New Facebook: Chapter 1 (新フェイスブック : 一の章)

I'm at home today sick from work, which sucks because I like work. It's that kind of cold where you're half-awake and fairly able bodied but you cough like typhoid Mary and so it's probably best you should stay home. So my doctor and supervisor said. So I decided to test out the new Facebook Timeline feature.  

It's like clockwork. Whenever I teach a class on Facebook(FB), it changes soon-after. Leading me to have to teach it all over again.  One of my students(adult) called me in a frantic when they saw the Facebook Timeline Promo Video .  But really is it that bad? 

It is a bit much I have to admit.  Everyone swears they're going to "quite Facebook" but most won't. Nobody quit Myspace because of a change.

Really? Who cares?

  So far there are a few features that have me curious as to whose bright idea it was to put this on FB.The main one is "Life Events: Health and Wellness".  Since  my Gastric Bypass surgery is no longer a trade secret, I tested it out.  I clicked on the apple icon and selected "Had Surgery", added a picture from highschool, and the next thing you know.  "Had Gastric bypass surgery - Bye bye blubber" is apart of my Facebook Timeline.  Admittedly I see the novelty in having a living auto-biography but I'm not sure I want to share my Timeline with 500 people.  Of course FB's answer to this is "you control what people see" so it's not very difficult to pile people into "Limited Profile" and hide it from them.
I stand by my Social networking mantra "Very personal things about my life I don't put on Facebook because if I want you to know, you will."  I don't just mean by talking in person, being 3000 miles and 3 hours time difference from home, I use texting, e-mail, and even Facebook (messages) to communicate with my friends and family back East.  Instead of sharing and filtering through 500 friends that "I got over the flu".  Though I do tout my near-decade success of Gastric bypass but honestly standard messages fit the bill. I can understand someone wanting to shout that they overcame Cancer but does it truly need a separate categorisation?

Am I nit-picking? Just a bit but there are other things about this new Timeline that I am questioning its feasibility but that's another post.  Today I'm doing a bit of microblogging via Twitter and HireJasmine Page on FB until the next post.

Serve America

Maybe it's my background. Small city, military town (Augusta, Georgia) that makes me perhaps a bit more patriotic than people "expect".  As a youth it was my secret dream to be a Naval Engineer.  Oddly enough it was one of the reasons I convinced myself that my parents were right about me having gastric bypass surgery. Of course 160lbs lighter now know that weight loss surgery makes you ineligible for the reserves. Ah well, what can you do.

So I see Americorps as my chance to serve my country.  And it's with pride that I begin my second year, this time in the ClimateCorps Bay Area.  For my second year I will be the Volunteer and Training Associate for GRID Alternatives, a non-profit here in California that provides renewable energy sources such as Solar Panels for electricity, also known as photo-voltaic (PV) systems. I will be recruiting, training, and managing volunteers so it's a big responsiblity. It's a unique situation because in the Bay Area, GRID actually has a waitlist for volunteers. It is "the" place to volunteer at for a number of reasons. For 1 it's just plain awesome and 2. volunteers at GRID actually help install the PV systems so job experience!  Yep, really. And as a Laney College student/employee and one searching for work in the energy field I have heard solar companies tell experienced construction people who need skills in PV installation to call GRID.  You don't have to pay money to take a course or see if you can tag-along with someone's company you can come and volunteer, in turn helping a family in your community. It's such a win-win situation.  Providing sustainable power at helping Americans gain the work skills they need..

Did she just say "America" *again* Well it is my country, for good or for bad, and the freedom to say "for good or for bad" is why I do love it. No it's not perfect, where is that perfect country?  Living here has given me great opportunities for knowledge and experience that may have not be so easily accessible for me elsewhere. For this I'm truly thankful.

The next 11 months are going to be awesome and as always I'll let you know how it's going along.

take care!

Social Networking Seminar this Saturday!

I am just so excited!  For the first time ever (yes, ever!) I will be giving a workshop on Social Networking that is fully open to the public.  No matter where you're from, what connections you have, no crazy short-notice. All you need is $10 and to be available this Saturday, September 17th from 4-6pm.  It will be held at the Attitudinal Healing Connection, right here in Oakland.

  The featured topics include:

• FaceBook - Overview of basics of FaceBook, creating Friend Groups, understanding the latest privacy policies, photo-tagging, etc. 
• LinkedIn - Why it's important to have, using it to improve your professional networking and job search.
• Twitter - What's the big deal?, scheduling tweets, and the do's and don'ts
• Personal Search Engines- "Do you know how much of your information is on the internet?" 

At $10.00 per person it's an awesome deal and I'm glad that AHC and I are able to do this. My regular rate is $20.00 per hour, which is still a good deal but 2 hours for $10.00? You can't beat that with a stick.  This includes the cost of materials with helpful tips so to help you along when you're practising your new skills on your computer.

If you have a laptop, netbook, iPad, etc (with Wireless capability) I encourage you to bring it, however a laptop is not required to attend. I understand how it is, in fact since my laptop has Linux I'm not 100% certain if I'll be toting my along or not.

Also there is an optional Q&A session following. I like to stay on topic but the Q&A session is your chance to ask more in-depth questions about your particular profile or other forms of Social Media (i.e 4square, Mixbook, Pandora, Spotify, GooglePlus).

You can sign-up at www.hirejasmine.com/seminar.html

If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at info@hirejasmine.com