i think i broke all these rules...

...when i first started working for real, back in the... uh... 80s.

could that be why i'm so tired now?

nonetheless, newly-graduated ones who will NOT be returning back to the college classroom this Fall, take heed and read this post. Good tips include:

1. Positive Thinking. A common thought that may pass your mind. ‘Oh my god! I have to get up at 7am for every day for the rest of my life. Noooooooooooo. Trust me, block this thought out. It can only do you harm!

I STILL GET THIS ONE WRONG. The angst of the rest of my life waits for me when my eyelids come alive, including the: whyyyy soooo earrrrly? question.

The thing is, once you have a baby, and the a school-age child, you have to get up this early even if you don't work at a 9-5 job. So better get used to those early mornings. Maybe you'll be better at it than I am. 23 years post college graduation.

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is it bedtime yet?

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coming up on 21

august 9th is our 21st wedding anniversary.

i was 22 when I met george. i was 24 when we got married. I have known him more than half my life. i have lived more years with him than without.

it is a strange and amazing thing, that point at which a couple crosses over the more-years-with-you-than-without-you chasm. it comes with a lot of tears, love, sweat, heart wrenching changes, holding on, letting go, figuring out, losing, finding, circling around, landing. maybe not for every couple, but for most of us who survive the perfect storms I think it's that way. the undoing of what was undone long before you ever came together, and then the placing pieces in new designs, a mosaic of wounds healing, a together together.

i'm not sure what we're doing for our anniversary; something quiet maybe. we're hoping to head to Savannah later in the month for a couple of days, Jenna in tow. I've never seen the Georgia coast.

i love him.

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sleepover

it's party time. it's webkinz time. it's club penguin time. it's making beaded necklaces time. it's popcorn time. it's polly pocket time. it's melatoin time.

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Winkie

Winkie
Originally uploaded by AKMA

A Star is Born! Congratulations to Pippa, AKMA and Margaret's talented daughter!!!

wikipediaphobia

stumbled upon a great list of phobias, which is always fun late at night. now we only need the web 2.0 version with fear of wikis and scobles and stuff.

--

directory of open access journals

From Tom comes this pointer to the Directory of Open Access Journals, a wonderful source and resource for READABLE-WITHOUT-PAY journals in many many subject areas. What an amazing find.

From the Mt. Sinai Journal of Medicine (article on cardiac catheterization stents here) to Music Theory Online, and that's only in the "M"s. Check out the Subject Tree.

Tom is a man with a mission, and we all benefit from his determination. Not to mention his humor and impressive library of titillating images.

How I spent my summer vacation. Thanks Tom!!

Blogging While Brown - Welcome to Atlanta

I hear from Karsh that Atlanta is home to the future Blogging While Brown Conference, scheduled for next summer. They even have a wiki, and a conference isn't a conference these days without a wiki.

Well it's damn TIME we do something useful here in Atlanta in the social media space. I just told George. He said, "Really? Cool!" I'm sure he could be talked into participating, presenting, or something. But you didn't hear that from me.

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Disney Coughs Up a Nearly a Billion Dollars in the Race to Grab Virtual Tweens - Acquires Club Penguin

Having just paid the monthly renewal fee for Club Penguin today, I was interested to see that Disney just nabbed the tween-based social networking site for $350 million with another $350 million to follow if earnings targets are met.

HOLY CRAP.

All this time we thought the high-value social networking sites like FaceBook and MySpace that we old people started crashing was where the action is. Ha ha ha. The Internet's getting younger every day, friends.

Jenna, soon to be 10, first heard about Club Penguin from a friend at the beginning of summer. I've watched all summer as she's given out her penguin's name to one friend after another, telling kids who didn't know about the site to meet her there.

On Club Penguin, kids get their own penguins and a variety of objects for free. A monthly subscription of $5.95 (which we pay--making it the ONLY social networking site I give actual hard currency to) gives the kids personalization options, like the ability to decorate their own house, buy special items, etc.

At the beginning of the summer, I had never heard of Club Penguin. Today, our daughter and all of her friends are on Club Penguin. In fact right now, as I write this, they're IMing and skating around the rink like little furbies on steroids.

SO why did I -- expert on social networking and Internet savvy mom -- decide that club penguin was worth six bucks a month?

First of all, the range of activities for the kids is expansive. Ships come every so-many weeks and bring new games for them to play. She's learning tons about how to navigate online spaces. She takes pride in the intricate details of the houses she has built. She can play with her real world friends even when I don't have time to drive her around. I can work in relative peace. But MOST of all? It has a great safety record.

The kids go through a very good tutorial about what is okay and not okay on the site. They are empowered to alert the site of any other member who breaks the rules. So far, I have not seen problems, although it will be interesting to see if the site changes in any way now that the hand of Disney is inserted.

All of this is to say, I just told Jenna: Disney bought Club Penguin for $350 Million! And she ran off and called a friend and said, "Disney just bought club penguin--guess how much!? $350 MILLION DOLLARS!" And that friend just ran and told her brother. News is spreading fast.

Some fast facts about Club Penguin:

Score another one for the Canadians - Club Penguin is the brainchild of British Columbia-based New Horizon Interactive.

Club Penguin has 12 million users, 700,000 of which, like me, pay. [OMG a business model!]

Club Penguin as the third most popular virtual world, while Second Life ranks 12th. Webkinz, the other site my daughter belongs to, is number 2. (Webkinz business model may be even more lucrative, with a realworld merchandising component involved since kids have to buy the stuffed animal to get a code for their online experience.)

Average age users are between 6 and 14.

From a financial perspective, Disney gains $4.95 for every dollar it spent month one. If there are 700,000 users paying $5.95 each, and Disney pays $700,000 out of pocket, well, help me with the math.

Sounds like a WIN-WIN to me.

Grown-ups, lets get busy.

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Tags: social networks, social media, Club Penguin, Disney, Tech, Blogging, Marketing, Advertising, Internet, PR, Tweens, LOTS OF MONEY

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Facebook Cool - except if you're "old"

Ronni has an interesting post on FaceBook's non-action (despite terms of service violations) toward some nasty groups that are aimed at dissing and degrading elders or "old people." I would imagine as a popular social network that started out for college kids, then all of a sudden got interesting enough and good enough feature-wise to attract the rest of the Internet, FaceBook's original demographic colliding with their elders offers plenty of incentive for conflict.

All of a sudden we show up at their party--a party they were having as a way to get AWAY from us. We represent what some of these younger people are rebelling against--their parents, authority, anyone over 30. What better place for some to spew stuff they wouldn't dare aim at mom and dad who are paying for college than at their parental proxies on social networks? I say some, because my nephews and niece are on FaceBook and MySpace, and I see them honoring elders, not projectile vomiting at them.

As one commenter at Ronni's said, all of these kids will one day be old--that is unless they mouth off to the wrong person and don't make it past 23. Unfortunately, many of them will also remain stupid. I wonder how many are American kids? I wonder if primarily European social networks have similar hateful groups targeted at the elderly? Why do I doubt it?

Ronni is right that those groups are violating FaceBook's stated terms of service. I don't think leaving FaceBook is the best way to raise visibility--I think staying and representin' is a better way, but I certainly don't fault anyone who is bored enough or sick enough of the FaceBook thing for booking.

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STEVE DELIVERS! What a Prince!

A Wicked Cool surprise from reader Steve in the UK who delivered Prince's new only-released-over-there CD -- it came it came!!! So far I've gotten it away from Jenna to hear the first two tracks which are interesting as usual for Prince. But oddly so. The first track - Planet Earth - I described to George as Pink Floyd meets Earth Wind & Fire. So, you know, go ponder that sound fest for a minute or two.

Okay, THANKS AGAIN STEVE!! More as I get time to listen. (And thanks to my other buddy across the pond for the mp3s!)

People. They really do surprise.

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FaceBook - Right Name, Right TIme

I know everyone is talking about Facebook, which is why I haven't jumped up and down too much over here. But the things that I'm finding interesting aren't what I see the Web 2.0 experts talking about.

What fascinates me is Susan.

Because, the most real-world-impacting thing about facebook is its faces.

Because Jenna didn't have a cousin named Susan with a smile and a face and a camera phone two days ago, but now she does.

1 day, one face, new family.

Low and behold, I start the Sessum facebook group and we find that Susan's father and George are first cousins, that Jenna and Susan share the same great-grandfather. And now Susan has put up family pictures and George is staring at faces of an Uncle he never knew -- but in his face he knows, you know? -- and looking into smiling eyes and onto etched hands that remember him forward into now.

That could not happen with the velocity with which it IS happening because of Facebook. It could not have happened with such speed and clarity in the vastness of the Internet through search.

It could not happen with blogging because WE -- George and I -- hog the "sessum" search results on google. The Sessums we sift through are ourselves. Are you talking about us and us talking about you. We would never find Susan or Michael or Fred through blogging, and we would never find them BECAUSE of blogging -- because blog results inundate Google search results. And Sessum results are mostly yours truly.

It could not happen with MySpace either, because MySpaces's search capabilities have remained lackluster, despite press releases and claims to the contrary. And because MySpace is more bling and sing than face.

Similarly, with the Dimino group, with 20-some other facebookians -- two of whom are my nephews and one my niece -- we are finding one another: I am not only their aunt anymore - they are not only my brother's kids: we are creatives. From my family group I learned -- through a probable relative's grandmother -- about the long held belief that all Diminos come from the same village of Sicily, this fishing village.

From there, my imagination gives birth to stories. I am transported.

We are the social Web, family.

When we begin to participate on the Internet's intranets -- like FaceBook -- with others who say yes this is who I am and this is my face I'm on this book with you, then we find each other in new ways. And we become new to one another. And the new becomes familiar.

In groups, through play, the way the web has always worked, we meet and move forward and sideways and through together. We expand. We are evolving from hyperlinked-conversation-based relationships.

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Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Web 2.0, Internet, intranet, social networks, myspace, advertising, PR, Marketing, communication, business, everythingisfaces = Powered by Qumana

letting go

Going to the pool in the summer has long been my ritual for peace of mind, or some semblance thereof. For lots of reasons, this summer has been on the lacking side of peaceful. But today I made it to the pool with jenna and friends and it was really really nice and really really needed.

...

RIP Max/Marshmallow.

max in his younger days.

"I sure hope she's pregnant."

An odd thing for George to be saying when he walked into the bedroom at about 1 a.m.

"Who? Huh?"

"The hamster--I hope she's pregnant."

"Why?"

"'Cause he's dead. Dead dead dead."

That's how I came to learn that our elderhamster Max, AKA Marshmallow, loving husband to Cupcake and the longest living hamster in show business, had been Promoted to Glory as they are known say in The Salvation Army.

It was bound to happen. He had far surpassed the average hamster lifespan of 2-3 years, survived innumerable stupid hamster tricks and a lengthy marriage to his first wife, Coco, who ate their 13 babies back in 2005 after I mistakenly separated mom from babies. He was also the sweetest hamster we've ever had, and father of all hamsters we've ever had, except for his two wives.

I think of Coco, who died last year on Halloween, and the birth of their first litter of babies, spitting like popcorn from the hamster wheel. I think back on when I tried to figure out what to tell Jenna and opted for the truth.

She heard us talking tonight and already knows about Max. She's glad it's not the cat. A story for another day.

Recently we could tell that Max was aging fast, and that's when George came up with the idea to get him a new mate in Cupcake. We did a trial run with them in the same cage a month ago, but no babies. We put them back together a couple of weeks ago, so we're really hoping for some offspring to remember Max by.

Babies or not, Max you were a gentleman among hamsters. I'll miss you.


==

the be all end all of the weinberger v keen thang

Madame Levy summarizes it better than anyone i've seen. i LOLed five times. "mustard is a no go area for most people. trust me." oh man.

i hadn't been reading this stuff and now i don't have to. she's like the cliff notes for blogosphere dust ups. and she cleans fish tanks too.

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what you need to know 2

$
===

behavioral science

This chat is off the record Learn more Cancel

me: what if a nut falls on my head?

madame: just act crazier than them. this always works.

me: ok thx

What a Wonderful Surprise!!

So Steve, a valued reader from the UK, did the nicest thing since my new mac, which you are not going to believe.

Steve saw my writing and wanting for the new Prince CD, Planet Earth, which is available so far only in the UK given the stroke of anti-establishment marketing genius from The Artist himself, and decided to send me a copy -- w00t!

In case you think he's trying to pull the wool over our eyes, dear friends, I give you exhibits A and B. HOW COOL IS THIS:





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On the Radio

Oh, I was so surprised and shocked, and I wondered too
if by chance you heard it for yourself
I never told a soul just how I've been feeling about you
but they said it really loud
they said it on the air
on the radio whoa oh oh
on the radio whoa oh oh
on the radio whoa oh oh
on the radio whoa oh oh now, now
--donna summers, on the radio


Tonight I join Social Media Diva Toby Bloomberg on her new BlogTalk Radio Show. Toby, Wayne Hurlburt and I will be talking about social media ethics (yeah, i know!) trying to define what it mens, how and if bloggers differ from journalists in complying to rules/mores/norms, how much any of this matters and to whom, and more. A half hour isn't very long, but let's get the party started. Show notes are here. Wish me luck.

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The decisions we make in our 20s...

The decisions we make in our 20s...
Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

i love that Betsy and Ronni keep taking us back in time. SO many of us spend our time online predicting things to come--it's nice to see the past join us, remember us. That's what makes this picture of Betsy in her 20s -- Pregnant and adorable -- so special.