Archive for March, 2008

Username and Password, Please

Published
by
Hildy
on March 14, 2008
in Learning about Blogging and Tools to Use Now
. 2 Comments

This morning, on a listserv, someone posted a link to her blog - another tale of plagiarism chutzpa. I went to comment, and found I would have to log in to do so.

And so I didn’t.

I know Web 2.0 tools now allow everyone to form a community, and allow everyone to now track who is using your site. But just because the tools allow it, do we all have to do it?

Nick, our office curmudgeon, sent this Sheldon comic around the office, after yet another office-wide rant about logging in and joining networks.

At Forbes’s online site, I have to sign in if I want to read the comments. At many sites, I have to log in if I want to make a comment. I don’t want to be part of their community - I just want to read the article!

I am sick of logging in. I am sick of being asked to join everyone’s group on Facebook. I am sick of the repeated invitations to join Linked-In, by people I do not know.

If a business wants me engaged, forcing me to engage (i.e. give them contact info) is not exactly what I call “engaged.”

If a group wants to build “community,” my vision of community does not include a clubhouse with a lock and key. To be honest, that’s my vision of what community helps tear down!

So can someone please tell me - other than benefiting the people who run those sites and want my info - what’s in it for me to keep having to log in?

Republicans and Debt

Published
by
Hildy
on March 9, 2008
in Changing the World, Education and Healthcare
. 3 Comments

Ben Stein is no liberal. A speechwriter and attorney for Nixon and Ford, a devout believer in the legacy of Ronald Reagan, Stein writes a column in the Business Section of the NY Times as a Republican economist.

And that is why you will absolutely want to read this column, and send it to everyone you know.

Here is just a smidge of his amazing advice to John McCain re: tax cuts:

To put it even more starkly, the government - which is us - needs the money to keep old people alive, to pay for their dialysis, to build fighter jets and to pay our troops and pay interest on the debt. We can get it by indenturing our children, selling ourselves into peonage to foreigners, making ourselves a colony again, generating inflation - or we can have some integrity and levy taxes equal to what we spend.

Thank you, Mr. Stein, for sharing what no candidate will ever share - the Tax Cut Emperor has no clothes.

Monday Morning Rock Out!

Published
by
Hildy
on March 2, 2008
in Changing the World, Monday Morning Rock Out! and My Inspiration
. 0 Comments

It’s Monday. And as we head out to create the future of our world, we all need a little inspiration! To those of you new to the blog, that is the purpose of the Monday Morning Rock Out - to put a little sanity and joie de vivre into work that takes all the collective “umph” we can muster!

This week’s Rock Out is dedicated to the voice of young people everywhere.

I know I talk a lot about engaging young people in our work. So instead of my rambling rants, I thought I would let a member of the younger generation speak for herself.

Yes, out of the mouths of babes.

But stop and think: When was the last time you were open to getting this much honesty and clarity from the young people in your own community? When was the last time you asked them about what they fear, what makes them happy, what they aspire to create in their communities?

Regardless of your mission, it is their future we are creating. We can create it FOR them (and look how well that’s worked so far…). Or we can create it WITH them. For my money, I’d bet on that latter option any time.

So that’s your challenge this week: How will you engage the honesty and energy and wisdom of the young people in your community? How will you start working WITH them, instead of FOR them?

(And then, when you have begun to finally integrate young people into the very fabric of your work, it’s time to aim at the other end of the spectrum. There is more honesty and energy and wisdom there than we give them credit for either.)

Have a great Monday and a great week, all!

(If you are new to the Monday Morning Rock Out, you can find previous Rock Outs here - enjoy!)