Perk #3 of Working From Home: Getting the Funk Out!

Today, January 27th, in Kansas City it is 70 degrees at noon and dare I say downright HOT if you're in the sun. 

 I'm throwing all the windows open and airing out the house. Getting the winter funk out of here before the temps drop to the teens by the 29th again.

My pic on Instagram. Follow me: alexisceule

Confession #4: I WANT to Live In a Glass House

I dream about houses.

Quite frequently.

All kinds of houses from contemporary to colonial, California ranch to stone and gigantic castle like houses.

There are 6 that seem to make the rotation in my head at night but the one I like the most is an all glass house.  It sits high in huge Sycamore or maybe it's an Oak tree, in the woods....

The house is all glass: floor, sides and ceiling.  Like a greenhouse or solarium.

 

 

Despite being run down...

It has beautiful bones.

 Several beautiful crystal chandeliers hang throughout to light up the night and add sparkle during the day.

The trim around each window is dark, so it really sinks into the dark night woodsy setting and it's like I'm hovering in the air, in my amazing tree house

The windows are mostly old but in good shape to keep out the rain and cold.

Thanks to Pintrest.com  for helping me define it in photos.

I would look most forward to watching the squirrels chase each other around the tree, from up close.

How To Avoid the $1 Spam Messages on Facebook

Unless the idea of getting spammy messages from people who don't know you on Facebook is appealing, prepare to change your settings.

When people you don't know have sent you a message on Facebook before, it may have gone into your "other" message box as opposed to your regular inbox.  Now however, Facebook is experimenting with a low percentage of users who will pay $1 to send messages to strangers.  It's bad enough Facebook now allows users to pay $7 to promote their own post to reach people they don't know.  It's like Facebook is trying every back door to create revenue and forgetting what this social network's popularity was based off: Friends connecting.

We suggest you switch to the "strict filtering".  At least it's an option for now. Stay with "basic filtering" and see how it goes.  It'll be a social experiment.

A NEW Facebook Feature You'll Like

While social networking for a client, I saw this nifty new "reply" feature in regards to comments left on a status update for fan pages.  

In this case, it was visible on the Lawrence Public Library but I couldn't find it on any of the other Facebook pages I administer or ones I checked from my personal account. I think it's a good idea for a feature so you can directly respond to a specific comment to a post. It will most certainly help organize the thread visually.  

Have you seen this option yet?

Social Networking for Large Brands Feels Like This...

This is what it feels like working/consulting with international large corporate brands regarding social networking.  They are so stifled only by themselves. Meh.

(I've interacted with some lovely large brands that do a fantastic job through social networks. I also find they are have a history of bravery and creativity online. Bravo to them!)

The Busiest Time on Pinterest Is...

Did you know the busiest day and time for pinning, repinning and perusing Pinterest is... Saturday morning?  Yeppers.

Happy Pinning.

Election Day LIKES

I saw these guys in line today at our voting site, a sweet little church in Prairie Village, KS.  A gentleman with a walker and behind him, a young man who rode over on his skateboard. Both in line to vote.  Wonderful.

I found some cool graphics today as well.

and a favorite

Here's a cool sidewalk chalk drawing

I hope you voted.  I did.

What are Your Favorite Photo Editing Apps & Sites?

If you blog, social network, do marketing, merchandise through photos, are a photographer, or promote anything or anyone using photos you took...  which photo editing app or site do you rely upon?   

This was taken and uploaded to PicMonkey which is my favorite website photo editing page.  Great options and right now it has very clever Halloween ideas for your photographs.  Hats off to my husband, Matt Ceule, who let me vampire up his handsomeness.

This gourd photo was taken with my Droid phone app, Instagram.  It's strictly a phone app and not a website to manipulate photos, unfortunately, for I really like the options.

What do you use?

Perk #11 of Working From Home: Wahlberg, Football & Strangle Hold

Has Technology and Social Media Given the 2012 High School Seniors the Lowest Reading Scores in 40 Years?

Is technology and social  media adversely affecting our tweens and teens in school or... are they just evolving faster?

A rather jolting report came out yesterday, Sept. 24th, 2012, about how unprepared our 2012 high school graduates are for college.  The Washington Times hammered it home by pointing out "Perhaps even more troubling than the college readiness number are the 2012 READING scores. The average score on the SAT's reading portion fell this year to 496 out of a possible 800, its lowest mark since 1972 and down from last year's 497."  Data: High school students aren’t ready for college - Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/24/high-school-grads-reading-skills-hit-new-low-most-/#ixzz27UIr3Czr 

My knee jerk reaction is to point a finger the huge surge in cell phone use over the last 5 to 7  years and the ebonics it takes to communicate quickly and efficiently through texting.  In fact if we all strtd typin in textanese, it wud come off a lil mor lik dis form of shorthand n not full words. Cud u handle that? F ur a tween or teen, u cud.   As an adult, I still have to read my 14 year old son's texts out loud.  I suppose if I saw these styles of writing every day in communication with everyone, I'd be pretty darn good at it too.

I heard this summer that nationally, high schools aren't assigning novels that exceed 200 pages anymore, because the students can't maintain the attention for that long.  Sad, strange, makes me furrow my brow and I wince at what they are missing.  However... is this us evolving?   Is it simply we are adapting the way we communicate using our environment of rapid fire technology and availability to so many people at once?  Are our attention spans shorter or are we merely wanting as much information as possible?

I think youth adapt embraced changing the way they communicate because they can. They aren't bogged down with mortgages, insurance rates, raising other humans. They are at a glorious age where they don't fully appreciate or understand the power of effective communication... yet. It's the whole frontal lobe still developing and not understanding the power and consequences of their words, the angst of youth, it's all about  me, I want it now type egocentric lifestyle they are submersed in. Ah, the good old days.  Eventually, they'll want to read and re-read a great novel, a love letter that you want to hang on to for the rest of your life, a poem or a speech that will rattle you to your core.   It's just not their job right now. So they can take traditional methods and tweak them as they see fit.  I don't even think they know we are watching.

    

Our society is certainly more visual than we've ever been.   Instagram and Pinterest's lightening speed rise to popularity are a clear testimony to that effect.  Using a photo in a post on Facebook has proven more than likely to yield greater engagement from friends/followers.  This excites the Facebook algorithms and you're rewarded by getting more of your  messages out to a larger portion of your fans/followers. Even as adults, we are so stretched with our availability, multi-tasking and multi-communicating, we don't really have time to read, but we do have time to see an image.  Infographics are a fantastic summary of a study with graphics, all on one page. See the one at the bottom of this page by http://www.commonsensemedia.org/teen-social-media-infographic .  Great information in a short space. Yes... I have time for that.

If you're an adult and you're reading this, what are you doing?  Are you evolving with technology and with the teens to twenty somethings?  Are you sitting back in  your chair with your arms smugly crossed over your chest and smirking because you think it won't affect you?   Are you kicking and screaming with full on resistance to your keyboard?  Where are you and what is your plan to continue to communicate effectively with the world, with generations, as it evolves around us?

For more thoughts, Here's a blog I posted 2 years ago about how typing classes may be replaced by texting classes. Soon a s d f and ; l k j will be M.I.A.