So, I quickly ran over to my profile and adjusted the Notes Application to Import my Active Rain Blog, and temporarily suspend my RSS Graffiti so I could see what was going on.  Immediately, my blog from yesterday was posted to my profile.

Not bad… It grabbed the picture I would have selected, and left off my digital signature pics, and the header pic.

[Make sure you go to Settings - Application Settings - and edit the Settings for Notes to set your proper security settings and if you want the Notes to be published to your Streams.  I have my security settings set for Friends and Networks, excluding members of my Competition group.]

Now, right off the bat, I see a problem:  and that is, the above post has appeared three times on my Wall. And I do not see any settings to adjust to prevent duplication.  There were three comments on this post, so I wonder if the comments are updating the RSS feed.  This would be bad…

So, while this does not appear to be a final solution, I am going to play with Notes on my Personal Page, but continue using RSS Graffiti on The Stage Coach’s Fan page.

Let me know if you’re able to get this to work for your pages!

but that’s not why I am posting this.  As I was typing a “Why you incompetent moron” message to him, I realized there was a little note under the message box.  It stated:

If you send Robert J Russell a message, you will give him permission to view your list of friends, as well as your Basic, Work and Education info for one month.

So, resist the urge to sound off at these bozos because you will just wind up sharing MORE personal information with them.

If you see Robert J Russell, spit on his boots for me, would ya?

Now, much to both of our dismay, the coffee shop was now For Lease.  Oy!  And we had to head back West on 79 and grab a cup @ the Starbucks just past Red Bud.

I was very disappointed.  Mostly because I think Starbucks is like Microsoft (probably not a coincidence that they are both from the Seattle area) and every dollar I do not spend with them helps some one else.  And it is hard for me to spend $4 on a cup of coffee when I can buy a canister of coffee for the week for $3.50.  Plus, being a local business, I prefer to spend my ‘deductions’ at other local businesses when I can:  Hardware stores, nurseries, restaurants, coffee shops, movers, etc.

So the lesson I learned this week is reminiscent of the old Yellow Pages commercial:  “Phone first – before you go.“ Just because you found the company’s website does not necessarily mean the business is still in operation.  A one minute phone call would have save me some embarrassment.  Good thing she was an Associate, and not a Client!

Then on Sunday, there was an article in the Austin American Statesman, Business section, Job Hunting? Beware of what recruiters see online” by Candice Choi of A.P. I was quite floored in regards to the statistics thay were provided:

1. One survey reported that 34% of the time, Social Networking sites are checked as part of the employment process.
2. And 19% said they plan to begin checking these same sites in the future.
3. Of those who check the Social Networking sites, 47% said they did so before contacting the applicant.

So, here we have a blog saying, “Be yourself”, followed by a newspaper article saying, “Becareful being yourself.” Hmmm. Interesting. Both make good points. So what do you do?

Personally, I signed up for Facebook for professional networking for The Stage Coach. I plan to figure out my account security on the site, to keep too many people from seeing too much about me, but will try to balance that with accessibility. And I fully intend to ask old friends to refrain from digging up pictures and posting them online – when they do, I will just ask them to remove the tag pointing to me.

Mainly, I plan to be myself. I will continue to jabber back and forth with friends from Chicago about the political craziness emanating from that town at this time. I will continue to keep up with my sister and her family, and keep her in the loop with ours. If some one feels that my book choices are offensive, or I crossed a line with my latest status update, it is probably in my best interests not to work with them. And I am OK with that, because that is who I am.

And I think that is the bottom line for these Social Networking sites: you have to accept responsibility for the choices you’ve made along with the consequences.

P.S.: Feel free to Friend me on Facebook!