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madeline and beverly: spring 2010

this past weekend marked the beginning of spring.  i didn’t waste the beautiful weather by spending hours indoors blogging, hanging on facebook or twittering away.  yet i still managed to have my greatest social media adventure to date.
 
this week i hopped a train to my birthplace of nyc.  the purpose was to have a grand reunion with my first grade (& favorite)  school teacher. we hadn’t seen each other in 39 years but recently reconnected via facebook.
 
why was my first grade teacher so special to me?  
miss brochester (or madeline as i now call her) was one of those very special teachers who made learning an exciting adventure.  no matter what was going on in a child’s home, they were able to transition into this magical place that was miss brochester’s class. there, we were told constantly that we were special, cared about, important and smart.  those messages weren’t always ringing out in every home in my part of the world .

ms. brochester was a glamorous 24 year old who had traveled extensively, had a boyfriend and made a girl like me look forward to the adventures of adulthood.  she filled the class with all kinds of fabulous toys.  each day that a student exhibited especially good behavior, we were given a star. after ten stars, we were able to pick out one of those great gifts as a prize.  i am sure that for some of my fellow students, those gifts were the nicest things they had at home.  
 
i thought about those prizes for many years.  i wondered how madeline could possibly afford to purchase them for us. ps. 91, after all, was an overcrowded, inner city school and i can’t imagine that we had many resources for supplies. turned out that madeline worked as a tutor for affluent families and she would ask those families for their extra toys so she could share them with students in her class at p.s. 91. i also found out madeline solicited clothes from these families so that when a student came to school, day after day, wearing the same outfit, she would take them aside, present them with a new wardrobe and restore their dignity.   watching madeline’s eyes light up as she told me a story about a young girl’s posture changing when she could put on new clothes brought tears to my eyes.  madeline’s passion for helping students find their way hadn’t dimmed in all these years.  we spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on our lives, laughing and enjoying each other.   

my spring day became especially bright when i realized that someone i idolized as a child can now be in my world as a friend, live and in person where we meet face to face over a meal. and then for the other times, there’s connecting through emails and facebook messages. i would never think that 39 years later, i’d have technology and social media in particular to thank for reconnecting me with madeline.

so it’s the week after valentine’s day. i don’t announce my romantic status on social media platforms so i, like many other women, get quite a few new “romance related inquiries ” via the internet. one of my social media friends reached out the other day and quite frankly, acted as if i badmouthed his mother or something. since i did not naturally assume the man was crazy (doesn’t everyone have a bad day every now and then?) i pushed to see why this guy seemed to have an attitude with me.

maybe i shouldn’t have asked. turned out the guy was upset because i had not responded to the many virtual gifts he sends me via facebook. really?!!!!!! i mean, he’s got to be kidding, right? is it now considered bad manners not to acknowledge drinks, teddy bears and other items that i’ve never even received?

at the risk of sounding unappreciative and too old-school, i’d like to make a suggestion. anyone who wants to impress a prospective friend, business prospect or romantic interest should reach out the old-fashioned way: through one-on-one communication without giving away a virtual gift. a simple note or call will do.

and while i’m on the subject of spanking folks for sending gifts that aren’t gifts, please don’t send me facebook messages that are made to seem personal but are instead thinly veiled attempts to solicit business. i am much more inclined to read your information (and maybe even act on it) if you are honest enough with me to say “hey, this is a business request and i need your help.” business related messages disguised as personal correspondence are a turn-off and feel insincere. once i get this type of message from a person i am less likely ever to read anything they send me again.

in summary, let’s keep up the correspondence but let’s keep it real. a heartfelt hello or an offer of a “real” cup of tea will be the invitation i respond to every time.

is that you?

last week i wrote about the pain i felt when i looked at some of the twitter and facebook sites of my young friends. a few people responded by telling me i was paranoid about potential employees taking the time to do detective work in looking up job candidates.
i looked to see if there were any surveys done on the subject and was astounded by what i found:

way back in August (light years away in social media time and knowledge) career builder conducted a survey about this very topic. according to this survey, 45% of all employers interviewed said they used social networking to research job candidates. that means almost half of all employers were already hip to checking you out five months ago! imagine how many employers are using this new hiring “screen” now? equally amazing was the fact that 35% of all the candidates who were in the final running for jobs got disregarded because of what they had on their personal twitter and facebook accounts. do you hear that folks? over one third of all applicants in the running got axed from the list because of inappropriate information circulating from their social media sites!

what constitutes inappropriate postings? things like photographs showing drug and drinking use. what does this mean? NO MORE POSING with beer and joints in your hands people! as i say to the older folks who are just learning social media techniques, let’s GET-WITH-THE-PROGRAM!

facebook has been a place to catch up with people i never thought i’d see again in this lifetime. for that reason alone, life on facebook has been a very exciting adventure. whether i reconnect with an old childhood friend, folks from my new york church memberships, or interview subjects from my former journalism world, i am constantly amazed at the ‘blasts from the past’ that i am blessed to catch up with.

because of this great feel-good facebook experience, i became a little lax in qualifying my friends. as with real friendships, one must be careful of who one chooses as friends.

after i caught up with one of my former v.i.p. clients, an nfl player, i became curious as to whether other professional athlete friends were on facebook. i did a quick search of another wonderful guy i used to hang out with.

the friend “friended” me right away and we exchanged pleasantries about the old days. all of a sudden this “friend of mine” asked me something obscene. i checked back at his account, knowing this wasn’t the friend i knew. sure enough, someone had posted this man’s picture and was pretending to be this man. my “friend” was not my friend.

so how to get rid of friends you no longer want to be friendly with? the best short term answer is to block these friends. you block a friend by taking the following steps:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2031204_block-people-facebook.html

when you block an unwanted “friend,” they see only your name and profile picture.

be at peace and get rid of those friends that your grandmother wouldn’t want you to have in the first place.

one piece of social media that i “got” right away is the fact that putting my friends and business contacts on facebook could greatly enhance my communication efforts. all of your folks are in one place. period. it gets no simpler than that. i realized that when i announced a friend’s book party on facebook. i decided to take this route because i got the information just days before the event. since there wasn’t enough time to spend on the traditional press release and follow up calls, i would experiment with facebook.

at that time, i had only about 100 “friends” on facebook. yet i was pleasantly surprised to see that almost 40 people responded to my r.s.v.p. and of those 40 people, seven were friends who happened to be reporters. i spent 1/10 of the time getting that event out on facebook as i had in a traditional media relations effort. that’s when i got hooked.

to be continued…