Teachers & Educators Archives

December 22, 2014 By Fiona Lucas

Reputation management matters

Branding vs Reputation

Someone said to me recently, “reputation doesn’t matter, it’s all about how you brand”.

Wow I thought, that takes the personality out of it, although of course I could understand what they meant. Certainly in business, or for individuals (particularly celebrities), if you create a lot of hype and gloss about something you can get traction even if its not quality information that you are promoting. There are plenty of snake oil salespeople out there but I for one don’t intend to add to them.

“All you have to do is been seen” they said. Yes, true for some people that seems to work, but I certainly do not think it builds any kind of longevity. What you do catches up on you at some point. Just what is it that they are seeing?

There is an audience for those who create hype and gloss, often vulnerable people who are seeking quick answers or desperate for change. That is why there are so many “get rich quick” schemes.

Smoke and mirrors

Puffery abounds in all forms of advertising and never as much as online when often consumer laws are pushed right to the edge in order to make claims about being the “best”, the “top”, make six figures in xx minutes”. For me it’s all about ethical marketing practices, promoting and highlighting the truth of what you do. We all know (or we should) that it takes work to get results. If you pay for a course it won’t guarantee you results unless you take action (unless of course the content is not there and you paid virtually for air, and sadly that happens). You might might six figures in xx minutes if you have a great product, but you wont if there is a mismatch between what you say and what you offer.

When it comes to the online world and social media the only results you can really guarantee is that if you continually stuff up your reputation will get damaged. People talk. People share.

Reputation management is imperative in today’s world and should be part of every business (and every personal) strategy.

There is a famous quote by Warren Buffet “it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you will do things differently”. It’s worth starting to think about it if you haven’t already.

If you are a school leaver or job seeker, what is it that will be discovered about you first in a search online? If you are trying to make a name for yourself in any industry, what kind of name do you want associated with your own

Authentic experience

This is how I see it, it’s my version of something I read at some point and it really hit home with me.

The most damage to reputations comes from a mismatch or misinterpretation of what is said about your business (or you)
and the reality of others experience of you.

So you can do all that hype, puffery and smoke and mirrors stuff, but at some point, the experience people are having of you and your business will be the defining point. You may get away with it for a while, but do you really want to end up on something like “sixty minutes” as the latest scam?

If you have a great business or product, or you yourself are the product (such as celebrity, actor, job seeker, entrepreneur) then reputation management matters!

A quote from Seth Godin comes to mind also “the key to getting a reputation for being brilliant is actually being brilliant, not just acting like you are“.
That says it all really. Be authentic.

What is it that you say you do? When someone works with you is that what they find?

At iRespectonline we get down to the nitty gritty, we explore the experience others are having of you and we help you to bring the best to the fore, and to take action on any negatives.
We don’t work with just anyone either, we look for synergies within your values and your mindset. Whether it’s producing a blueprint for your image online or our social media workshops and training to bring congruence to the whole team, it’s all about reputation.

So have you been caught up with the “bright and shiny” objects? Have you had an experience where there was a mismatch between what was offered and what was delivered?

We would love to hear your stories. Please share with us your experiences (no name and shaming please, lets keep it to respectful discussion).

Fiona Lucas.

If you would like to stay up to date, please sign up to our newsletter mailing list here. We are revamping our newsletter so you can be the first inline in 2015. We don’t spam, our reputation depends on it 🙂

If you would like to work with us, please drop us a line here.

November 8, 2014 By Fiona Lucas

Raising Adolescents

How are you going raising your tweens and teens?

Raising adolescents is both a wonderful period of change and a tricky stage for parents and can be a really difficult time for your children. I like to think of it as our children turning into butterflies. It is a time of massive physical development, hormonal changes and development of the cerebral cortex. For parents it s time when we need to be brave and to understand when to interfere, when to offer guidance and when to quietly observe (fingernail chewing allowed).

Adolescence is a time of change, our children seek greater independence (whilst still very much needing us there) , they are experimenting, testing boundaries and trying new things, all on their path to discovering who they are. Because so much is going on it can be a time of anxiety, perhaps angry outbursts at times, risk taking and a lot of button pushing (it’s so not easy being a parent at this time either is it?). However our children, even if they are acting with maturity, do not have the life experience or the self awareness to necessarily know when they are making a poor decision. Peer pressure, friendship groups, seeking validation and fitting in are all very important to a teen and this can sway them to do things or to act in ways which away from that pressure they might not normally do. This can affect their self esteem and confidence in either positive or negative ways.

Into this mix we now have a world which is made up of face to face and physical contact, and the online world of texts, photos, tweets, posts, comments and blogs. So what happens when you take teen angst, boundary testing, risk taking and give them access to a smart phone or other device? We open up another set of issues to navigate with our teens as they grow.

It is vitally important for parents to have knowledge about what to expect, or what to look out for, and to feel empowered to either help or know where to find help so that poor online behaviours or experiences are not prolonged before any intervention. Prevention is always better than trying to repair damage after an event.

Demonstrating strong family values, particularly that of Respect goes a long way to creating a foundation stone upon which your teen’s future is built. Our recent post on finding the balance and apps which can help you as a parent feel more at ease as your teen heads towards independence can be found here.

There is not enough room on this page to cover every aspect of raising your adolescent, and that is why we partnered with Happy Parenting and the Raising Adolescents, Teens and Tweens Online Conference.

This is a FREE live event running over the course of the week and you will find experts in all kinds of fields available with great advice, guidance and assistance with your questions. Don’t worry if you can’t watch it all live, there is an option to subscribe to have access to all the content and transcripts (along with lots of bonus material) so you can watch and listen in your own time. You can register for Free (there are limited places so we do advice you register as soon as possible.

When you sign up you will be granted immediate access to bonus content including our new eBook “The Social Media Diet” all about getting balance between the online and offline world.

Depending what part of the world you live in the conference start dates are:

Los Angeles: Sunday 9 November, 3 pm
New York: Sunday 9 November, 6 pm
London: Sunday 9 November, 11pm
Sydney: Monday 10 November. 10 am

We really hope to see you there.

July 29, 2014 By Fiona Lucas

Has Meow Chat crept in through your cat flap?

Have you been indundated with requests to connect on Meow Chat? Yet another instant messaging service, this one offered through Facebook, on itunes and google play also allows contacts with randoms, so it’s kind of bringing in some of the dating/hook up/meet up aspects of Tinder along with aspects of WhatsApp. MeowChat claims to already have over 1,000,000 users!

What is disappointing to me is that yet another app is launched onto the market without much need seen for explaining how it works, who its suited for and how to stay safe with it. The very first thing that has happened for many is that upon downloading the app, people accept the “want to send a request to all your facebook friends” question to “build their network” and instantly they have given the app access to all their friends and the spam begins!

There are even anti meow chat twitters starting up due to the inundation of people allowing all their contacts to be sent a request! Perhaps this kind of release just might do more damage than good to the apps reputation(see slightly sanitised version of a twitter search illustrated!).

As with any App its important to look at what the app does, who might be getting access to your information, whose information you are also giving away and any risks to the more vulnerable in our community, particularly our children.

This app in particular has a very cute little kitty cat – so it’s going to have broad appeal especially to the younger children, the very ones we really don’t need on an app that allows random chat.

Here are a few points I would encourage you to consider before downloading.

The App is free – so expect advertising, be wary of third party links
It has built in location features to allow you to connect with “new people nearby” which is always a risk for younger children although it states it only locates a person within the nearest city of
100,000 people .
It encourages random one on one chats
The app seeks to find “similar” people to connect you with, based on your likes – this is very risky where children are concerned particularly
It’s rating is 12+ and includes mild/infrequent mild sexual content and nudity (definition of “mild” will depend on the individual)
It is possible to share pictures, voice messages and video
It does have an extensive privacy policy which should be read which does say that adult content may not be uploaded along with gore or shock images
I could not find a statement relating to what they do with data apart from a rather generic reference to not releasing personal data.
Be aware that when you allow an app to access your friends lists, you are really spamming them with an invite they may not wish to have. Avoid clicking on automatic invites to friends.

I would highly recommend that parents in particular have conversations with their children about the use of such an app and the risk that might arise from “random” meet ups. Ensuring they do not give away their personal details, full name and location is really important for their safety. That 13 year old your 12 year old thinks they are talking too might well be an adult lurking. Other areas to consider relate to linking to other social sites, such as Tumblr. Tumblr has a lot of content that is not suitable for younger children so it is important to make sure you know which sites your child is linking up to and just what they might be exposed to. Tweaking your child’s phone settings and turning off location/gps for the app is recommended.

A few sites I found discussing the app said there was already a lot of harrassment towards girls and sexual behaviour associated with the app.

If you don’t want to receive invitations, head over to your facebook page, click on the GAMES tab (under Apps on left hand side), find a meow chat request and click on the X. You should then see an option to block further requests. You can do this for any other app you are being sent requests for also.

Have you already been invited? Do you think you will use this app?

April 23, 2014 By Fiona Lucas

Top Heartbleed Security Checks for Parents

You may have heard about the recent internet security flaw know as “Heartbleed”. This encryption flaw means that there are vulnerabilities in many platforms and apps which may have exposed some of your passwords and personal data such as credit card numbers for up to two years. It is important to regularly change passwords and this vulnerability really highlights that we should be diligent in this regard.

We have been made aware that many parents and teens are not aware, or have ignored the warnings around the Heartbleed flaw. We strongly recommend that you read the post and take action to protect your information.

Many of the most popular applications have been affected and some there is uncertainty around others.

This post is to highlight the most common ones and encourage you to review all the computers and devices in your home. Make sure you run all patches or updates to these apps and then change your password (unless otherwise advised).

Use complex passwords which includes upper and lower case characters, numbers and symbols for the best security and don’t use the same password for all programs and apps.

If you use an Apple iphone or Apple computers you are not affected, however some apps you use might be and we do recommend you change passwords as a security measure.

Blackberry are yet to roll out their patch for this flaw.

The following programs and apps have been updated and you should change your passwords now:

PLEASE NOTE: If an app is on the WAIT list do not change passwords until advised as changing password whilst the app is still vulnerable will not protect you.

CHANGE PASSWORDS NOW FOR:

DROPBOX

ETSY

FACEBOOK APPS (anything that uses your Facebook log in such as Spotify, Candy Crush etc)

GOOGLE AND ANDROID – This includes all Google apps such as Gmail, Google Play Store, All Google Accounts

INSTAGRAM

NETFLIX

TUMBLR

FLIKR

WIKIPEDIA

YAHOO APPS AND MAIL

GO DADDY WEB HOSTING

GAMING APPS AND ONLINE GAMING SERVICES

MINECRAFT

SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT

PLAYSTATION STORE

NINTENDO

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

CALL OF DUTY

The official status is WAIT for the following:

SNAPCHAT

WORDPRESS

For those using Android devices, there is a heartbeat security scanner which will alert you if your system is vulnerable. Download it here. (Android phones are non Apple device such as Samsung, HTC, Nexus etc)

We will endeavour to advise of any updates but we do recommend that you remain diligent.

A comprehensive and regularly updated post can also be found at Mashable here

Thank you for reading this post. To stay up to date you can sign up to our blog (see the sign in box on our homepage in the right hand column).

We welcome your comments. Please take action now.

Sources for information include mashable.com , digitaltrends.com and staysmartonline.gov.au

February 5, 2014 By Fiona Lucas

Facebook LooksBack – Laugh cry or maybe cringe?

As Facebook celebrates its 10th birthday, much fun is to be had through the auto creation of a recap of your “life” on Facebook. This is where embarrassing photographs that were publicly posted just might come back to bite you!

Set to music, Facebook captures the year you joined Facebook, some of your first pictures, status updates that received the most likes and then a random selection of your photos. So far we have seen some really beautiful ones – and for those of us who have been on Facebook for a while, it can be quite heartwarming to review moments in time. Personally it reminded me of how I dropped my “my space” travel blog and started using Facebook (ah Venice 🙂 ) and then there were a few “oh that’s an odd one to have in there!

Reliving happy status updates made me smile:

I think this is one of the real “feel good” sides to Facebook. Where this can go wrong of course is where photos have been posted which may not show you or others in a particularly good light. A video highlighting a nasty bullying post that received a lot of likes is not something to be proud of. A young lawyer shown lying in a drunken pile after too big a night out may not help her career path. A photo that belongs in the “you had to be there” category might not be so easily understood by others. (By the way, I did ask the owner of the photo below if I could use it provided I crossed out the face!).

Thankfully the videos are not designed to be shared (the servers would probably overload with the massive number being produced), however nothing can stop you taking screenshots and using them for good or evil (or a blog post!).

As Facebook “looks back” at your Facebook life you might shed a tear, laugh out loud, cringe or turn various shades of red. If something particularly negative shows, then make an effort to go back through your Facebook history and delete and clean up. For teens about to head into their College/University years, this is a really good opportunity to have a laugh about “those things kids do” and then remove them from the public eye. Don’t let a silly moment affect your future higher education choices or how a future or current employer may view you. The videos default to public, so make sure you change the settings just to share with your family and friends.

On the subject of looking back, Hanna Ingber and Jenna Wortham collected some amazing comments from readers of the NY Times for the article “… the transformative power of Facebook for better or worse”. It shows the highs and lows of our online social connectiveness, but there are some really lovely moments. You can read the article here

If you haven’t played with Facebook’s birthday gift to us, you can create yours here – Please tell us how it turned out. Enjoy your recap!

Happy 10th birthday Facebook.

Fiona.