor market. (interview)

What I would also like to know is how likely the fake resume was to get a call back at all to an online job posting and where those job postings were located, as in from an employer's website or on an online job posting board, like Monster.
Cross posted at First Librarian

With a mashup, privacy settings derailed

2009-05-07T09:27:00.000-06:00

Researchers at University of Texas have discovered that using the cross-reference of data on social networks can reveal personal and/or private information (not all personal is private, or vice versa, if you watch reality television), according to Unmasking Social Networks Users.

The article singles out Twitter and Flickr users, suggesting that because friend lists are publicly available, it is easier to create a social graph, and voila! (or voici, depending on where you stand).

The researchers say that it is fairly easy to find nonanonymous social-network data: the connections between friends in many networks, such as Twitter, are made public by default.

Hello, more effective datamining, the new bull in the china shop for recruiters of all types.

If you flag, Facebook gets a wash

2009-05-05T15:39:00.000-06:00

According to this article in Newsweek, Facebook has a bevy of "porn cops" who check to see if the item really violates the terms of service, or terms of salacious.

How many admissions offices check prospects via Facebook?

2009-04-29T08:56:00.001-06:00

According to the article, To Friend or Reject, from Inside Higher Ed,, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) will be releasing a report that 26% of respondent institutions use search engines to look for information on applicants, and 21% use social networking sites. (The number of respondents was 453, but the n for these questions may not be the same as the total number of respondents.)

I think you're ok using a search engine to look for information that is publicly available and not password protected, but I think you're invading people's privacy if you use your own profile on a site to look for information behind their gates.

Invasion of privacy is not an issue once students post material in public Web sites, and there are not issues of discrimination as long as colleges don’t use information to engage in illegal actions (such as discriminating against a student based on race or religion that is identified on a Web site).

Listen: if there's a password, it's not public. Why do we have to keep nattering on about this? Not all of Facebook is public and if you are using Facebook, or MySpace or any of the hundred other social networking sites, to datamine, having used your own sign on and password, you may be violating the terms of service. Cut it out.

However, the real issue is this: no admissions office has the manpower to examine the Facebook profiles of all of their candidates. Therefore, if they are determined to check, they need to take a sample. And if that sample appears to be skewed for race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation you're screwed.

If they find out about it. I wonder how long it will take a student to realize that suing a university out of its endowment on a human rights issue would pay for a four year degree with a lot less interest than a student loan.

LinkedIn benefiting from the economy?

2009-04-24T17:04:00.001-06:00

Is LinkedIn benefting from the downturn in the economy, with more employers supposedly:

Using connections on LinkedIn to fill positions?
Job seekers using LinkedIn to look for work?
Mean that increased traffic could lead to a high profile buyer?

If you are thinking about adding LinkedIn to your tutorials on how to use the Internet to find work, make sure that you also investigate how active local groups and alumni associations are, not just what the LinkedIn tools include.

Cross posted at FirstLibrarian

Locaccino

2009-04-06T12:11:00.000-06:00

Location-sharing tool Locaccino is profiled in Wired Campus TV.

He "finds it really creepy" but he is still ok with people tracking him...weird. I might use this at a conference where I am one of the on-site persons for a resource fair, but I'm not sure that I would like to be on view all the time. Will check out Canadian access and get back to you.

Yo, avitar!

2009-04-01T15:40:00.000-06:00

God, do these guys--students and speakers--know what the heck they are talking about? From the misspelling of avatar, to the "Facebook is public", they have no clue.

Career TV Student Panel on the Latest Recruitment Trends (2008)

Crikey.

Fake tweets

2009-03-31T11:40:00.000-06:00

They faked profiles on Facebook and now there are plenty of fake tweets, even an infamous account attributed to the actor, Christopher Walken, of Weapon of Choice fame. Wouldn't a man who could dance like that use Twitter?

Christopher Walken - Fatboy Slim - Weapon Of Choice

Just one of the twits

2009-03-27T11:12:00.002-06:00

Since i got this from one of the people i follow on twitter, and tweet about inane personal stuff, i will just enjoy a laugh at myself.

I also have a secret affection for Cops, so this one made me laugh.

It's your problem

2009-03-12T10:20:00.000-06:00

According to this notice in TechCrunch, a few Google Docs users had some documents shared out with people on their collaborator list who weren't listed as collaborators on certain documents. I am really interested in this wording from the Google notice in regards to the incident:

...a bug which may have caused you to share some of your documents without your knowledge

It's Google's bug, not my bug. Let's be clear: you manage the buggy backend and users have to take it...well, you get the idea.

And it wasn't everybody in your Gmail account, just people that you had shared docs with in the past, and if you had allowed them in a special confluence of multiple sharing selection, which gave them permissions to other docs. (That sounds like a bug, a programming bug, not my wacky actions...*grrr*).

Some Facebook news

2009-03-11T11:35:00.001-06:00

A student at the University of Calgary was reprimanded in regards to comments made about an instructor on Facebook, according to this news story from the CBC.

And despite the hysterical title, How Facebook is taking over our lives, Fortune's article on Facebook does a good, broad survey of Facebook, from Zuckerberg to the individual impact. It's short and provides a good skim of the Facebook phenomena.

Juicy Campus bye-bye

2009-02-05T09:25:00.002-07:00

Bye Bye Juicy Campus, can't say I'm sorry or that I will miss you.

Fine: good riddance.

How to respond to negative posts, with a flowchart

2009-01-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

Leave it to the military, the US Air Force to be exact, to come up with a way, complete with a flowchart to craft a response, to deal with erroneous or enflaming information about the Air Force posted in the blogosphere. You can read the Danger Room posting about it on Wired, complete with an image of a flowchart. This is one way to deal with people who won't play nice online: a counter offensive.

I don't like that you don't reveal your affiliation with the Air Force, though. Though you throw, duck and run in a guerrilla attack, I think you should be a bit more up front with your allegiances online.

Says the anonymous blogger;-> but I'm not defending any of my affiliates here.

Canadian Career Advisor's RSS feeds

2008-12-23T10:38:00.002-07:00

In the new year, I will be showing a few of my colleagues how to use RSS. They are ready to use their own reader, purely voluntary, though I did spend the past two years whining about how they should use RSS.

I realized though that they might not know what feeds to subscribe to, so I created a list of some of the basics that I always find useful, and I thought I would share it with people who may be testing their own RSS waters.

When you click on the links, you will be taken to the feed and asked how you would like to subscribe, in your browser or in a feed reader. If you haven't created an account on a feed reader or would prefer to use your browser but don't know how, review this post on RSS feeds. That post also explained how cool and useful RSS feeds are for accessing web contact from sites that you visit regularly for information, so I will save the RSS gospel for that post. You can also read this review of RSS readers from the Washington Post, but it doesn't even discuss how easy it is to just download feeds to your browser.

News

CBC Money RSS Feed
CBC Consumer Life Feed
Link to all CBC RSS Feeds
I also monitor the Business Week feeds, usually the Top News. I also find many of their podcasts useful, but more on that below.

Now you can always add the National Post or the Globe and Mail, or the RSS feeds of your local newspaper if they offer them, but I I don't usually blog about the stories in the newspapers since they are usually only freely accessible for about a week until they become subscriber only content. If you read these newspapers everyday, or just want to scan the headlines, you can add their RSS feeds to your reader.

It's worth it to monitor the WSJ Careers section but they don't make it available as an RSS feed anymore unless you are a subscriber.

Post-secondary news

I work in a post-secondary career centre, so it helps us to stay on top of news from the post-secondary environment. Occasionally, gold about labour market--including outloook and salary information-- for academics or administrators is buried in these RSS feeds.

Chronicle of Higher Education Daily News Blog
List of All Chronicle RSS Feeds
Front page for Inside Higher Ed
University Affairs all RSS feeds (I usually read the News feed, but you may want them all).

Economic Analysis

Labour Feed at Statistics Canada
Not RSS but still useful is the Labour Force Survey (released monthly) by Stats Can. This survey is often quoted in the news and includes provincial breakdowns.
Available feeds at Stats Can

For economic analysis from banks, often quoted in the news

TD Economics Releases, by date not by subject. BMO, RBC, CIBC, National Bank of Canada and Scotiabank don't release with RSS.

Useful Podcasts

Yes, you can use your reader to monitor podcasts, and if you use Bloglines, Bloglines lets you listen to the podcast within your dashboard (cool, but it means you have to open a new window to keep reading your posts well the podcasts plays; if you navigate to the next feed on your list, the podcast will stop abruptly.)

Business Week Cover Story podcast. We get Business Week in our centre, but I sometimes find listening to the cover story, an interview with the author or authors of the cover story, can provide some additional information or tip me off on what to pay attention to in the story.
NPR's Business Story of the Day , less than 5 minutes snippets of the most interesting (US) business item of the day; also includes a healthy dash of human interest.

Employers screening out WoW players?

2008-12-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

According to this post in Games Industry, an employer asked a recruiter to screen out WoW players because they would be too sleep-deprived.

I can think of many other reasons why a person would be sleep-deprived, several of them not game-related at all, though they may involve roleplay. I think I need a WTF label for stuff like this.

International social networks

2008-12-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

CNet provides a round-up of 5 international social networks to keep an eye on. For advisers working with an international clientele, it may be useful to know about some of these sites and their potential as communities or advertisers.

Youtube launches safety center

2008-12-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

YouTube launches a safety centre, meant to help people who are being bullied or targetted on the site, as well as if they discover bullying or personal safety issues on the site. It will also help with privacy concerns.

GO TSU!

2008-11-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

Tennessee State University has decided to block access to JuicyCampus from their school network, making them the first public institution to do so (one other private institution has also done so). Citing Virginia Tech and making an awesome argument about using computer resources ("I have nothing against this site—it's a free country," said Mr. Freeman about Mr. Ivester's site. "But Tennessee State University doesn't have to host his business" from the article in Chronicle) TSU has decided to block JuicyCampus on university computers.

If JuicyCampus won't remove people's names from libelous postings, nor make any software provision to remove people's real names from postings, blocking is a logical step.

It's not transparent if it's fake

2008-11-20T13:12:00.001-07:00

College scoop sites have been out and about for several years, offering students options to rate their professors, or get a preview of campus. Some writers are describing this movement as a new transparency, but what if the information is false?

I have personally talked to professors who have been rated for courses that they did not teach, and to instructors who offered sessions, not as professors for non-credit courses, and who have received ratings on the site. One shrugged and many were quite distressed, since as instructors they believed in the accuracy of data. Many were a little choked that a Google search with their name would turn up the erroneous information, but what could they do to stop it?

Wait, you say, there is a method to change the information if it is incorrect: you send the administrators an email and ask them to remove the incorrect information. Simple as pie.

Yeah, if they respond. I have emailed RateMyProfessor three times with questions and only once received an automailer saying my question was received. The professor who tried to have the course removed from their name still has it attached to their name on the site, and the erroneously described professor is still an error on the page on the site. How transparent is that, if the information is inaccurate?

At least hire someone to read the mail.

Using YouTube in classes

2008-11-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, YouTube is a time-waster, but it also offers a huge amount of videos for educational and instructional purposes:

This editorial from Christian Science Monitor describes how a professor was able to incorporate video in his classes on marine biology and how his students were utterly engaged by what they saw--even when it illustrated the less than exciting parts of his course.
I have been astonished by the number of instructional videos offered by Expert Village on YouTube. Most of them are professional quality with great editing and experts in the field that they represent.
Of course, Common Craft Productions has been making Google Docs, wikis and blogs, amongst other technology tools, into Plain English for several years.
Now we have some attempts to make scientific research more accessible through YouTube and dance, with the Dance Your PhD project. (Description of project from the Chronicle News Blog).

So, yes, you can watch cats run on tracks and dogs run into walls on YouTube, but you can also find a huge amount of educational videos on the web for your classes.

Buzz marketing meet Twitter

2008-10-29T09:48:00.000-06:00

Twitter is a microblogging tool that you can use to put out 140 character tweets: what are doing, how is your training going, job postings, if you travel on the road a lot you can post your whereabouts, song lists, and links to other sites (etc.). If you can get it out there in 140 characters, you can Twitter. You can also do it from your cell phone, meaning you can do it on the bus or on the train deck or while in a boring meeting...ah, the escapism goes on and on.

Now, you can buzz market your friends on Twitter with Magpie.

Buzz marketing is when people talk about products that they have used. Like you sit next to people on a bus, see what they are reading and tell them about the great book that you just read--and get paid for it. Word of mouth at work. It is possible that you have been buzz marketed and just didn't realize it. But now, with a click, you can enter in your username on Twitter and Magpie will tell you how much you can make from your friends list.

I found out about Magpie because someone in my list posted it. If you want to avoid being "'pied" be careful who you friend, pay attention when Twitter tells you there is something weird about their account, and only click on stuff that interests you, no matter how cute their profile is.

Lovely, the next volley of the spam wars on Twitter.

If you don't know what Twitter is, it's time to Twitter in Plain English.

There is nothing private about going online

2008-10-29T09:22:00.001-06:00

In September of 2008, Christine Stoddard, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada gave a speech about the use of social networking sites and their implications in regards to personal privacy and employee rights. If you work in Canada and have a social networking profile, you should read her speech.

Though I agree with many points in the speech and found some of the stories enlightening, I have long believed that if you have used a password to enter a site--as opposed to a Google search which leads you to information--you have violated a person's privacy. I also feel that people who use the sites to troll for information about people in this manner should be suspended from the site. I feel that more openness, as the commissioner describes is best:

If you do monitor the sites employees are looking at and how much time they spend there, you should tell them.

The simple work-around for my suggestion is when your friends hi-jack your personal information from the site and post it on a freely available site on the Internet. Good luck getting the ISP that hosted the site to give you the information to take the poster to court. There are protections for stealing people's personal property, or attempting to extort from people by taking their personal information, but we don't seem to have figured out yet how this will work online--possibly because we don't recognize it as personal space.

I do feel that it violates my charter rights to demand that I stop associating with certain (adult) people on a social networking site, or to track any information about my religious or political affiliations, or deny me a place online to "hang out" with friends. In case you aren't sure what those are--or you're not a Canadian--lo,

* freedom of conscience and religion;
* freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
* freedom of peaceful assembly; and
* freedom of association.

I think we need to start thinking of the Internet in terms of a space, a forum, for assembly, as opposed to an amorphous "out there" that seems to have nothing to do with our lives or freedoms.

Oh, and don't be a jackass. At least not where people can see you.

Blogging

2008-10-27T11:33:00.003-06:00

Blog is short for web log, like a Captain's Log or a diary. Most blogs are reports about ideas, newspaper articles, books that people have read or movies they have seen, upcoming or past events and how-to-do articles. (For more ideas on the possibilities of blog posts and what to write about yourself, read, No one cares what you had for lunch: 100 ideas for your blog). I don't want to do an all about blogs again, so you can read my article about blogging for career services and counsellors, All About Blogging, on ContactPoint.

RSS feeds are the fuel of the blogging revolution, since you get to see when people have added new content and easily subscribe to them. If you didn't remember where you found them, you couldn't find them again and link to them, so a subscription method is essential. (Visiting a site regularly also means that they can host advertising and make money when you click on the ads in their blog, just like there are ads in newspapers.)

Blogs are for updates and reflection; they are to provide linkages and review information. They can also be journalistic in nature, or highly personal and not meant for sharing--yes, you can make your blog private, or only invite selected members to view. People have gotten fired for blogging--and they have gotten book deals for really crappy books. Some bloggers have become celebrities, but most just blog in obscurity.

How do you subscribe to a blog? Go back to the post on RSS feeds: blog posts are made available through RSS, so you can use your reader or your browser to subscribe to a blog's feed and stay up to date on that blog.

You can also videoblog, which is blogging in a video, usually with a webcam or with stock photos and voiceover (very popular with ASL speakers, if you understand ASL, you might want to check out some of the posts on YouTube) or you can audioblog, creating a post in audio. Both use RSS technology, like their sister wordy blogs, to make the new posts available and to include indexing and keyword information, so the posts can be found by search engines.

About blogs:

Blogs in Plain English

How to Create a Blog with Blogger

How to Create a Blog with WordPress

Lifesnapz

2008-10-23T10:05:00.000-06:00

You can map out a life, or the connections of your family, using the features in LifeSnapz. It uses YouTube, Flickr, and possibly other streams to create a stream of information about a person and then allows you to work with a community, like your family, to add more data about your group. People can view only, or you can ask them to collaborate.

I would expect that they may enter into a partnership of some type with Ancestry, a site that helps you create dynamic online family trees.

Some organizations might want to use this to prepare employer virtual tours by making a lifestream for their company.

Spotted on Emily Chang's eHub

Looking for love?

2008-10-22T14:35:00.001-06:00

If you're looking for love in your city, try Hookupmaps. Hookupmaps uses Google Maps and Craigslist personals so you can search for local lovers in your neighbourhood. So far, you can only search in San Francisco, Washington, Los Angeles, San Diego and New York, but Hookupmaps promises to add more cities.

Also, keep in mind that because of the nature of some Craigslist ads, this site is not work safe, and you must be 18 years or older to use the site.

Spotted on CNet.

RSS Feeds--How to

2008-10-22T12:19:00.006-06:00

It was clear during my presentation yesterday that people still don't know what RSS feeds are--or they have heard about them, but they don't use them. And using something means you begin to know it. RSS feeds (and XML) are the backbone of the Web 2.0 movement since they make transfer and subscription easy and flexible.

First, for an RSS feed, you need to be able to subscribe to it and read it. RSS feeds are stripped of all images and prettiness, and sometimes, some of the full content. Think of them as the headline. If you open an RSS feed in your browser (this is Firefox, so it may look a bit different if you are using Explorer), it will look like this:

And in a more evil time, it could even look scarier, all gray with purple writing and the fang-tracks of carats <<>> everywhere.

Anyway, you can either let your browser manage the feeds for you, or you can use a feed reader to access the feeds in a more hospitable way. There is even a little helper on top of the feed to help you decide:

You can live bookmark it, meaning that your browser will manage it, or you can use a reader, like Google Reader, My Yahoo! or Bloglines. But you pick from the last three flavours if you already have a user profile on those services. The benefit to signing up for a reader is that you can access feeds from any computer by signing into the service--if you subscribe on your work browser, the feeds will only work on that terminal at work, unless you want to export them to home.

If you would like to use a reader, ask who in your office is using what reader, or what your friends are using, so you can hook up with them online to work on projects or to read the feeds they recommend. Afterall, this is about sharing knowledge online. If you do not want to share, still take their suggestions, and make yourself private online (talked about that at the presentation, too).

How do you know if a page or website has feeds? Usually the website will shamelessly brag about it, and show you how to subscribe. You can also tell if a page has feeds, if you see the little megaphone in the address bar.

You will notice that this blog has a feed--and indeed the feed was the fuel of the blogging revolution and continues to power it. But feeds have stretched their enormous tentacles into many aspects of our online life, including:

News
Job postings
Classifieds
Podcasts

To name only a few places where feeds have made the gathering of data and information so much easier.

Now that you know basically what a feed is, how to find it and subscribe, here are some videos to help you learn more or get started collecting and sorting feeds. These are just a sample, if you want more, or would like to look for how-to on a specific service, just go to YouTube and search for RSS feeds and reader.

RSS in plain English

PC Mechanic explains how to subscribe to their feeds and the benefit of subscribing to feeds for news

Adding an RSS feed to your Bloglines account

How to use RSS feeds with a visit to Bloglines

How to subscribe to feeds using Google Reader

Social sharing round up

2008-10-22T12:15:00.005-06:00

I gave my presentation on social sharing yesterday and though it was received very well, and the evaluations were very positive, I wanted to put together a sample of how-to videos about the technologies that I mentioned during the presentation.

RSS feeds
Wiki
Social bookmarking
Blogging and microblogging (Twitter)

There are more technologies than this, of course, but for this post, I wanted about the ones that people were the most interested in during the presentation. I also wanted to use the ones that are truly Web 2.0. Web 2.0 are technologies where a creator makes something, a user views it, makes comments on the content and resubmits the comment, or edits the content to make a remix--or wholly new content. Web 2.0 technologies are a dialogue, not a lecture.

What are people saying about you in social media?

2008-09-12T14:03:00.000-06:00

The Social Media Firehose, a Yahoo! Pipe, allows you to search the name of your organization and find out what is being said about you in social media. It will work for post-secondary institutions, so you can find out what people are blogging about, flickr pictures posted, and what people are tweeting on in relation to your school.

Trademark Twitter

2008-08-27T11:37:00.000-06:00

Webware has a post about Marvel comics, and the providers of Mad Men (AMC), having Twitter accounts that infringe on their characters removed. I wonder if that would include a person's nick name (the webslinger, for a webdesigner, or if their alias used a character's name like gabriellezlawnman)? The post also implies that Twitter is taking preemptive action and monitoring the use of trademarks and removing them so they don't have to tangle with the owner in court (their example also involved some IP, using a plot from an advanced copy, and an idea that the person should have sold to the Marvel marketing team.)

Creepy treehouse

2008-08-19T08:37:00.001-06:00

If you're in charge of a social networking site promotion or education efforts, are you inviting students up to the "creepy treehouse"?

I want that as my job title, Creepy Treehouse Warden.

Blogging, part 1

2008-08-18T11:34:00.001-06:00

Yeah, part one of my article about blogging is now available on the Contact Point bulletin site. I made a link back to the CDAA website about blogging and career services, so I hope that brings some traffic to the CDAA site.

Forbes college ranking use poll site

2008-08-18T08:37:00.000-06:00

Forbes has released their version of the college rankings--what is the best school to go to for my money--and 25% of the the rank was based on data attained from RateMyProfessors.com. Also noteworthy was that, if a school did not participate in the ranking, they were ranked anyway. Thankfully they do suggest that even if you go to a "top" school, you may not get a "top" education--based on the quality of student.

Admittedly, there is an inherent absurdity in ranking colleges and universities with mock precision from first to 569th. The sort of student who will thrive at Williams might drown at Caltech, to say nothing of West Point. And it is possible to get a "Harvard" education at the University of Minnesota, just as it possible to get a "University of Minnesota" education at Harvard. When choosing a school, it is important to match the student to the school.

But this caution appears in the second last paragraph of the article.

Spotted on HackCollege.com

Maybe you should leave your laptop at home

2008-08-07T08:57:00.001-06:00

There has been lots of bleating about US Border security snatching people's laptops--as pointed out by this Canadian Business columnist, other countries do this as well, and you don't have to be Edison Chen to think twice about giving your laptop to curious strangers. I don't want anyone to think that I am not taking this seriously--as a researcher, I have always taken my promises seriously about granting anonymity for research and considered them an important part of research ethics and professionalism, just as the AAA points out here.

There is an article on how to secure your laptop on CNet, but some of this stuff is a lot of work, especially for a casual user. However, if you transport your laptop to and from work, and it holds work information, including the personal information of others, you may want to do this as a matter of course, not just for international travel. Why?

How about if someone breaks into your home and steals your laptop? How about car thieves getting your laptop? Doing this means that we have to take security seriously and help our staff members with the policies--and be clear about the penalties for failing to comply.

The best way to secure your laptop: leave it at home. Someone can still get to it, but at least you didn't have to smile while handing it over.

And I've just thought of a new idea for hotels: laptop lending libraries. Check-in, get a laptop for your stay and return upon checkout. Just don't think putting anything interesting on that laptop is a good idea--like thinking you can charge that movie to your corporate credit card and not hear back about it.

I'm a guy (happened when I read Mars and Venus too)

2008-08-01T11:31:00.000-06:00

After using this little tool to guess my gender by my browsing history, I have found out I browse like a guy. Who knew? It's not really scientific, but still pretty fun. Scroll down and read about what Google may do with browsing behaviour.

Anonymous online attackers unmasked

2008-08-01T10:55:00.000-06:00

Two women who were attacked by anonymous posters on an Internet law forum have had the identity of their attackers revealed, according to this post on Chronicle. There are some comments about what this would mean for the careers of the posters (if indeed they have careers). Other commenters astutely connect these forums with the forums on Chronicle, as well as RateMyProfessor (wonder what this means for the no tell policy on Juicy Campus) but some miss the point about why the identity of the posters were revealed: one poster threatened sexual harm to one of the women. Without knowing who the person was, and where, it was impossible to determine if the person could, very quickly, carry out the assault that they had threatened to commit.

Don't assume anonymity on the Internet, anywhere, no matter what measures you take to prevent the discovery of your identity.

Do not call registry for Canadians

2008-07-30T10:59:00.000-06:00

No more telemarketing calls...it could be a reality for Canadians as of September 30. You have to wait until the website is up, register your phone number (make a yearly appointment if you like to enter contests) and you could kiss telemarketing calls goodbye.

Published list of diploma mill degree purchasers

2008-07-30T10:50:00.000-06:00

The Spokesman Review, from Spokane, has published a database listing the names of people who purchased degrees from a diploma mill that was operated from Spokane. Over fifty of the purchasers are identified as Canadian--though that just may be where the degree was delivered, not where they are currently drawing a pay check.

The Spokesman Review decided to publish the list because only one person out of all of the purchasers may face any criminal charges in respect to the degree purchase, though the article does state that:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, it was learned Monday, is considering pursuing charges against an estimated 300 federal employees who bought bogus or counterfeit degrees.

Investigators are considering using a federal law that allows them to charge individuals who have fraudulently obtained credentials giving them access to or jobs in U.S. government facilities.

"There are a number of different public safety concerns out there," one source said.

Ah, ya think so? With all of the medical and engineering degrees for sale, I'm saying, yes, public safety could be an issue.

This is the main reason why you should tell people who are putting together an online portfolio to NOT DIGITIZE THEIR DEGREES AND POST THEM ONLINE. Where do you think the diploma mills get them?

Search all of Craigslist

2008-07-22T15:58:00.001-06:00

Though you aren't supposed to be able to, Wired How-To Wiki has come up with a method, using Google's advanced search, to search all of the Craigslist at once. You could use this method to find items for sale...or you could use it to look for freelance contracts or job postings, if place is no object in your job search. Very useful if you are looking for sideline work like editing, tutoring or small writing contracts.

Vivaty scenes

2008-07-10T08:23:00.000-06:00

I added the Vivaty scenes app to my Facebook, but I don't think I will be using it any time soon: it doesn't work with Firefox and I'm not switching back and forth between browsers (works IE) to actually try it. Don't feel bad Vivaty, I don't do that with any app: if you don't work on Firefox, I'll wait until you will. Or until your competitor eats your lunch.

Vivaty is a new addition to the immersive worlds product placement, and like Lively, and unlike Second Life, it can be accessed from your browser, no client install on your machine. So, the call is one-one for Vivaty.

Google gets Lively

2008-07-09T12:48:00.002-06:00

Google has a contender in the immersive worlds marketplace, Lively. (glimpse). The reviewer may not be keen on stuff to do there--boring, like Second Life can be--but Lively has one advantage: you don't have to download it.

And this is a huge advantage: Second Life can host conferences and events but if I can't download it--in a public lab, at my work computer where I have no downloading privileges--I can't access it. Some of you may scoff, but check with the people in your office: they probably don't even have permission to download iTunes.

And wow: TechCrunch follows with a post on how much money is being spent to develop immersive world products. There is also a list at the bottom of some immersive world offerings, so you can take a peek at some of them. Provided that you don't have to download a client to access them.

Cleaning up the rotten apps

2008-07-07T10:17:00.003-06:00

Facebook is trying to tone down some of the Facebook apps that send out messages to all of your friends, blast them with posts or make you submit all of your contacts to get access to your quiz results. This is a step in the right direction since the apps seemed unwilling to police themselves and many users (myself included) hated these spammy apps. There is even a group on Facebook to get the apps to stop requiring invites.

How walkable is your neighbourhood?

2008-06-25T11:01:00.004-06:00

Walk Score uses Google Maps data to give your neighbourhood a "walk score" of 0 to 100. I gave it a test run for my address, pretty sure I would get no data back because I live in Canada.

I was wrong: it worked for my address. (Not my address in picture.)

Now, it wasn't perfect: the Hardware Grill was listed as Hardware, not restaurants and you have to walk through some scary areas at night to get to some of these places (I hope walk safe is their next mashup). Some of the cinemas listed were also suppliers of services to cinemas, not actual movie theatres.

The system is also much better with exact addresses, not generic name or area. For example, using my own address got a score of 50, but using University of Alberta got a score of 48. If anybody knows anything about Edmonton, there is just way more stuff and a wider variety of destinations within the University of Alberta area than my area. An 82 avenue search only netted a score of 57. One possible explanation is that many of the services in this area don't have a website, whereas some of the big box stores and cinemas in my neighbourhood do have website addresses.

I still think it is a great tool and I even found a yoga club, within walking distance, that I might try out.

Who's watching out for you on YouTube?

2008-06-24T09:49:00.004-06:00

I wanted to add this to my del.icio.us links (tag: coagitating), but I wasn't able to isolate the video for a clip. Very simple strategy: go to YouTube, search for your university or college's name and see who is posting what or what is in your top results.

Podcasting basics for faculty

2008-06-23T14:03:00.003-06:00

I was exploring links about drop.io when I came across Dr. Coop's blog and her wonderful presentation (the one embedded here is part one of a four part series) on the use of podcasting in post-secondary institutions. Not only is her presentation perfectly succinct, but she shows a great use of Slideshare, another technology that I think is going to be infecting the classroom this fall.

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Word Cloud

2008-06-17T11:10:00.003-06:00

Using Wordle, I made a word cloud out of my current collection of del.icio.us links.

Thanks to Weblogg-ed for the idea.

my dashboard feed is enormous

2008-06-05T16:15:00.006-06:00

My Facebook friends must hate me for all of the apps and crap I have on my profile: they get notices for every new book or movie I want to see, whenever I wrote on a wall...on and on. I didn't realize how much I was blasting until someone in RL commented that I am always on Facebook. Well, I'm on Facebook maybe twice a week, but I play quite a bit and have apps on there that tell everything I am doing everywhere else. I took care of that problem.

But I noticed that my dashboard feed, all of the messages I was getting about my friends and their activity was a bit long, and I realized that you can manipulate it and the type of news that you receive. Now, for Facebook users, you know that when you sign in to Facebook you, don't go to your profile first, you go to a space that I call the "dashboard" where you can see all of your friends' activity, as well as "relevant" network news and ads. This is the landing space that I am talking about.

Go to the bottom of your news and updates on the dashboard (not the very bottom of the page). You will see Preferences in the teeny tiny blue writing that Facebook seems to love to use for help and tools. When you click on Preferences, you will be taken to a little feed "mixer" that you can use to change which stories you receive more or less from, by type. You can even control the amount you hear about certain friends: you can lessen news from some (blasters with wazoo apps, like me) or people who are infrequent users who only seem to post when they have a new marriage or offspring.

You can move the mixer bars up and down (these are my settings, you may want different ones) depending on your preferences. You can also set them back to their defaults if you would like to start fresh. I seem to be hyperaware of the feed lately, since you can't turn the sucker off anymore, and I hope this helps people who want to remix their news.

Create a history clickstream

2008-06-04T15:09:00.003-06:00

By using iBreadcrumbs, you can create a research clickstream showing where you went while gathering information.

The weirdest thing happened after I added this extension: information in my address line in the browser just vanished, so as I was clicking on links and visiting sites, there was no information on the address bar. I typed in an address, it accepted it and I went to the address, but when I went deeper into the site, the original site I had typed in remained as the address. I sent iBreadcrumbs a message about it, complaining I would have to remove the extension and write about it on my blog as a weird, buggy issue (I need to know where I am: I cut and paste from that spot and I didn't know if it would mess with my delicious extension.) I closed out, reopened and viola, my address bar has lost its gremlins.

Always restart the browser after you add an extension. Whoops! Sorry iBreadcrumbs. So, if you have the same problem after installing--an empty address bar--close your browser and reopen. That should fix it.

Turn off your funwall when looking for work

2008-05-22T14:53:00.002-06:00

When you're looking for work, remove funky Facebook apps that other users can manipulate on your pages. I love my silly friends but they have posted naked hairy people (unknown to me, but somebody took that picture) on my Full Wall, so I took it down.

Bollywood Mashup to get the point across:

What do you want to do?

2008-05-20T11:17:00.003-06:00

I just finished two conference presentations (one for BTT and one for ASSC) and I think they both went well: I got the evaluations back for ASSC--which uses a two page, carbon copy evaluation so presenters can take their feedback away with them, big hug to them--and the evaluations were, on the whole, positive.

But as I got further away from the ASSC presentation, I realized something: some of us, the supposed digital immigrants, don't think about technology in the right way. We spend all of our time dwelling on the tool (stick) and not the tool's purpose (eat yummy ants). People who are more adept with technology--and I don't think that age should come into play--think about the purpose for the tool.

For example: people go to Facebook, not because they want to "facebook" anything, but because their friends are hanging out there. The purpose of the tool is to be with friends online in one centralized place and to act (whether you acknowledge it or not) as a node. Student services people and administrators who want to reach these "Facebookers" think only, facebook them, not about the purpose of the tool (make friends and hang out). The same goes for iTunes (get music), Google (find answers to homework and get pics of celebrities behaving like Girls Gone Wild), YouTube (watch people behave like jackasses or find out how to throw a boomerang). They want to do something and the Internet just has the tools to do it.

I realize that this is not a new argument, but I also get focused on the tool: the technology passport I handed out at one of my presentations was a bit too tool-based and not purpose of the tool. This was an error that I am going to correct the next time I present or in any upcoming articles.

Blog address on my email

2008-05-08T10:02:00.004-06:00

I came across this blog post on weblogg-ed about teachers being asked to remove their blog addresses from their signature lines. One of the things missing from the post for me is: were the blogs on the signature lines personal or professional? If they are part of your professional work they should be part of your signature line on corporate emails. If they are not one of your professional projects, they should not be on your professional signature line but on your personal email.

I think the legal team (as well as anyone who doesn't have a reliable link checker) should be concerned about the links that people are connecting to, especially in the K-12 setting. I am not saying, don't link, but I am saying, people are hysterical and unforgiving when K-12 educators make linking missteps. Case in point, the officer in Florida who got in trouble for a link to a link from his MySpace page. Maybe you should disconnect your personal from your public as much as you can. After all, is your business card really the place to scream about your purebred cat blog, if you aren't a cat breeder?

A search engine that searches on Facebook

2008-05-06T11:46:00.004-06:00

If you have ever used the Facebook search engine you will know how difficult it is to find people; better to crawl through your friends lists looking for people that you know (which explains the new friend recommender on Facebook). Anyway, SearchEngineLand is speculating that now the proposed all-u-can-eat Yahoo is over, that Microsoft may offer its services to Facebook. Once that happens, you will really have to take down your Molson contest photos...wait a minute, have you actually used Live Search? You could leave your keg stand photos up for a while.

Dot Me

2008-05-06T11:37:00.001-06:00

According to this post from Jobacle, you can now buy a domain name with your personal name and the dot me extension. I'm not sure that I am going to rush out (I prefer the .ca extension--how quietly Canadian of me) but it is an interesting way to spread the me-meme.

Automated snakes and spiders

2008-05-04T15:11:00.002-06:00

According to this piece from CNET, BAE industries is creating robotic spiders to help soldiers with intelligence gathering. Let's hope this is more successful than the cockroach in the Fifth Element.

How the Internet has changed my life

2008-04-30T19:49:00.007-06:00

I know: the title of this post is really stupid but bear with me. I am putting the final touches on my presentation for BTT tomorrow and I was looking at all of the internet tools that I mess around with and the impact the Internet has had on my life. I realize that my list is not that surprising to tech-heads, but most of my colleagues aren't cyborgs, like me ;->

I competed half of a masters degree online. Only because they wouldn't let me take all of it, but for people who need to move up in their career but who have a family to ignore, how the heck else could they do it? Oh, yeah: they got a spouse and/or reliable birth control.
I haven't been to a video store in almost five years. I have been a member of Zip for several years and I freakin' love it: I get what I want, keep 'em as long as I want and it helps me to keep my goal to use a car much, much less. I may have walked into one with some other sucker who doesn't subscribe to a service like I use but Blockbuster can kiss my ass.
I buy almost all of my books online and I read mainly ebooks for pleasure on my laptop. If you look at my total reading, I have lots of print books from the library, but my main source for bookish entertainment: ebooks. I also download audiobooks and read classics for free. The library, I still love you, but the bookstore? If I get a giftcard.
I have not written a paper letter--to friends-- in seven years. Complaint letters--worth exactly the price of the paper they are written on--are another matter entirely. Since I was a crappy correspondent, long live email and the Facebook wall.
I read more newspapers. And blogs. I get my information from many sources--many that were not accessible to me in the past--and I think that I am better informed. I may be over stressing how much people should give a damn, but I actually know enough to care. I actually read more in general because I have heard about more books and articles that I would be interested in and had the ability to follow up as quickly as my hummingbird brain will let me.
I write every damn day. Not just twittering, but real articles. This means I talk more, but still don't think before I speak. The Internet can't help you with thinking, so far, just acting.
I got published because of the Internet and I have presented at several conferences. This is also another for better or worse in the eye of the beholder.
I can have a second "job" without leaving home. At -30 degrees Celsius, I like this. Helps with less car, more money, too.

This is a mix of personal and professional but these are big life changes. Maybe I would have done these things without the Internet, or I would just be asking if you want fries with that and watching reality TV until I puked. Now, I have YouTube.

Chatty Facebook

2008-04-23T08:59:00.004-06:00

Facebook unveils their new chat widget so actually knowing that one of your friends is online can lead to more fun than stickering all over one another's FunWall. I actually play on Facebook to make my locker walls pretty, but maybe I'll talk to someone. This is also another way for employers to monitor and make sure you aren't slacking off.

Of more interest to me was the new feature that recommends friends to me: on the right hand side of your profile, you will see, people you may know. These are mutual friends of friends and if you "select all" you can see how many mutual connections you have. One feature I don't like is that "add as a friend" is the first option instead of the flirtatious poke. Rejecting pokes is always gentler than rejecting friendship.

Text duel

2008-04-02T09:32:00.002-06:00

If you text this professor will leave. A professor has a strict no texting policy in his classroom: if you text, he leaves the classroom, finito for the lecture. A professor has the right to set his own classroom management policies, provided that they do not harm the students. I also disagree with the discipline specialist: the professor was relying on a disciplinary measure, peer pressure, which we know is potent, to make the students behave.

I think the professor has to manage the classroom--there are plenty of students who complain when the prof loses control. I have seen my own students eyes roll back in their heads when I have been more tolerant of feeble questioners/need-to-hear-myself-talkers, so I know that this is important for student engagement. The policy was also quite clear and this young lady seemed to feel it did not apply to her--so would tests, deadlines and her final mark. There is a limit and the prof has set his.

That being said, I think it will get more difficult as more tools, such as dictionaries, are added to or are easily accessed by cell phones. It would be hard to tell a text from a request for information.

Coming to a phone near you

2008-04-01T10:15:00.003-06:00

WSJ has a review of upcoming cell phone features. I think the social networking features will allow some stability in the current plateau for online networking--not a massive drop off--and may encourage more Twittering and blogging, if the phone has that capability. I know that's what I'm looking for in my phone features list (Yep, I'm on the market, but a little perturbed by cell phone representatives who keep asking me "What's a RRS feed?" Oye, not kidding.)

I would suggest more advertising on buses: I want my phone so I can blog while on my commute. This would save some time and let me post more regularly. I would also like to be able to access my DailyLit subscriptions from my phone. They have nice bit-sized commuter chunks.

Do you twitter at work?

2008-03-20T12:17:00.001-06:00

Does anyone here use Twitter at work? Do you use it for project updates or to keep people updated about travelling? Do you twitter mobile or from your desktop?

You have got to be kidding me

2008-03-18T08:58:00.003-06:00

We now have evidence that technology cannot make you smarter if you were clueless to begin with: gate crashing brigades on Bebo and outrage against street furniture getting in the way of a good text.

According to this story from the Daily Mail, party patrols are surfing MySpace and Bebo looking for parties to crash and homes to destroy. Though this could be a hoax, if your kid has 1,756 friends on MySpace, you might want to make sure invitations don't get blasted.

Next we have padded streets to facilitate texting and an outcry against unnecessary "street furniture". All I'm saying to this one, is the same idiot goes home, puts the cell phone in their pocket, and takes the dog for a walk and poop and stops at Starbucks for a latte. They may even text outside with the dog, so they need a light. Please people, take a walk and see how idiotic all of the texting/ no peripheral vision fiends look like and think, "I am that dork" and repent.

Just ignore him and maybe he'll go away

2008-03-17T12:29:00.002-06:00

According to this article from Chronicle, How to Combat a Campus Gossip Site if you, as in "university administrators", ignore a site, then maybe it will go away. Specifically taking on JuicyCampus, as a clutter of bathroom graffiti and sexual slurs, it appears that many universities are taking the route that if you ignore it, maybe it will go away. They did get the site where it hurt--the ad revenue--and point out that some students are using techy methods to combat the site, both fair and foul, but that the more you talk about it, the more people hear about it and sustain it.

Unfortunately, this strategy may leave the individual out in the cold, at least fighting their own battle to get their name removed. Which makes me ask the question--again--why can you post something about me, using my name, without my permission? Why don't you go after these sites for using my full, legal name?

Buying the bird call: who owns your twitter-type

2008-03-13T09:17:00.002-06:00

BNET Insight just blogged about a fight brewing in Japan over the content produced on the social networking site, Mixi. According to the post, since Mixi has maxed out, the social network has decided to go after user-generated content to make some cash. Now, the legal situation will vary from country to country but if you are making personal content available through a social networking platform that isn't making enough money selling your personal information to marketers, could the social marketing platform steal your goods?

I wonder what this would mean for VooZoo? Obviously, not a lot: big corporation = lots o'expensive lawyers, but what will happen for smaller users like Vancouver Film School?

RateMyCop: Exiled and Banished

2008-03-12T09:37:00.003-06:00

The Wired Blog has an interesting post about a service called RateMyCop that was unceremoniously booted off of GoDaddy after a police outcry over safety and security for officers. I agree with this argument, but why should cops get off when professors, teachers and doctors do not? They are all in public service and safety of the public, and since public service appears to be a commodity and customer service position, why did their argument work and not the arguments of the teachers, doctors and professors who don't want to be gossiped about.

Is this 'cause cops are armed?

Getting off RateMyProfessor

2008-03-07T09:26:00.004-07:00

I had a person at a conference presentation ask how they could get off RateMyProfessor since they aren't a professor. I sent a message to their general information, since most queries are directed to that address, but I got back an undeliverable message.

Has anyone successfully removed themselves from RateMyProfessor?

Update: there is a contact us section that appears to link to their legal department. I have sent a query there; let's see if they get back to me or if I get another undeliverable.

Not using your skills

2008-03-04T12:11:00.003-07:00

According to a survey done by Filemaker (and based on my read of the post from CNET) most tech savvy younguns feel that they aren't making the most of all of the tech skills that they got from school (or from playing on the Internet from home when Facebook was blocked at school).

If you look at this article in light of the guest column from Michael Geist on the BBC, it is easy to see that most people aren't using their Web 2.0 skills because their employers are blocking access to the sites at work. You can argue that these sites do detract from workplace productivity, since I'm not sure what dedicating songs to my friends has to do with my daily work, but we are looking too much at the components of social networking, but not at the whole.

And the whole, with file sharing, scheduling and teaching, is where we are going online. It might not be through Facebook, it may be through Google, but we will see more of the shared computer and application function spreading into our work places. And it will be the people who understand how to pass songs on who will know how file sharing, how to push knowledge, will do it.

Blog and get two inches

2008-03-03T15:56:00.004-07:00

According to this study, bloggers feel better about themselves and believe that they have better social supports. Though you will feel generally dissatisfied until you actually vent from your dashboard. The key is that you feel better, not that you are better than people who don't blog. There is also some evidence from the study that if you do not blog it out, you will feel greater alienation, leading to all sorts of flaming and a recurring role in Forumwarz (NSFW).

I wonder if there are other older studies about the beneficial effects of journal writing?

LinkedIn and Facebook renovations

2008-02-28T09:16:00.003-07:00

Both LinkedIn and Facebook are renovating their user dashboards and how information is displayed. Elliot Shmukler, from the LinkedIn blog, will take you through the rationale of the changes to LinkedIn. From the video, they are moving away from tabs toward modules.

I have to admit that I love LinkedIn's new way of displaying Answers, so it is easy to see what questions you have posted and what questions you have answered. I also like the statistics feature where you can see how well you scored: best, good and no highlight placed on your answers. The Answers section increased my LinkedIn usage in the past few months which just confirms that interaction drives online networking.

Facebook, in contrast, is moving from modules, since they become cluttered apps, to tabs and perhaps increased privacy controls between the tabs, i.e. letting you limit the access to each of tabs by name or level in the network. I find it interesting that Facebook is moving to tabs and LinkedIn to modules (more MySpace-like than Facebook-like) so I think in the next few months we are going to have lots of discussions about usability and how to control or release the traffic on social networking sites.

I turn my camera on

2008-01-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

A store in St. John's is posting part of it's security tapes on YouTube to catch a suspected thief [original clip from CBC]. But a metro employee gets fired in Shanghai for posting the video of a kissing couple on YouTube [original story from the CBC].

The store owner says it's ethical to post because there are signs warning that you are on camera when you enter and leave the store. I would guess, though I haven't been there, that the same signs are up in the subway stations of Shanghai. The difference, of course, is in the purpose of posting the video:

To catch a thief vs shame flagrant PDA-ers
Ownership of the video: the store owns the video, but the employees were using the property of the Shanghai subway system to score points on YouTube.

There are going to be more of these issues in coming months, especially if artists begin to consider that surveillance video is an art form, possibly a public domain art form.

Getting Hired in a Google World

2008-01-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

Forward, a website for young PR professionals, or people who want to launch a career in PR, offers a podcast and I want to encourage people to listen to Episode #34, Getting Hired in a Google World. This episode has some great advice about managing your digital footprint, in general, and some interesting advice: don't shy away from video, don't shy away from the edge on creativity and film and the Internet when you are launching your career, you need to demonstrate that you are creative. Just don't cut yourself all over YouTube. Anna Farmery also made a great observation: quit confusing creativity with the ability to manipulate the tools. Putting a paint brush in your hand won't make you Michelangelo (and you probably can't even paint the wall).

Regular, off-the shelf kind of idiot

2008-01-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

What kind of an idiot posts their bank account number on the Internet and believes that nothing will happen? Jeremy Clarkson, a BBC TV host, that's who. His country's own Information Commissioner's Office has a great Personal Information Toolkit. Maybe it was too subtle and should have included the instructions, lock your doors or don't be a dork. Or is that wanker?

These numbers look a little fudge-y to me, but with 80,000 cases of identity theft reported in 2006 in the UK, I think it was irresponsible of the editor to publish the doofus' banking information, no matter how invulnerable he believed himself to be. Maybe they should have had a chat with the Guardian, since they even investigated the fun you could have with an airline stub.

I also want to add, as a final you're just so special jab, if Mr. Clarkson had any personal payee attached to his account, like he gave friends a loan of £50 from his internet banking, an identity thief can also leap into their accounts, berry-picking all the way.

Goog411

2008-01-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

Google is launching its new mobile service: Goog411. Call their 1-800 number from a cell phone and find what you are looking for, for free. Using a zip code (pizzeria close by) rather than a category (pizzerias in general), means you will get lucky, not just feel lucky to be making a 411 call for free. I also like the "Map it" feature so if you can view Google Maps on your cell, you can actually find where the business is.

You can view their demo video:

If you are planning on getting more use out of your cell phone, you may want to visit Google Mobile first to see what Goog Goog gadgets are available.

Promiscuous brand

2008-01-08T11:20:00.000-07:00

Need to have a unified brand, a consistent message that all can use to recognize you? We hear this all the time and CBC has just posted an article aimed at Brand Management for Canadians.

For people who are shallow swimmers, or who only swim in the pool, I think a brand makes sense: you have consistency in your life, a dependable sameness, you can feel intensely about one thing, a monogamous professional love affair for life.

But some of us are more promiscuous: we won't love one topic professionally forever, not even from the same industry. A brand just won't work, especially when we have dumped our lover and no longer take his calls.

Add to this the people who live secret lives, the professionally polyamorous, whose interests may be quite disparate. I have many different interests, a harem of professional services and experiences, and I am not giving them up. I also like that they sleep in separate quarters: less jealousy and suspicion. And you don't have to know everything about me.

For the faithful, brand, and always buy the same name. Some of us aren't ready to settle down, barely serial monogamists, so brands are hurtful to our careers and continued professional development.

I'm crushed

2008-01-04T09:29:00.001-07:00

If you install and play with Facebook apps, you have probably received the message that someone has a secret crush on you. Forget it: according to Mashable, this secret crush app will install Zango spyware on your computer.

If you are checking Facebook from a school lab or library computer, please don't install apps from these public terminals. If you have made a boo-boo in your app selection, these public Internet access providers are going to ban Facebook. If you want to keep checking your feeds, don't download apps unless you are on your own computer.

How to remove Zango, if necessary.
If you don't have it, you should probably download LavaSoft's Ad-Aware and clean up your computer.

Ultimate office pet

2007-12-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I am fascinated by the mechanical dinosaur, Pleo. I have had many pets and I find it's mimicry interesting and accurate.

If you watch the Good Morning America video posted on the site, I think one of the anchors missed the point. Pleo is not about having a pet; Pleo is about the evolution of computers and companionship, and how people will related to "intelligent objects". It is also about having an office free of dander, or not offending people who find the pet you select to be "unclean" (though such an injunction may also extend to faux animals, since they mimic "divine creation".)

I can see clearly now...Web 2,0 satire

2007-12-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

I was having a cranky morning, trying to write instructions on tightening up your Facebook privacyFacebook when my own privacy settings on Facebook appeared to be arbitrarily reseting and flashing my virtual knickers. Maybe someone turned a Beacon on?

"Partly skill, mostly luck". No truer words. Or maybe it was the original, "communist plot".

I don't like the term "douchebag" but points for mocking someone with their own kitsch.

Next Facebook privacy blowback: eight months

2007-12-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

Andrew Wahl with Canadian Business is surprised that Facebook backpedalled about Beacon and users' news feeds. Let's remember the news feed fiasco in August 2006--just in time to get back to class and stalk all your friends and foes--with the We really messed this one up blog post. Mr Zuckerberg is not the only one with a short memory.

Update: Eric Schonfeld on TechCrunch has a really great summary about the debacle on the TechCrunch site. He also accurately pointed out that Mr Zuckerberg expects Facebook users to surrender their data for the privilege of using his nifty site.

Facebook needs to make money so it can beat the pants off the Google IPO, which is why it rejected suitors that offered less than a billion. And you can make money when you connect marketers with customers. Beacon is how you open their wallets: this guy bought me that, he thinks I'm hot, you bought me that, you're not. Don't just pry open wallets; use the rest of the Internet money model and open some pants, exploit Lust. Offer more of the Seven Deadlies, Facebook, not just avarice or incurring wrath, and you'll be the tricky pony to bet on.

Mr Zuckerberg's feed

2007-12-03T14:09:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately for Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and who is currently being sued for possibly stealing the idea for Facebook from a former employer, a clerk at the courthouse inadvertently released more records about the case than was allowed. A freelance writer for the magazine 02138, an independent magazine that keeps tabs on Harvard alumni, scored on the clerk's error, getting several documents that were not meant to be made publicly available. As a result, the magazine has produced an article that seems to be fairly favourable to Mr Zuckerberg's opponents and has Mr Zuckerberg's lawyers requesting that the items be removed from the 02138 website.

Take that for Beaconing my Christmas purchases!

How not to think about compensation

2007-10-25T09:18:00.000-06:00

This compensation philosophy explains why there is a revolving door for service staff in Alberta: we won't give any perks to keep our wage earners. A laughable salary matrix in a labour market like Alberta's. It also explains why, like the shameless elitists they are, most companies do not look at their wage earners as potential managers and certainly not executives. No landowner would raise the status of a serf.

Who's Web 2.0

2007-10-15T11:37:00.000-06:00

Who's Web 2.0, formerly Jobalize, has launched a new people search engine, a mutt of vertical search, map/local search and a directory, the who's who of the 2.0. People can enter in their information on the site and by clicking on the locations with markers (numbers) the local results for people in the web 2.0-know are supposed to pop-up.

Since it is in beta, I won't be too hard on it, but there are some oddities. There are about 50+ people marked on the map somewhere in northern Saskatchewan but when you click on that link, you vanish into Reindeer Lake. The next closest person is my marker in Edmonton. Just ask someone from Saskatchewan: we aren't that close.
There are also some interesting spelling errors ("information" is a non-count noun) which may take some time to fix. I would also recommend putting the tag cloud on the front page, since geography may not be as important as skill set. After all, we can contact them via e-mail (IM, Skype, etc) and geography is more of a factor if you need a local expert for a story or if you want to work with a local partner and reduce your FedEx costs. I also did not care for the feature where I was required to enter in a street address: I think my city is enough until I get to know that you're not a mass mailing marketer. Yes, yes, we are marking ourselves on a map, but a city is enough, especially if I am a freelancer who works from home.

Just because you have a shovel doesn't mean you should dig

2007-10-14T20:00:00.000-06:00

One of my friends on Facebook has posted a picture of me at a summer party. I look a little glassy eyed, but it was a long day. Though the beer next to my plate could also account for my marble-eyed stare.

I'll own up: it's my beer. Since I'm of legal drinking age and I was drinking alcohol in a licensed establishment, not some illegal speak-easy, I'm not sure why I have to shamefully own up to the beer. But based on some of the articles about "digital dirt"--this one from Jibber Jobber, this one from WSJ Career Journal--and countless others, it is apparent that I should feel ashamed. Supposedly, this innocuous beer is the smoking gun that will kill any future job offers.

But why are so few colleges and university career centers backing away from asking employers this question: why are you violating a potential employee's privacy by entering a password protected site to examine material? Why are so few college and university career offices spending so little time educating clients about their privacy rights? Isn't that part of our ethical mandate, to educate?

If we look at PIPA (Personal Information and Privacy Act), I think there are two areas that employers and potential employees should pay attention to. For employers, that is Part 2, Division 4, Section 18, where the Act states:

(2) An organization shall not use personal information about an individual under subsection (1) without the consent of the individual unless

(a) the use is reasonable for the purposes for which the information is being used,

(b) the information consists only of information that is related to the employment or volunteer work relationship of the individual, and

(c) in the case of an individual who is an employee of the organization, the organization has, before using the information, provided the individual with reasonable notification that the information is going to be used and of the purposes for which the information is going to be used.
These ideas are also reiterated in Part 2, Division 3, Section 15.

Clearly, if you are searching me on Facebook and I am facebooking for fun, this has nothing to do with my work history or work product. I don't think that you should be searching for my profile and rifling through my list of friends to dig for dirt. Searching online in this way, when there is no work data to be gained, removes my fundamental freedoms: freedom of conscience and religion; freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; freedom of peaceful assembly; and freedom of association--basic Charter of Rights stuff.

However, for employees and applicants, PIPA also has a caution for you (see Part 2, Division 3, Section 14: Collection without Consent):

An organization may collect personal information about an individual without the consent of that individual but only if one or more of the following are applicable:

(e) the information is publicly available;

Clearly, if social networking sites are making their data available to people search engines and if anyone with--or, in some cases, without a profile--can access the data you post, you have an obligation to protect yourself. This means no pictures of yourself in your team jersey hazing frosh, and posting pictures of what you look like after four weeks in the bush on a tree planting mission is just a bad idea. You want employers to remember you with creases and mousse.

But back to my beer: what does this have to do with my work ethic? I'm not at work, I was with friends, it's legal, it wasn't taken at any flavor of rally, NASCAR or otherwise, and I'm fully dressed. I'm fairly upfront as to where I can be found on LinkedIn (look right) and I think that this is an appropriate search for an employer to make. Just because you have a shovel doesn't mean that you should dig, so don't use people search indiscriminately.

However, I also have my privacy set high so only friends can see my Facebook pictures (but that privacy feature was to protect the kids in my life, not originally for my protection); I also use an alias on Facebook and I have removed myself from the public listings so I can't be searched on their people search engine.

Despite quoting PIPA, this is my personal interpretation of the Act, mainly because the Privacy Commissioner won't tell me if they are planning a PIA or a policy statement in regards to people search and employment issues. If you live in Alberta, please email or call them to ask what decisions they have made in regards to this issue.

I'm currently working on a survey in regards to this issue, from both the employer and the potential employee perspective, as well as two articles and a presentation related to this topic, and I am very interested in opinions related to this topic.

Facebook Grows Up

2007-08-24T14:17:00.000-06:00

Facebook Grows Up, from Newsweek, provides a good background of the Facebook phenomena. The article and Facebook's creator Marc Zuckerberg point out that Facebook has a lot to do with the relationships that you already have and communicating with them online, rather than gathering friends from outside your network in a sort of social coup count.

That's how I use Facebook: to connect with people that I know who may have moved away from me, off campus or out of town, so that I can feel like I am still connected with the person: they can see my picture, my news and my moods, if I wish. And I dislike the attitude of "I don't want to be friends with the unwashed" (or not-hot) that permeates many social applications. It sniffs around at the edges of Facebook, but it is not the dominate mood. Facebook is also not the demon child of a dating site and a vending machine. I don't want to be friends with everyone I have ever talked to, but I do want to remain in touch with my friends and find other people who can be plot points on my "social graph" just as I would enjoy being a star in their firmament.

Vote down your "kick me"

2007-08-15T10:56:00.000-06:00

I think everyone who has ever posted anything on the web should go to Spock, the people search engine, and claim their profile. Especially if you feel that some one just kicked you in the ass lately: Spock's tags may have affixed a virtual kick me sign to your back.

I think that Mr. Singh is a bit confused about the ownership of a person's name, identity or documents. My name is mine and associated identifiers, such as profession, education, credentials and birthplace are mine. This stops people from opening banks accounts, buying houses or getting a job in my name. I also have a relationship with the social networking sites that I signed up with and decided to use, share and manipulate my personal content on. I did not enter into a relationship with Spock...which probably is why it won't let me claim my profile, since I refuse to create a Spock account to claim my profile (skimmed from LinkedIn; my privacy settings are too high on Facebook to get to my page without an invite).

What I post online is mine, with the exception of crowdsourced documents such as additional comments or descriptors placed on that item by external sources. If you are telling people that they cannot move online freely without the surveillance of external parties, you are hampering that person's right to freedom of movement, even virtual movement. And since the Internet is so tied into commerce and transactions, a harvesting of my data for your personal profit, especially if the data is aggregated INCORRECTLY, you have serious hampered my ability to make money and support myself.

Original article from Wired

Online training

2007-08-15T10:37:00.000-06:00

Wall Street Journal Start-up Journal just posted an article about the benefits of online training in getting information out to employees and saving money. The article is very rah-rah--and online training can be great for some corporations such as when workforce is dispersed (so staff coming together for training is too expensive), all have access to a computer that they can download software onto and the workers are reasonably motivated to take part. However, the writers should have given a heads-up to Microsoft that they would be profiling their online small business training section, since some of the links are dead or need to be refreshed. As for HP Small Business Direct, you have to sign up with a profile and accept an e-mail to get information about their courses, which say they are offered 24/7 but appear to have dates attached.

I know, I know: looking a gift horse in the mouth since. But they are not "free": my purchase price is my information. The sites also highlight a problem with online training: you have to commit to hosting and refreshing, so all employees get the benefit of the solution. If you can't commit to that, just start putting plan tickets into your yearly budget.

It's all film and games, until someone loses a job

2007-08-01T12:27:00.000-06:00

According to this news story from Reuters, a priest in Australia has been put on administrative leave after his attack on skateboarders before the Cathedral was filmed and placed on YouTube. This sounds very similar to a story in Quebec last year, where a teacher was provoked by students into an outburst that was filmed and placed on YouTube. I would like to say that everyone should keep their cool and not react to people pressuring them to respond, but it is going to happen. Unfortunately, in the case of the priest, it is also his duty to turn the other cheek. I wonder if the skateboarders have faced any censure for their actions?

Bosses: A Field Guide

2007-07-27T09:28:00.000-06:00

BNet provides some of the smartest, yet sweetly business-buttoned down conformist, examinations of the workplace. Their recently posted Bosses: A Field Guide is quite witty, if Disney-esque. I have worked mainly for Social Directors, but I had the misfortune to work for a few Dictators and Climbers. I'm praying for salvation from the Hachet Man. Which one would be your friend on Facebook: the stylish Hero or the Propellerhead, who has probably been registered since it was first announced on Mashable?

Should my boss be my Facebook friend?

2007-07-25T11:50:00.000-06:00

Is it a bad idea to become friends with your boss on Facebook? Some would argue that it removes the fun if the person who signs your cheque can see your naked photos (and clearly, all of this fear that your nakedness will lead to unemployment, and not a promotion, means you should keep your clothes on). But in some cases, bosses are faster than their employees for a variety of reasons: they are more tech savvy, they are spreading the company picnic invitations through Facebook or Evite and it is just easier to use social networking to organize our cat herd.

You may be friends with your boss already: they sent you the invite (or didn't realize that they had, since Facebook scoops all of your e-mail addresses, unless you remove the check mark) or a person joined because their alumni group or company group invited them. More than likely, your boss beat you.

As a supervisor, I have not poked anyone to become my friend on Facebook if they were someone that I currently supervised. I will accept their friend invites if they seek me out and ask. I have become friends with people who I worked with in the past, or people who are my peers in the workplace.

NPR Business Story of the Day: Becoming Friends with a Boss on Facebook (July 25, 2007)
Career Journal: OMG My Boss Wants to be Friends with Me on Facebook (July 11, 2007)

In these two stories boss = old, therefore tech clueless or Michael of the Office and his utter social ineptitude. But what happens if your boss is cool and blows you off on Facebook with a, I'm not really on there very often, in response to your invite? Is it Mutiny on the Bounty? Or what happens if you find out that you are the only person not friends with your boss on Facebook: are you about to be fired?

Friendships online are also quite different from what they are F2F: social networking friendships have more to do with counting coup than intimacy. And since we count coup in our political machinations at work, social networking is just one more way to score.

What's your type?

2007-07-25T10:52:00.001-06:00

Google uses an elaborate personality test to screen incoming employment candidates, however, according to a new article from the New York Law Journal companies that use these tests and asks questions that do not refer to work relevant skills may be opening themselves up to future litigation (article from Ecommerce Times). I would also suggest that they may be selecting cookie-cut employees, all sugar cookie and no gingerbread, as suggested in this article from today's WSJ Careers.

Companies leaving Second Life

2007-07-16T11:35:00.001-06:00

According to this article from the LA Times, as well as a response from TechCrunch (which has a very clever title), the major corporations that opened shop in Second Life may be closing their doors. I agree with the criticism that many of the corporations entered into Second Life to look cool and just opened echo-y buildings with nothing to do but wander. I could go fly off and find a game of Scrabble. That is only one reason why the ventures were not successful, but here are a few others:

Put out more than a shingle. These vast but empty islands with no people to interact with are annoying and sort of creepy, in a Carnival of Souls way. Have people or a friendly pet come out to meet me when I arrive. One of my big peeves with Second Life is that you can wander for hours without seeing anyone (and when you do, they are usually standing in the middle of the road changing their underwear).
Your staff should be there if you say they are going to be there, unlike the MIA Best Buy Geek Squad mentioned in the article.
Should have let us shake the money tree. I am attracted to games and low threshold activities in which I have a chance to win some cash. (So much for that suggestion: as of July 26, with the FBI hot on their heels, SecondLife has banned all forms of online gaming.)
VOIP is a recent arrival to Second Life. Stick around a few months after the arrival of VOIP. People hate to type but they love to chat.

I think companies are off to launch the Good Ship Facebook Marketplace and abandoning Second Life too soon. But I think that they are right to be peeved with Second Life's reportage of a ghostly population that only signed on for fifteen minutes after the last article in Business Week.

Black screen of death

2007-07-13T15:41:00.002-06:00

Yes, people have seen this before on their iPods: errors 1417 and 1418. Maybe iPhone users can start their own iPhone hell page.

Flickr face-lift for business cards

2007-07-13T11:11:00.001-06:00

Moo offers a service to create mini-cards, half the size of a business card, from photos from your Flickr, Bebo, Fotolog, even your Second Life account. I think that these cards will have cachet--combine them with dating cards and you have the Web 2.0 equivalent of a matchbook--but I am not sure how appropriate they are for business purposes. I am sure though that a few enterprising students will think this is a good way to get a recruiter's attention.

Web control at work

2007-07-09T14:13:00.001-06:00

This article from Canadian Business describes the need for an internet use policy on work computers, in association with filtering and blacklist software for no-no sites. I think that the posting of the policy when the employee logs on to the internet is one of the best ideas--you can't say we didn't warn you--however, I also think that it is a good idea to make sure that a manager's computer cannot circumvent the ban, or that other, inessential software, such as Solitaire, is removed from computers. Just because it's not on the Internet doesn't make it a time waster.

And have you noticed that these bans tend to focus on the pursuits of younger generations of users, more likely to use Second Life and Facebook, than older generations, who enjoy a few boards of marble solitaire or who like to ship out jokey e-mails to all of their co-workers?

Hippety hop

2007-06-28T09:45:00.001-06:00

This article from Career Journal discusses how to camouflage job hopping, a red flag for human resource professionals, but just how many jobs makes a job hopper? One of the people mentioned in the article had 5 in 8 years, but considering what the economy was like and industry she was in, is that unreasonable? And how is it bad, are they just scanning the dates?

A job change could come from leaping from rock to rock, but if you are crossing a stream and the object the the other side, that is not really haphazard. Job hopping is crossing a troubled stream: the market forces changes on us and we have to leap or be swept away. And what if we just jumped to a new and better, drier, position: that is job hopping too.

If recruiters are just reading the dates, they aren't reading enough. Maybe they aren't asking themselves: how long do I really have to fill this position for, forever or to survive this flood?

Cash-flush knowledge-poor

2007-06-28T08:59:00.000-06:00

According to this article in Canadian Business, women hunger for some type of investment guidance, since they now have the cash (in Calgary at least) to do some "wise" investing with their money. Since I was just looking at money and investment guides for women at the library, I can tell you that women do need investment help, but this so-called, created for women idea just sucks since,

1) at least one of the guides included short-term goals such as "buy more designer shoes" which has never been one of my short-term goals, ever. Get an eyebrow wax on Friday, yes, Jimmy Choos, never.

2) many of the money memoirs by women are written by women who were helpless, dumped by their rich spouses (in one case, by two rich spouses) and who saw the light (Hallelujah!) and knew that they were responsible for themselves and their own money.

Can we have a guide stripped of frivolity, made for single women (no kids, no spouses) that talks about goals like killing student loan pestilence?

I ended up taking home the Men's Health Guide to Money (How to Live Rich on Any Income).

Wikis in Plain English

2007-05-30T10:31:00.000-06:00

I think this is an excellent description of the purpose of wikis: to make something together that we can all edit, share and save. I also liked how this was filmed: if you are camera shy but would like to make a simple instructional video, I think this is an excellent filming technique.