It seems like every week we hear the news of some company’s massive data leak and lost credit card numbers. Also why do they always imagine hackers wearing hoodies. Chances are you or someone close to you has been caught up in one of these leaks. You need to be thinking about your privacy and data security on any device.

It wasn’t that long ago that Equifax was hit with a large breach affecting One Hundred and Forty Seven MILLION people. If you were concerned about the breach you could go check to see if you were affected on a website they had set up. That is if you didn’t get sent a bogus link by Equifax and even the real one gave a random answer.

The good news is that you can pretty easily protect yourself from this for not too much money. Go to each of the three credit reporting companies and freeze your credit. The three companies are Equifax, Experian, and Transunion. Go to their websites and initiate a freeze, it will cost some dollars. When I did it in 2017 it cost me around fifty dollars to do all three and less than an hour of my time.

What happens after you freeze it you wonder. Well a line of credit can not be opened in your name. Credit checks will be kicked back quickly. When you do need credit you go back and do a temporary unfreeze for a length of time you determine. I have had mine frozen for three years now and it has stopped me from buying cars I don’t need. Seriously though it will take you like fifteen minutes to unfreeze them.

The next thing you can do to protect yourself is to thoroughly go through your credit report. The best and only way you should do this is through the Federal Trade Commission’s website. Look for anything unusual and make disputes, the companies have to respond. They have a pretty good FAQ too.

The last thing you need to do is to be prepared to have anything you put online, or have on a device connected to the internet, get stolen. There is not much liability for companies losing your data. Equifax’s stock price dropped pretty hard after the news came out but it is now worth more than before the hack. Sure they had to pay out some money in a settlement, but you know I haven’t seen my check come in the mail yet.

Always be cautious where you put your information. No matter how bad a company drops the ball it is ultimately you who will pay the price. Therefore you are ultimately responsible for your own data and privacy. Also, turn off geolocation on your smartphone camera everyone knows exactly where you took that photo.

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There are a whole lot of misconceptions and falsehoods around gaming and gamers. Some of them I have heard my entire life some are a bit newer but none of them are correct. I am going to discuss the three I have heard the most.

Gaming makes you violent. This is repeated by politicians constantly, and I have heard this said since I was a kid in the early nineties. The American Psychological Association says there is no connection between video games and violent acts. I think this is just an easy target that they think won’t anger their constituents, which leads to the next one.

Gaming is for kids. Oh boy, how wrong they are on this one. The average gamer is now thirty five years old and sixty five percent of households own a device used for gaming. This is a large portion of the population in all demographics. Thirteen percent of gamers are over the age of 50 equally split between men and women. The average American is a gamer.

Gaming is for loners. The basement dweller, you can see him now. Unshaven, unwashed, chugging Mountain Dew Code Red, and eating Doritos. All of the most popular games have an online component. They generally rely on cooperation and trust. People who cause trouble are called griefers and are usually punished for their behavior. Games like World of Warcraft that rely on this positive social environment for paid subscriptions can’t let this run rampant.

Sure there is a lot of negative stuff in competitive games but I would wager that the positive outweighs the bad. This also opens up a chance to talk to people from all over the world from every walk of life. People come together over a shared interest and support one another.

I don’t pretend that there aren’t bad things about gaming and gamers. However I think you and I are both sick of being told we are these misconceptions. Gaming is supposed to be fun and positive. I am excitedly waiting for Doom Eternal to come out. Nothing like coming home from a long day and slaying demons to a great soundtrack. Or you may be the type to relax to Animal Crossing. Either way have fun.

Image Credit: nerdbot

There is much more going on in the world of mobile devices than just phone zombies wandering around. The market for mobile technology is moving in a lot of different directions. Where mobile technologies are being used is growing fast and it will be used in more ways than we can predict.

New cars and trucks are coming loaded with ever more mobile technology. It is easy to see this as a different category entirely but they have 4G and LTE connectivity with Wi-Fi hotspots, built in apps, and they can do the worst thing a mobile device can do. Get a phone call.

Kelley Blue Book even puts mobile tech in the top four slots for best new technologies in 2019. This market is growing quickly as people demand that there vehicles connect more with their phone. The good news is lot of the innovations are being made with your safety as the goal.

The commercial sector is more and more reliant on mobile devices to do business. Tablets have replaced the register in many stores especially small businesses. Industrial businesses use tablets to track maintenance activities and keep an eye on every aspect of their facility. Connecting to sensors and monitoring devices streamlining production, improving safety, and opening a whole lot of new highly skilled jobs.

Let’s not forget the soon to be everywhere 5G. The speed of the 5G network will make streaming available to you in a way that will fundamentally change what you can do with phones. I believe augmented reality will become the norm in my lifetime. Just think of how fun a Triple A title game will be in real work augmented reality. It could be like how the hooligans of my youth played paintball around the neighborhood, except without the property damage.

It is a bright future. All the fears of too much mobile time and how to raise children in the era of Facebook and Twitter will be just like what was said about a generation of people raised by the television. A non-issue. I, for one, look forward to our overlord, Elon Musk, and his Neuralink technology.

Image credit: https://www.pitmanroaringtimes.com/2018/11/are-phones-turning-us-into-zombies/#

I have been hearing some concern lately about Employers’ social media policies and what they might mean. There is a valid debate to be had on free speech and what these employment requirements might mean. Are they leading us into an Orwellian dystopia of Newspeak? I’m here to say that they really don’t change anything.

The first thing we need to do it clarify what Employers can and can’t do regarding terminating an Employee. Thanks to the EEOC, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there are strict laws as to what you constitutes discrimination. Thanks to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 an Employer cannot discriminate against someone in “all types of work situations, including hiring, firing, promotions, harassment, training, wages, and benefits”. Quoted directly from the EEOC website.

Now the part that seems scary, what Employers can do. They can fire you for literally no reason at all. Let’s say you show up to work in an appropriately professional outfit. But today you wore your new shoes. Your boss looks down at your feet and asks where you got your wonderful new shoes that feel like wearing sleeping in on a Saturday. You reply you got them at a local shoe store near your house. He flips, face turning bright red, fires you on the spot because last time he went there he farted in the store and was really embarrassed, but he doesn’t tell you that. Perfectly legal.

This is what you call At-Will Employment and it seems a little scary. It has been this way for a long time and you have probably exclusively had jobs that fell under this as it is presumed to be this way, except in Montana. The most common reason people are fired is because they did something they obviously shouldn’t have like break stuff or steal.

Here is why I say not to worry too much, it really hasn’t changed much. Employers would fire someone for badmouthing the company on the news twenty years ago. The real difference is that you have so much reach online and what you said sticks around for a long time. There is no assumption of privacy online and you should be acting in a professional manner there as well. See my earlier blog on professionalism. Assume that whatever you put online can be seen by whoever you wouldn’t want to see it or make really sure it is private.

If you have been discriminated against in your workplace contact your State’s Department of Labor, no one deserves it and they can’t be allowed to continue.

Thank you for reading.

Image credit to The Fire, don’t know anything about them just snagged the image.

You find yourself busting it trying to get your posts seen. You probably have something good to offer the people you want to reach. Whether that is information, a product, or just a good time you want people to see it and more importantly interact with it. The following is a basic outline of what you need to do to be successful.

I have heard Youtubers saying that you have to post tons of videos before people start watching. Then, once interested, they will binge your backlog. There is something to be said about that but the reality is a little different. You need to post on a schedule. I remember I found a singer I liked on Youtube that had a few good songs and I watched them all, then she didn’t post for a long time. I lost interest and forgot, for a while. Frequency and scheduling are what will keep you relevant and generate traffic. A pro tip is to use a social media content calendar like Trello or use a spreadsheet like Excel or Google Sheets.

It is hard to overstate how important quality is. There are obvious things like how good your content looks. Being a gear junkie is fun and all, but not necessary, in most cases an up to date smart phone will work. Even better when coupled with some enhancing software like Ripl, Unfold, and Mojo. The built in software in a lot of platforms and phones is pretty solid. The goal is to have a consistent look and feel for your content in addition to the expected stuff like spelling and grammar. Set up a little DIY studio. A little tripod, good lighting, a clean backdrop, and a quiet area without echos. I’ll often forgive mediocre video but I can’t do bad sound.

Measurement and analytics is where it seems to get overwhelming, but it isn’t so bad. The best content timed poorly and aimed at the wrong audience will go nowhere. You can look at the most basic data and see how many views or impressions a post got but you would have to work it out by trial and error. There are powerful programs like Meltwater and Cision that will give you far more usable data. You need to consider what demographic you’re audience is and target it on the correct platform. Be sure to match the type of content to the platform. You can then use sponsored posts and boosted posts to spread your content.

TLDR; Take time to thoughtfully craft your content to represent who you are and what you are about. Post regularly, analyze the results, and adjust fire.

Image credit to Boston Globe

Everywhere you look now new media is present. The real world and the online world are no longer clearly two different things. Just think of the reaction of someone saying “I don’t have any social media”. Just take a look at how many people are using these sites. https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

New media is as popular as national TV news. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_as_a_news_source Whether it is through a twitter feed from Fox of CNN or their Instagram accounts or even the aging facebook feed this is where the future of news is. It is tailored and targeted to the recipient. Growing up as a military brat on Navy bases I remember when CNN went twenty four hours and it was on in every facility that had a TV. Now that is common for national news networks. What will be normal in five years?

There is nothing inherently bad about this. Pertinent information can be delivered to affected individuals faster than ever. This will save lives and, I really hope, lead to a more informed voting population here in the US. Just always be aware of where what you are reading came from and verify information from more than one credible source.

Here is the really tricky one advertising. In recent history we have had advertising revolutions. Once long ago a company would flat out tell you why their product was the best. They were hilariously blatant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i8857WvWyQ Could you imagine a new car commercial like this one. Today commercials are designed very meticulously to have a style and voice associated with the brand and to elicit an emotional response.

But here is where the new media advertising is so different. It is data. Every person online is categorized and quantified. What you like and follow will determine who is going to advertise to you. Searching for the right audience to advertise to isn’t anything new. You aren’t going to see vegan foods advertised during a NASCAR event. However it has never been so accurate. https://awario.com/blog/how-social-networks-influence-74-of-shoppers-for-their-purchasing-decisions-today/. Try getting onto a public computer at the library, it’s free, and see how different the ads will be.

One of the best things about the rise in companies using new media is that the average person has a direct line to the company. Your online complaint or compliment, tagged and seen by the company in question, has huge potential for the company. This means that they are much more likely to respond in a way that will help the consumer as opposed to a private phone call, for reference unnamed big cable company https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYUvpYE99vg. Putting them on public display in today’s internet landscape gives them a chance to look like they care and makes poor service a PR nightmare. Overall this is, in my opinion, a positive step for consumer protection.

A whole new industry has sprung up around social media. Digital Communications Professionals are now a thing, heck you can get a job doing it in the DoD. Fifteen years ago if you told someone you wanted to start a company handling social media accounts for businesses and that you would make millions doing it, well we would have questioned your sanity. Today that is a good career. There is great care and planning going into what is going online. Year long campaigns are planned to look like grassroots movements. Strategically timed and placed ads that get spread by the target audience to more of the target audience are a regular thing. In depth research is put into the content and timing of the posts. They track every detail of when, where, and how it was spread making ever more potent ads.

The take away I intended here is that this is a new era of ads. Just like when print media, radio, and TV came into being a lot of experimentation happened. New laws came into place to stop deceptive advertising and new laws will soon happen again. You need to know these things to be aware of what you are seeing and the effect it may have on you or your loved ones.

Remeber the Tea Party, that seemingly patriotic group named after the Boston Tea Party. They were a grassroots movement right? Nope, https://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-unwitting-tea-party-20140523-story.html. Many folks were duped into helping the very people that only had their own interest in mind.

Photo credit https://www.buzzbizz.biz/digital-marketing/social-media-campaign/social-media-logo-collage/

I’m going to start off with a small disclaimer. I am not a combat vet, nor did I deploy to a combat zone. I fixed aircraft in San Diego, but I learned a lot. I wanted to share some things with those that might gain from it. One of the best lessons I learned was how to be a professional and what professionalism is. The definition is the attitude and conduct of someone in a work environment, but today it is much more than this.

Online professionalism is my main topic today, the lines between online and the real world are blurred. The Marine Corps taught me to be professional at all times, didn’t matter if I was staying home all Saturday I needed a clean shave. When does a good Marine need a haircut, never. We had guidelines for how we looked and acted at all times because we represented the Corps at all times.

You represent yourself at all times. What do you want potential employers to see when they look you up? They will look you up, <a href=”https://www.first.edu/social-media-dos-donts-10-tips-on-social-media-professionalism/”>thirty seven</a> percent of employers look up candidates and of those sixty five percent look specifically to see if your online conduct is professional.

As a Marine NCO I was to be “beyond reproach” in my conduct and appearance and this is what you should do online. Never expect anonymity, there is a good list of people getting doxed for what they did online. I really like to follow <a href=”https://dakotameyer.com/about/”>Dakota Meyer</a> online as a good example of what it means to be professional online.

Thank you to those that have read this. Photo credit to https://www.miramar.marines.mil/Photos/igphoto/2001766692/