Inspiration and Social Networking Tie-in: Selflessness

I snagged this quote from somewhere on the internets late last week and it has stuck with me every single day since:

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.

Og Mandino (1923-1996) essayist and pop psychologist

For me, it's one of those bits of wisdom that sticks with you, word for word, and it will influence every day for the rest of my life. It's giving first, a certain degree of selflessness.

And since we missed yesterday, that's today's inspiration point: Worry about giving and the getting will take care of itself.

How does this relate to social networking? How doesn't it?

I attended the Tristate Business Network's Tuesday meeting today and smiled to myself as I thought about that quote, knowing I was going to post about this today. TBN's mantra is: Focus on what you give.

If you enter with the intent to give, to help, to be a resource to others, then everything will take care of itself: others will notice your giving nature as inspiration; others will want to help you; everyone will benefit from a single seed.

So the take-home lesson here is to eschew the tone of the ever-salesman. Granted, if an opportunity to sell your product or services arises, kindly take it. But it's all about attitude. Genuine attitude. Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross focuses on "Always Be Closing." I say Always Be Giving.

Go in giving and that attitude starts a flow. Go in taking and people will take notice. And avoid you.

Be a giver. "Your life will never be the same again."


NOTE: I can't say enough about the Tristate Business Network. I'm a member of probably a dozen different networking groups, and the focus on both networking and giving, reasonable price, and frequency of gatherings is something I've found a real affinity with. All scheduled events are guest-friendly. Get involved!

Saturday Gravy: The Onion Tags Social Media

Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

Friday Video Splendor: Just Funny

Today we're going to hit some items I ran into this week. But today I'll stick with a couple to brighten your weekend.

Bizarre Foods Name Fail




Puppy Stuck on Back




And One More Fail...



Have a great holiday weekend!

Another Note on Drudgery

Earlier this week, I caught another praise for traffic over at The Drudge Report that went like this, captured in all-caps glory with bonus ellipsis:

A TRILLION THANKS FOR MAKING AUGUST 2009 THE TOP AUGUST IN DRUDGEREPORT'S 14 YEAR HISTORY! VIEWERS FROM ALL CORNERS HIT THE PAGE 669,392,126 TIMES, UP 8% OVER AUGUST 2008 [614,577,960]...

I'm rehashing this because I am not a fan of cheaters and I've covered this from a web programmer's standpoint. Please check out my post on how Matt Drudge is gaming the system and why the numbers are misleading. Both interesting and informative.

French Phishing!

My French may be a little rusty, but I can spot a scam email a mile away. In all my years of broken English lottery or money transfer spam, a foreign language one is a new one on me. Thought you might enjoy:

Très Chère;

Depuis notre dernière rencontre à la diaspora internationale du bénin sur Internet, je n’ai pas laissé votre E-mail adresse;

Dans le seul but de rentrer en communication plus profond avec vous dans un cadre bénéfique a tous deux. Par ailleurs je passe par cette opportunité précieuse pour vous proposer une affaire d’une grande importance ;

Je voudrais sollicité votre aimable et discrète concours pour la récupération d’une mallette contenant une importante somme de: (§12,000.000.00us) douze millions de dollars us.

Ainsi je vous faire comprendre que c’es après le crashe d’avion Libanaise qui c’étais produis en décembre 2003 en Afrique notamment au Bénin que mon feux patron a aussi connu la mort ;

C’est bien là que je suis rentré en possession de ces fonds ; Alors pour ne pas susciter l’attention malveillante des autorités compétentes de la banque ;

J’ai déposé la mallette dans une maison de haute sécurité de bien privé, ou j’ai déclaré que elle comporte des documents précieux pour un partenaire qui viendra la récupérer dès sa présence.

Alors très chère ami je vous propose si vous acceptez mon offre une commission total de 20%sur la somme total dont 5% pour couvrir vos petite dépenses effectuer pour la réussite de cette l'affaire.

Espérant vous relire sous une bonne discrétion.


Contact Téléphone : (00229) 93- 30-49- 33

Cordialement Monsieur Christ Prince

Wednesday Twitter: Tennis Balk, Emergency Use, Surgery Window

Roddick Tweets Back

From the NYT:

It did not take long for Andy Roddick to respond to rules posted by the Tennis Integrity Unit regarding players’ use of Twitter during the United States Open. His vehicle? Twitter, of course.

“I think its lame the U.S. Open is trying to regulate our tweeting,” he wrote Friday night. “I understand the on-court issue but not sure they can tell us if we can’t do it on our own time … we’ll see.”

Another sports figure being Tweet-blocked by the governing body of the sport. It's only a matter of time before every sport has some written policy about Twitter and social media. He goes on to state that you'd "have to be a moron to send ‘inside info’ through a tweet." But that's the problem and reason in and of itself: rules and guidelines like that are in place to rope in the lowest common brainpan.

But I can also understand where Roddick is coming from. Especially in tennis, every player is a free agent and you're as valuable as two things: your record and your PR campaign. For anyone with an agent worth their salt, they recognize that Twitter is a part of the popularity package and limiting it could literally hit in the wallet.


Tweet in Case of Emergency

The Safe America Foundation:

a national safety group working with the U.S. government, announced yesterday that text messaging, social networking sites, and Twitter could help families stay in touch in the wake of a disaster. Although Twitter hasn't always been known for its stability, in emergency situations when phone lines and other traditional communication avenues are down, social networking sites like it and others could turn into reliable backup methods for reaching loved ones.

While I wouldn't necessarily rely on Twitter alone, it is an interesting idea to - extrapolated - keep in touch during a disaster by using various social media. GMail went down earlier this week. Where was the confirmation? Twitter.

Unfortunately, all of my forms of communication rely on 3 things: landline, cell signal, and electricity. Electricity going out (and it seems the most fragile) knocks out the router, therefore any access to the internet. Cell signal and data package would still allow for internet access and phone calls, but with no internet at home, most of those channels would be packed, leaving the most reliable communication to the tiny SMS packets that can pop through much more easily. If that goes down? I may be one of the only people in my family that has both a corded phone (no electric dependency) and an active land line, but I'd be calling people without corded phones or through the clogged cell network.

Good advice to expand resources, but how realistic is it, really?


A Window Into the Surgical Process

This was a heartfelt story of one of the hundreds/thousands of ways Twitter can be used, from the AP:

[Monna Cleary] underwent a hysterectomy and uterine prolapse surgery, had given her OK for hospital spokeswoman Sarah Corizzo to post a play-by-play of the operation on Twitter, a social-networking site that lets users send out snippets of information up to 140 characters long using cell phones or computers.

Corizzo sent more than 300 tweets over more than three hours from a computer just outside the operating room's sterile field. Nearly 700 people followed them. Eight tweeted questions to Corizzo about the procedure and a Cleary family member commented on how fascinating it was to follow the surgery.

When the haters sneer at you and say "Yeah, but what's it good for?" you can link them to this article.

A Sidenote: Facebook Rant

I like you Facebook. I really do. And I like you, people I friend; otherwise I wouldn't friend you. But as I douse all the pending requests today with Ignore juice, I feel a need to rant:

I don't want to be a farmer. Otherwise I'd move 10 miles east and buy a couple acres and some overalls and a straw hat and a combine. I do not need a cow or a pig or a banana tree (banana tree?). I certainly don't have time to pretend to be a farmer. Please stop the Farmville requests. It's bad enough I have to see your farm snapshots in my feed.

The Godfather trilogy and Goodfellas was good enough for me. Even if I had a time machine to go back in time to when the mafia was a hard core, in-control group of legend, depending on the exact date, I'd end up at Woodstock or a Bauhaus concert. I don't want to be a gangster. Or a gangsta. And I don't want to pretend that part of my lot on this Earth entails fighting mob bosses and offing the competition - or asking my friends to help me complete said tasks. Please stop with the Mafia Wars requests.

See above paragraph as to why I am not interested in being a Gangster Battle participant, which is apparently the redheaded step-cousin of Mafia Wars.

I don't want to fling food, I don't have time to find out what Disney Princess I am, and What Greek God I am equated with due to a fluff quiz put together to sell ad space is of NO interest to me.

I have no L'il Green Patch. No Flair.

Facebook is good and kind and I love it as both a way to keep in touch with others as well as keeping people - those who choose to be a fan - up to date with my business. And maybe it's my lack of free time that turns me against these Facebook flourishes, but the amount of time people spend on these diversions truly boggles my mind.

Get out! Use social media to socially network! Meet up with others, share experiences, network, or just hang out. Do it in person!

I know I'll continue to get them, and really I won't mind hitting that Ignore button once or twice a week. But dang. It would be nice to get a week or two off.