Giving Props To My Peeps

Janet Meiners just posted about giving sincere thanks to those who have helped you along the way. There are a few people I wanted to thank that have really helped me over the past few weeks.

Janet Meiners. She spent some time with me the other day helping me see some opportunities for moving my new business forward. Janet is an Internet Marketing coach and is very easy to talk with. While she really doesn't work with people like me, she didn't hesitate to at least give me her point of view. Thanks Janet. [website]

Ash Buckles. Thanks Ash. I sincerely mean that. Ash doesn't mess around. He knows what he wants. He works real hard. I watch what he does and how he applies himself. [website]

Jason Alba. Thanks Jason. You really need to get to know Jason. Jason helped me this week with setting some priorities for my new business. One of the things I appreciate about Jason is his simple no nonsense attitude. Always do the right thing. [website]

Chris Brogan. Thanks Chris. I'm not real sure yet why I feel such a connection with Chris, but I do. He also doesn't know me from Adam, although we have posted comments on each others blogs and we are Friends on Twitter. Chris gets it. Chris is the kind of guy that is always thinking about the next thing. He's like 5 moves ahead. I've told Chris before, he has my dream job. You may be wondering how Chris helped me. Well, Chris is always motivating; always asking questions; always moving forward. [website]

Jason Calacanis. Thanks Jason. I have been following Jason on Twitter for a while. Jason doesn't know me from Adam and thats too bad. I know he can't possible befriend everyone. I did managed to catch a segment on a satellite channel where Jason was giving his response to a couple guys trying to make a go of a new Internet Business. The one liner I took away from his segment was "If the CEO showed up late to an investor meeting, I'd fire the CEO". Something like that. It was great. I'm the kind of person that insists on being 15 minutes early. I'd rather wait to get started than show up late and have to make up an excuse. It shows a lot about a persons integrity and passion. [website]

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Isn’t social networking just contact hording?

There is a lot of hype today about Social Networking. Wikipedia defines a Social Network as

A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of relations, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes.

Huh? That sounds like psycho babel. Here is an image of a social network



So basically, the idea is to create an extended network of like minded people for the betterment of the network.

But as I look at the hundreds of "Social Networks" today, all I see are people trying to accumulate the most number of links, emails, track backs, nodes, what ever. I see little networking and trying to build something. I only see contact hording.

For good or for bad, Facebook is a great example of a "Social Network". It encourages its members to create groups, join groups, upload videos and pictures, tell everyone what books you're reading and what music you're listening too. MySpace also encourages its members to link together, post about each others MySpace site, change the look and feel, share music you like, pictures, and now video.

But with all this sharing, we still don't feel each other. Now I'm not trying to get all sappy on you, but its true. If you never actually talk to or see a person live its hard to establish a lasting relationship. That's why mail order brides have never really caught on.

Some folks are taking their Social Networking to the next step which is having local meet-ups, and getting to know each other for real. Chris Brogan does this. Jim Long does this. I'm sure there are many many more that do this too. We have even tried it in Salt Lake City, Utah, with some success, and are trying harder to make it happen more often. With the creation of PodCamps, FooCamps, BarCamps, XCamp and YCamp, people are actually building off-line relationships that strengthen their online relationships.

I encourage you to take your relationships off-line when possible. Start your own PodCamp, BarCamp or SocialCamp. Do it. You'll be surprised. If you can't start one, then go to one. Go to many. Heck make a career out of building and strengthening the Social Networks which already exist. Chris does this.

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Delta Flight 6499 From Hell

If I were on this flight, the FBI would have had to come and get me off. This is so unacceptable. Especially the part about Food. I hope Delta loses Millions in lawsuits and that everyone, from the flight crew to the terminal personnel lose their jobs.

Watch the video.

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del.icio.us hosting account suspended?

I was trying to save a link to my del.icio.us account and I kept getting this error message each time, several times. Even as I write this I still get the error message. That has to suck for them, and for me.



So that lead me to wonder if Web2.0 and New Media companies have fail over, disaster recovery or load balance plans in place? I have committed all my links to del.icio.us, and if for some reason they were to go down I would be really pissed that I lost all my bookmarks. This is a wakeup call to make back ups of data you have stored on web servers. Looks like another piece of data to keep on my S3 account.

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If you ask me for my birth date I’ll lie

I was signing up for a free service yesterday on the web, not even sure what it was, and the required fields they wanted were my birth date, gender, and phone. So, as usual, I made up a birth date, the same made up birth date I always give. I always put that I'm female, even though I'm not, and I give them some phone number in Sand Diego that I used to have in the mid 1980's. Those poor people may have been getting calls because of me for years now.

But seriously, what value does a website get out of that. How many people do they actually think will give them their *real* birth date? Gender, well maybe. Phone, probably not. And what do they do with it? People are getting more savvy with their online identity. Unless you win the Ethiopian National Lottery of $250,000,000 , in which case people still fall for the "it will only cost you $2000 to get it" scam. Good thing the Powerball Lottery only costs us $1 to play :) Please don't give these sites your information. And if you absolutely need to create an account, make it up. That's what I say. How will they ever know?

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