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I was recently cleaning out some old emails and found a couple of emails from a vendor that got me thinking. Before we get to the actual email, let me tell you the situation. A few years ago, I had downloaded a trial version of a piece of software. Many companies require you to provide some information prior to allowing you to download, so I had provided whatever info they had requested. It’s not uncommon for companies to have someone in their sales group follow up. In this particular case, this vendor was in the same city as me (I’ll refrain from sharing the name of the company or sales person) so a salesman emailed me requesting a meeting.
Here is the email I recieved, with the subject being “[his company name] visit – [my company name]:”
I was driving the other day and an experience with a rude driver got me thinking about how you not only can’t please everyone, but you shouldn’t want to please everyone or even try to get everyone to like you. The bottom line is that while there are a lot of great people out there, there are also a lot of not so great people out there. In fact, there are quite a few people out there who are, to be blunt, just plain jerks.
A decade is an eternity in the world of technology. A site, service or company on top of the world today may be gone tomorrow. So the big question is the future of the world’s most popular social network – Facebook. Will it be as popular? Will something else be the next big thing? Will it even still be around?
Well, no one really knows for sure what will happen to Facebook or social media in general in the next few years. And with so many factors that could make or break a company, it’s about as easy to predict as it is to predict Barack Obama’s successor. Of course, that doesn’t scare me from taking a good educated guess so I’ll not only look at what might happen to Facebook, but also include some scenarios as to how it could be overtaken as the social media juggernaut. So let’s start with my prediction.
I bet you never thought in a million years that I’d admit on this blog that there are things about public speaking that scare me. Well, there are. I’ve been in the speaking business for almost ten years now and while I’ve had my share of successes, I’ve also had a lot of non-successes (I’m trying to avoid referring to them as “complete failures“). Some of them were my fault while others could be blamed on other people, but these are mistakes that I’ll never forget – and that’s a good thing. You see, these are mistakes that I desperately do not want to repeat.
These days, cell phones do a whole lot more than just making calls – yes, they still make calls. Of course, with apps that do everything from connect you to latest social network to addictive games that can keep you busy for hours, the fun can cancel out the productivity pretty quickly. I have an Android phone and I love it (for my iPhone friends, you may find that many of these apps are in the iTunes App store as well). And yes, I play lots of games on it. However, I have found some great applications that actually help me be productive. Here are my top five:
1. Evernote
With the Toastmasters year coming to a close, many clubs are racing to get those final goals completed and choose their officers for the coming year. It’s an exciting time but it’s also a time where people are looking into their own futures as speakers. So it got me thinking about my involvement with Toastmasters over the last couple years and how much fun it’s been to work with so many people from this great organization.
I’ve had a number of Toastmasters clubs contact me through the years for everything from permission to link to an article on this blog to inviting me to speak at their club if I’m ever in their area. The two topics that seem of most interest to them are how make their clubs successful and how to speak outside of Toastmasters.
With use of social media on the rise, it’s not uncommon to see people misusing it. While spamming, cyber-stalking, cyber-bullying and identity theft are some of the misuses that often make the news, the most common misuse is people posting things they shouldn’t.
Now it’s debatable as to what’s acceptable to post to social media depending on your particular situation. You may not be identifiable or have your security settings mastered so only people close to you see what you post. But one thing to consider is that even if you have your profile locked down is that social media sites are prone to bugs and policy changes – both of which can give access to people you don’t want looking at your profile. So here are ten things to never post to Facebook.
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