Outrageous! Negligence of some bloggers might be painful for innocent people!!!!

Dear Readers,

This morning I was completely shocked not once. First, when checking my email I found a letter from a fellow Linkedin group member informing that someone named Lewis Marchand, member of Procurement Professionals group on Linkedin used my photo for his identity.

Then a friend and colleague of mine complained about him being used as a "test rabbit" by a contributing writer of Suite101.com Cathy Herold in her article "Fired for Facebook: Watch What You Say on Social Networking Sites"

His photo has been used for a title picture implicating him being fired for using Facebook or any other social media site. 

This is outrageous!!! Although I do understand the nature of Web and confusions it might bring, this is something very insulting!!! Not only my friend has never been associated with any scandals or arguments over using social media websites, he's actually stands for the company in online world!

Not mentioning about his importance and usefulness for the company. He never been fired for using Facebook!

P.S if you agree with me and think it can't be overlooked then please join our protest and write your comment to the author of that article, here is the link - http://www.suite101.com/content/fired-for-facebook-watch-what-you-say-on-social-networking-sites-a332447

Larry King to host his last show - Don't Miss!

On this Thursday night the television history will be made. One of the legends of the small screen will be broadcast his last live show.

Veteran CNN talk show host Larry King hangs up his famous suspenders Thursday, after a quarter of a century of interviewing the powerful and famous.

The 77-year-old, who will be succeeded by former British journalist Piers Morgan, is finally retiring from "Larry King Live," the show he has presented on the Atlanta-based news network since 1985.

During more than two and a half decades the famous show seen as its guest celebrities and world leaders, sportsmen and business executives, in a word all prominent and powerful from all spheres of life.

Those big names were drawn from the worlds of politics and entertainment. In politics his guests included Margaret Thatcher, Vladimir Putin, Yasser Arafat and every US president since Richard Nixon.

Other highlights included Playboy founder Hugh Hefner with a bevvy of Playmate girlfriends, Mike Tyson interviewed inside the boxing ring at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas

Tributes have been flowing since he announced he was leaving the show. "We will miss Larry's giggle. We will miss Larry's stupid suspenders," said Washington Post TV columnist Lisa de Moraes.

"We will miss the way he, at times, has no idea who he is interviewing. There will never be another like Larry," she added.

King's last show, broadcast from CNN's Los Angeles offices on Sunset Boulevard, will air at 6:00 pm Pacific Coast Time (0200 GMT) Thursday, and CNN says it has "a bunch of surprises for him."

Armin Only Kiev - Mind-dazzling Show!

Wow! No, even WoooooW! Honestly, it's difficult to put it into words! It was magical! 8 Hours flew like a second immersing yourself into atmosphere of pure Trance!

That only symbols coming to my mind after yeasterday's magical performance by the Armin van Buuren in Kiev! To say that it was the best ever musical, lighting or atmospheric show I ever been is to say nothing! I saw people from all over the world came to see the show for the first, second and even third time!

 From Twitter I found such a comments: "@Armin - I had visited your 3 performances in Kiev before and it was the the greatest." And that's true! I still keep my bracelet pass - still can't believe it was real!

What strikes me the most is how Armin radiate energy throughout whole 8 hours set and keep people magnetized every second. It was the feeling that all became a one integral essence connected like Avatars.

Especial thanks to Armin crew to Susana, Aria Criado, and of course to unbelievable Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Christian Burns and others! You're the best! The best team! The Best Show!

 

Apple vs. Flash - can we peace them together?

The fight between two giants Apple and Adobe over Flash on the iPhone OS has all the trappings of a major industry rift. With its leader at the helm Apple is on the mission to destroy Flash from the horizons of modern world.

However, what might seen as a war between two old rivals, which battle takes its roots from early days of the Mac actually can harm to development of whole Internet future, especially mobile Internet. Flash, for all its flaws, is ubiquitous to the Web and essential to rich interaction on a huge number of sites. Were it not barred from the iPad and iPhone, it would be one of the shortest paths to creating rich Internet applications that run across multiple mobile platforms.

Many experts believe such technology dissection could lead to an Internet future of multiple, non-compatible platforms, which will hamper to the development and innovation.

The role of community

While the roots of this long-standing battle take its origins back 1989 when Adobe and Apple fought over scalable font technology, which Adobe jealously guarded the role of community and users of their technologies has never been such an important and deciding.

The Internet and Social Media have proved to be a great communication and leverage platform for people to speak out, to stand for their believes and to contribute or prevent things they favorite or disapprove. Latest presidential Election in US, and in Iran, earthquake in Haiti, rescue operation in Chile, and many other prove that we move closer and closer to community driven media, not corporations.

The recently coined term "social authority" gain significance. The community respond has seen many victories such as Facebook policy changes. So I wonder if the community power is already powerful enough to contribute to the peace between Apple and Adobe for the good of all!

By barring Flash from the most popular and exciting mobile devices in existence, Apple denies developers and users an opportunity to create and consume applications that can provide a consistent user experience across platforms. Moreover, this war might lead to further division between platforms and standards, which is not good for both developers and users.

InfoWorld already proposed its plan to reconcile the two. The four-point plan for peace could allow Flash on Apple's mobile devices. Here is its explanation. There are some others initiatives from conscious organizations. So, all we wonder if it has a chance to work? and how we can make it work?

Share your views, join LinkedIn discussion on this issue here

Thanks!

The World's Best Presentation - SlideShare Contest

Slideshare has started a regular contest, “The World’s Best Presentation,” where lots of presentations around the globe will be competing for the bunch of good prizes. The contest is sponsored by 3M and there are some great prizes, including the 3M pocket projector and Macbook.

Prizes for World's Best Presentation Contest 2010 winners

1st Prize MacBook (worth $999) + 3M™ PocketProjector MP180
2nd Prize iPad (worth $499) + 3M™ PocketProjector MP180
3rd Prize iPod Touch (worth $229) + 3M™ PocketProjector MP180
6 Category Prizes iPod Shuffles (worth $49)

The contest uses a hybrid model of crowdsourcing – popular vote and then review by a panel of judges.

Guy Kawasaki is one of the best known authorities on presentations and social media.
David Armano is an expert on visual communication with several very popular presentations on SlideShare.
Carmine Gallo is the author of Presentations Secrets of Steve Jobs and Business week columnist on presentation & communication.
Jane Hart is the founder of Center for Learning and Performance technologies and an expert on social media in the educational space.
Beth Kanter - named by Fast Company Magazine as one of the most influential women in technology and one of Business Week’s "Voices of Innovation for Social Media."


To learn more about contest please click here

Now technology allows to work anywhere - but do we need it?

I always ask myself what does freedom mean? Does it mean do whatever you want to do, be whatever and whenever you want to be? well seems like today technology can help you to become more free.

Recent article "Technology allows digital nomads to work anywhere" by BBC tells the stories of those who chose to live on the road. Sharing their personal experiences most of them agrees that before they saw it differently. "People romanticise the lifestyle, thinking it is all on beaches and we gad about the globe, but it can be really challenging" - tells Lea Woodward who upped sticks three years ago for a life on the road.

First business aspect - "A lot of people are often so keen to hit the road and do the travel bit, that they forget the business aspect. It is really hard to cram everything in, including business, travel and sightseeing." Lea warns that being location independent can make it difficult to get a business going. Even with today's technologies when you are working on the road you do not have an office, you do not have a desk to sit at and you do not always know what the internet connection will be like.

But in this article I want to mention another aspect of this lifestyle. I always dreamed about opportunity to work from hammock lying on the sunny beach with laptop in one hand and glass of cold drink in another. But after having a chance to do so, even for couple of weeks I ascertained myself about irreality of such lifestyle. The matter is not even in the problems with your concentration and devotion as you should do business and relaxing simultaneously which is completely opposite by the nature. It's about the concept of life.

It is known that about 15 percent of population live near the sea, and those are considered to be the happiest among other, well is it? Here is my example to disprove it - recently I spent a holiday in Turkey when met some guys who actually live near the sea in Russia (Sochi). First it was strange to see them in Turkey, but it's another story, so back here, while we spent almost all holidays pleasing ourselves with the warm sea and sunny beaches they never showed up on the beach nor put their limb into the sea.

On my question - why you just don't go with us to swim? they replied "there is nothing interesting for us" - they were bored with sea. Hmm..and they're the happiest people on our planet - not for this time though I thought. In the end it turned out that on average they spent less time on sea during the year than other people who live far from sea.

I picked this story because sea resorts usually associated with holidays and relaxing time, surely those guys have so much other things to please themselves with, but I bet they were jealous of us taking pleasure from each precious day, exactly "precious" - this is the right word! It came to me that we appreciate something when it precious not abundant - recalling that famous phrase "anything, even the best not appreciated if it's in abundance" - agree?

That said I think our holidays is exactly that precious time that we work all other time for, as well as for our dreams, family, love ones etc. so it's better to have such an incentive which drives you to work hard to achieve your goal, to make someone happy to visit your favorite destination. Trying to combine those things you can deprive yourself of such a pleasant and precious time, so this time technology is not good, at least for me :) However, maybe I'm wrong!


Thanks

Google Mail - un-send your e-mail during 30 seconds

Just came across one interesting post-guide on how to enable very useful feature in Gmail allowing to correct what seems to be uncorrectable. Gmail unsend feature.

No stranger to mistakes, Google is now lending a helping hand to its users. Earlier this month, the search engine giant extended the time users can take before deciding to cancel a message. When Google introduced the undo feature in 2009, it allotted only five seconds for users to pull back a message.

But as of this month, Google will now have up to 30 seconds to scream mulligan on their latest message.

How's it possible, you might ask, to cancel a message if it's already been read? Well, the geniuses of Mountain View are actually testing a feature that enables users to set up a built-in delay before a message is actually sent.

Here is a guide to set-up the undo feature:

1. Log in to Gmail and go to Google Labs. If you've never gone to Labs before, click the word "more" in the very top left corner, then scroll down and click "even more."
2. In the column on the right, click "Labs." It's next to the icon of a beaker filled with green stuff.
3. Click "Gmail Labs" in the column on the right.
4. Scroll down almost all the way to the bottom until you see "Undo Send." Click "enable" and the feature is now on. Then scroll the rest of the way down and look in the bottom left corner for the "Save Changes" box. Click it.
5. Now, go back to the main Gmail page and click "Settings" in the top right. You should also see your green Labs beaker icon there now -- this will let you go straight to Labs from now on.
6. Scroll down to "Undo Send" -- it should be right above "My Picture." Your default should be set to 10 seconds. But you can use the drop-down bar to stretch that to 30 seconds.
7. Scroll down and hit "Save Changes."
8. To undo an email, just look for the box at the top of the screen that will have the words "Your message has been sent." After that, you should see the "Undo" option. Click that and you'll be sent back to the e-mail's draft form, where you'll have 30 seconds to edit or delete it before it goes out.

For TweetDeck Fans - how Buzz can help to write longer tweets

Dear TweetDeckers :)

All we know that Tweetdeck is a great tool for your Social Media activity, it's like your TwiBuzFaceLiSquare mission control center which allows you to be in all mentioned online venues simultaneously.

Now Tweetdeck can became your guide to the world beyond established by law 140 characters by uniting forces of Twitter and Buzz.

Cross-posting is what can help you. If you have something to say, but you cannot fit it all into 140 characters, why not cross-post your update to Google Buzz?

With both a Buzz AND Twitter account selected, you can continue to type way more than 140 characters. When you send the update, the full message will be posted to your Buzz account and the tweet will contain the first 116 characters with a link to the full update on Buzz.

Even if you don't want to use Buzz for anything else, adding a Buzz account in this way is a great method of sending longer tweets than normal without having to leave your TweetDeck.

Just remember that Buzz posts via TweetDeck are all Public, so it's best not to use this method for DMs.

The power of LinkedIn - real example!

Dear Readers!

I'd like to share with you my extremely pleasant feelings about the power of social networks in general, and LinkedIn in particular.

Being inspired by incredible attempt of fellow LI member to reach all his connections here on LinkedIn I decided to embark on my personal journey to personally get in touch with all people to whom I have an honour to be connected.

I decided to test the power of Linkedin, to find out more about my network and see what's the potential and common interests we share with my connections. To my greatest amusement and satisfaction I found that not only people in my network, but fellow group members friendly reacted on my appeal. More than 100 responses across the groups during first days, and this figure is growing fast.

Thanks to this little, still undergoing experiment I'm not only reaching out my friends, but getting the new ones as well, very interested and socially active people. That said I'd like to call for being more socially active, be open and welcome. By doing this we not only can enhance our personal experience and opportunities but contribute to the development of the LinkedIn as well.


Thanks to all of you reacting on my appeal! Special thanks to fellow member in the following groups for being so welcome.

1. Health Informatics Technology (HIT)
2. Information Technology Contracting
3. CIOs.com: Chief Information Officer Network
4. ThoseinMedia
5. On Startups - The Community For Entrepreneurs


P.S If it happens that reading this message you connected to me through 1st-2nd-3rd degree please respond with simple comment - here is my public profile

Hey Linkedin - Need a Social Media Strategy to reach Milla Jovovich

I know it might sound crazy, but sometimes we all think about crazy things, aren't we :) So, my crazy idea, actually it might be not so crazy, in fact many colleagues in Linkedin expressed their support and courage in this social endeavor :)

So, let me explain, recently I created a very short and clumsy Youtube (didn't find more appropriate word for it) presentation with tribute to Milla for her spectacular role in Resident Evil franchise on the premiere of four part: Afterlife.

Being a social media enthusiast my believe (proven by practice in business world) is that social media can help you to reach almost everyone, almost everyone, if he:

1. Participates in SM himself - not through agents
2. Not political, military, UFO-scientifical special department agent....bla bla bla
3. Know what is the Internet

Applying my passion to Social Media in my work I saw incredible results in getting in touch with people who was unaccessible otherwise, so full of optimism I started discussion on Linkedin.

Is Social Media powerful enough to help me reach Holywood star?

In which I asked other professionals if Social Media has enough potential to help me realize this "crazy" aim. To my surprise I found quite a positive reactions, with quite a realistic agendas on how to implement it.

But still, I think it's not so easy...and will take a lot of efforts, reasonable efforts (excluding rains of messages and status updates). I need a strategy - real-word practical strategy!

Started from analysis I found that Milla or her authorized profile on Twitter being a Ukrainian-born doesn't have any Ukrainian she follows, she has a Russian - popular comic guy Ivan Urgant (who I like as well) and one more, but no Ukrainians, so I wrote her about it :)

Question: do you give any chance for my Twitter soon being followed by Mila?

I would be extremely glad to know opinion of other colleagues as for the feasibility of this "crazy" idea and steps that can help me.

Here is the tribute itself, hope it makes you smile at least once :) Thanks!