Marriage is about sharing, but should we share a mic? What would you do if you’re asked to present with your spouse? Got love?

Marriage Came First

Sharon and I met almost three decades ago. She was an experienced restaurant worker, and I was the new guy in the back.

Jack-in-the-Box was my first fast food job, I was going to college, and discovering all night parties. My future wife was the unforgiving lady who threatened to fire me when I tried to call in hung over.

Somehow we moved into being movie buddies, then official dates, and what do you know, love. Don’t ask me. I was surprised as anyone.

We married in 1984 and the Navy whisked us away from the greater St. Louis area.

Couple Runs BBS

It was 1992, we’d landed in New Orleans, and I’d become a BBS addict. Of course I had to have my own, and our phone line became my conduit to the world. Too bad you miss a few phone calls that way.

Sharon didn’t get it at first. It wasn’t until the networking events kicked in, and the people on the screen became real. We attended local BBS events but with Sharon on board, it lead to several Assassin’s Lair BBS meetups. I’d been happy networking already and she’d taken it up a notch.

Photography Brings Us Back To Social

Leaving the Navy had left us where we started, back in the greater St. Louis area. Exiting the service in late 1995 brought an income drop, moving in with the in-laws, and no spare phone line. By 2006 though, I’d been back online with gaming, blogging, and some loose networking.

Bulletin boards were a thing of the past, replaced by online forums, blog commenting, and videos. Then along came health problems.

Finding I was in a worsening situation physically brought home I wasn’t enjoying life to the fullest, and not learning new things. Enter photography and Flickr. This was my way back into a real online community.

Sharon quietly observed, and even took the occasional photo with my camera. It wasn’t long till she had her own Flickr account and began posting. My wife got involved and suddenly we’re traveling to meet our Flickr friends, doing photography walks, and becoming that too cute couple.

Now Comes Speaking

Twitter and Facebook, the world lives there, and now my wife and I as well. I admit that Sharon joined these because I created the accounts and dropped them in her lap. She’s now become that photo happy lady on Facebook to just about everyone.

Sharon doesn’t just sit on the sidelines, she’s involved. Connecting with my friends at first, her presence has grown respectably. So much so that the two invitations to me came with a request that we both come.

Show Me The Blog photography workshop organizer contacted not just me, but Sharon and I both. Not to attend, but to present together. We’re going to talk about photography, Flickr, and sharing on networks and blogs.

Same day as that invitation comes one to attend an event because we’re that couple that photographs the food, the people and the fun, and shares it everywhere. I’ve lost my identity as a networker to become part of Us!

What’s Next?

I see the future for us, business partners. Could be wrong though we started by working together….

What would you do if asked to present with your significant other?

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The Scaredy Cat Guide to Social Media is for you, the person too scared to jump in.

Scaredy Cat Guide introduces the reader to three branches of social media: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Readers get easy to follow steps for each, with some common ideas running throughout.

• how to sign up
• who to connect with
• built in connections to the Scaredy Cat team

Follow the instructions in this book to go from scaredy cat to confident cat in short order.

Learn more about the Scaredy Cat Guide to Social Media.

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Evoke Salon, @evokesalon, interviewed at South by South West Interactive, #SxSWi.

They were hair styling while being interviewed. Not only is this fun and the questions get to the heart of social media from a  Evoke Salon point of view.

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Did you grow up wanting to be an influencer? A professional blogger? A video rockstar?

No.

Chances are you wanted to be an athlete, engineer, teacher, or even a clown.

Today as bloggers and social networking users, we’re being told that if we don’t have influence, then we don’t matter. We are not running the show.

Please take a listen and tell me, what did you want to be when you grew up?

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Click through to iWatchRadio.Com

Welcome I Watch Radio Fans!

Had the pleasure of being on Bobby Mick’s  show, The Edge, today. Bobby immediately made me feel welcome, and got me to relax with some pre-show questions.

The whole staff greeted me and invited me to look around and get comfortable. Theresa even gave me a few minutes back stage.

IWatchRadio.com is the first live HD broadcast on Facebook. They are already drawing in strong viewership.

If you want to connect, please see my contact page.

Hope to chat soon. Cheers

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Someone is watching you

Datasift and Twitter have entered into a deal for your tweets. Datasift bargained for the whole fire hose of data. If you tweet and it’s public, they’re recording it.

Big data? That’s what @nik calls what they store at Datasift. So what can Datasift do with all this data? Just about anything.

Mentioned in the interview conducted by Robert Scoble are a few key sift, sorting, and search possibilities:

• massive geo-location searching and sorting – imagine being able to put hands on all of the tweets from Japan during the earthquake and tsunami. Imagine taking that down to a city on the coast.
• capturing football scores of all the games across the world – as the goals are scored!
• how about all of the photos taken during the ball drop on New Years Eve – now take that up a notch and include only the ones geo-tagged from Times Square.

All of these are possible not just in history but in real time. Datasift didn’t just contract with Twitter for their fire hose but with several other social networks. Layered on top are deep connections with ranking services such as Klout.

How do I feel about this?

I love the idea that all this data is available in one place to search, analyze and share. I also see the flip side.

You’ve seen the TV shows where the guy at a computer pulls up all of the images from traffic cams and such? Imagine, without a warrant, probable cause, or even a crime, that any agency can track your history on the large scale and follow you live as you move about the city.

Sure there are some ways individuals could do this now, but they’re limited by the same search tools that you can somewhat avoid. The average criminal doesn’t have the volume this tool will provide.

I’m thinking of become a private detective. Ha. I can follow you anywhere through not just your information but a flexible search programming language.

Okay. Enough of my rant.  How do you feel about it? Dangerous? Epic? Did you just love Nik’s voice?

Cheers and watch what you share.

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Violet Blue runs a great blog, TinyNibbles.com. Part of that includes sharing cool things including photos, stories, and of course stickers. Very special, NSFW stickers!

Being so generous, if you contact her and ask for cool stickers, she sends them out personally. Even taking the time to seal the envelope with a Violet Blue sticker, one with her address on it.

You know I had to ask for some!

I immediately had to snap some pics of the stickers and envelope. Said pictures ended up on Flickr moments later. My faux pas? Forgetting to black out the address on the label.

Seen above, only her name and blog title show on the sticker. This change was made at Violet’s request but I should not have needed a reminder.

Best practice – don’t share if you weren’t specifically given permission. In this situation, it would open Violet to any random person being able to reach out to her. She doesn’t routinely give out her address, preferring to control access.

This falls in the category of  - don’t out people.

• don’t give out their phone number
• don’t share their address
• don’t share their partner preference
• don’t share their kids names

You get the idea. Making this a normal part of our behavior is all it takes to be considerate of others.

/rant off – Contact @violetblue and ask for some of those keen NSFW stickers. You and your friends will enjoy them.

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Courtesy of NoobArt.com

You join a social network. You update your profile. Finally, you’re asked to upload a picture. Most people stop at this point and ask themselves if they have a photo.  If you’re new to social networks and perhaps cameras, you won’t have a good one handy. But look, you’ve got a camera in your cell phone. Pow. Instant profile pick.

I’m here to tell you that photo isn’t working.

There are a few ways to tell your avatar might need a revamp:

• Blurry – unless your brand is about blurring things go with something sharp.
• Dark – most common issue.  The photo is too dark to make out who you are.
• Busy – avatars with lots going on are hard to make out when shrunk down.
• Too Wide – here the problem is you’re using a logo or symbol and when cut down to a square the logo goes outside the box. Not so much a problem if the logo is simple and has no words. Often see this with companies having long names.

Here’s my top five tips for a better avatar picture:

1. Light – take the photo in a well lit room or outside with lots of natural light.
2. Close – get close up. If you’re head is a dot in the photo you’re too far away. If you can’t do this yourself, enlist a friend.
3. Focused and sharp – use a tripod and timer. A friend can be substituted for both. The goal here is to get the shot in focus and at a high resolution. That old camerphone might look like it takes great photos. That is until you compare it to a regular camera.
4. Square it up – once you’ve got that photo or art crop it down to a square.  Twitter avatars are always cropped by the system to a square.  If your shot goes over the sides, it will as well on Twitter.  Facebook crops a bit differently  and often results in the top of the photo being cut off.
5. Readable text – words should be short with big letters. Test that bit of text by shrinking the image to 75×75 pixels. Bright and/or contrasting colors work well. Avoid script lettering.

As always, general good photography rules apply.

A little secret as well here. You are not required to take the photo yourself.  There is no requirement that it be a self portrait photo. Cull through shots of you by others and get permission to use one as your avatar.

Fun idea: at your next tweetup have folks take head shots of each other.

As a bonus, I’m including this smiling face image for you to use as an avatar till you get a good one of your own. Please download and use. It’s already at 75×75 pixels.

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Why wait for Spring?  The New Year is the perfect time to clean up and clean out your social networks!

Clean up – it means different things based on context. Social network clean up is about removing dead weight, be it contacts or entire network profiles, subscriptions or even what you publish. Accumulating new contacts, signing up for new feeds, and adding networks is easy to done and often done without though of future removal.

You’re likely making hundreds of additions or more in a year. How many do you delete?

How about some clean up steps to get you started?  A few easy tips follow:

• Facebook
  • Remove unused applications
    • Bonus – block them as well
  • Remove groups
  • Remove contacts
    • Remove those who have no wall posts
    • Remove those who you share no interests with
      • This is easier if you’ve removed unwanted apps and groups
    • Remove anyone you don’t know or recognize
• Twitter
  • Remove zero contributors
    • If they only tweet links to their blog, just subscribe to their blog – unfollow
    • If they only tweet get (rich, followers, etc) quick – unfollow
    • If they have no replies to anyone – unfollow
  • Remove unwanted junk contributors
    • If they tweet about porn and you’re not into that – unfollow
    • If they constantly tweet pictures and no text – unfollow
    • If they use a lot of hate speech – unfollow
  • Remove bots (self explanatory)
• Other networks – Should you stay?
  • Do you follow people here in a way you can’t follow them elsewhere?
  • Do you create content here you can’t create or share from anywhere else?
  • Is this the only network your family can use?
  • Is it the only place you can connect with people you must keep in contact with?

Realize Other Networks recommended for review should include LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and more.  Don’t cut yourself any slack.

Bonus: unsubscribe from any emails you don’t read at least twice a week. Do this step now!

I’ve already begun this process by unsubscribing from several mailings. Facebook contacts are already being paired down. Twitter contacts get screened at addition but I have another bonus tip there – create a private Probation list.  Add folks to this list when you follow them if you suspect they might be trouble.

Go.Cleanup.Smile.  - What are your clean up tips?

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