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S’Monday Tips #9: The First Rule of Information Overload

Contributed by Rick DeVan on September 6, 2010 at 7:00 am ET

One of the problems with Information Overload is all the people blogging about Information Overload.

Don’t listen to them. More on that in the next tip.

Remember the famous line from “Fight Club”?

The first rule of Information Overload is that you do not talk about Information Overload.

At least not much.

Here’s something I did recently.

I had a job outdoors on a recent evening starting at 7:00 p.m. True to my nature, I checked weather.com. The forecast called for isolated thunderstorms.

I checked the local radar. All clear at 16:36.

Conclusion: It may or may not thunderstorm. Take a raincoat.

All well and good if I would have stopped there.

But, no… I zoomed out the radar map and found a line of thunderstorms near Lansing, Michigan, moving in my direction.

I checked the other weather maps. Severe thunderstorm watches and warnings associated with this line of storms.

I loaded up Google Earth.

I calculated the great circle distance between Lansing and my work location (170.84 miles).

At 50 mph the storms would arrive in 3.417 hours, or just after 20:00 local time, right in the middle of my job.

However, the storms could break up or they could intensify over the lake. If they slowed down to 35 mph I would make it, but if they went up to 60 mph… and if rotation developed… and if… is my friend Joe in Ann Arbor safe?… should I call and warn him?…

Oh, for goodness sakes! This is what they pay Jim Cantore to do, not me. OK, they don’t pay Jim to call your out-of-state friends, but the rest is fairly accurate.

Conclusion: It may or may not thunderstorm. Take a raincoat.

The solution is simple. Maybe too simple for our complicated times.

Ask yourself: Do I really need this information?

I’ll llet you take it from there.

P.S. You owe me $50.00 ’cause I just saved you $30,000 in therapist bills.

That’s it for the tips for today.

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S’Monday Tips #8: Following 26,249 Fellow Twitter Users (Minus One)

Contributed by Rick DeVan on August 30, 2010 at 7:00 am ET

I received a Twitter “follow” from a, ahem, social media expert in New York City recently. His profile said he was following 26,429 Twitter users and about that many were following him.

On his website I was promised transformations or transformers or some such electrical nonsense.

I did a quick survey of his followers and found:

• A “real cougar”/motivational speaker/street preacher (yikes!) following 2,617 users and broadcasting her holy awesome cougarness to 2,705 followers.
  
  
• A Korean kid wearing something that reminded me of the beloved 1960s fashion model, Twiggy, following 65,431 with 62,942 followers.
  
  
• An Estonian juggler/social media guru tossing around 2,000 followees and 1,126 followers.
  
  

I’m not making this up, folks.

Then I checked the accounts of three smart and/or famous people and found:

• DalaiLama follows no one, which makes sense in a koanish kind of way.
  
  
• Sir Richard Branson follows 6,449. OK, I guess the Royal Family needs something to do so Sir Richard probably uses them to manage his Twitter account.
  
  
• I tried Warren Buffett but there were about fifty of them, so I went with his brother, Jimmy. Jimmy Buffett follows a grand total of 5 people on Twitter (and has 400,000+ followers). Two of the five are Jimmy’s Margaritavilles in Key West and New Orleans, so that knocks it down to 3.
  
  

You see where I’m going with this.

Unless the young duchess 77th in line to the throne can help you manage your Twitter account you ain’t fooling no one except Estonian jugglers if you say you’re following that many people.

Yes, the minus one was me as soon as I blocked the account.

P.S. Jimmy Buffett, follow me.

That’s it for the tips for today.

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S’Monday Tips #7: Those Old Posts From 1996

Contributed by Rick DeVan on August 23, 2010 at 7:00 am ET

For those who just can’t get enough of searching for old postings by their (ex)friends, (ex)lovers, (ex)employers, and (future) (ex)employees, I say… take it easy.

Step away from the laptop and have a piece of pie and a nice latte instead.

Please, don’t put too much weight on someone’s old postings.

Seriously.

Sure, postings supposedly last forever, some in the Library of Congress Tweet Archive (yes, there really is such a thing) and some not — by way of NoLoc.org.

You thought Egyptian mummies and Danish bog bodies lasted forever?

Let’s wait and give the archaeologists in 2517 something to do. We will certainly keep them busy.

If you search for me you may or may not find that I may or may not have called a now retired minor league infielder and current ESPN sports analyst a “sh*thead” or some such nonsense in 1996.

I’ve gotten over it.

Please, you do the same.

That’s it for the tips for today.

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S’Monday Tips #6: If You Post It, They Will See It

Contributed by Rick DeVan on August 16, 2010 at 7:00 am ET

A wise man once said something along the lines of &ldquoDon’t write down anything you don’t want published in the newspaper”. I think it was George Washington, but I can’t find a reference, so don’t quote me on that.

If you post something, remember that somewhere, sometime, someone may see it. Someone, somewhere, sometime may actually see this post.

Be familiar with the privacy settings of your social media tools, but don’t think they are failsafe. Privacy settings can and do change. Often.

The government may not care as much as you think, but some people may. (That’s the next tip.)

That’s it for the tips for today.

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S’Monday Tips #5: Judge Not… Lifestyle

Contributed by Rick DeVan on August 9, 2010 at 7:00 am ET

Don’t assume that a friend’s persona or lifestyle in the real world is anything like they present online, whether purposely or not. Especially one you have never met or know only marginally. I have yet to figure out what the word “lifestyle” means, anyway.

Some people are very careful about their public image.

Others could care less.

Still others don’t have a clue that their rantings are being published to the world and not just their friends. (Facebook privacy settings are the next tip.)

Plus, many people are quite a bit different on Sunday morning than those Saturday night photos you just pulled up.

If you want to know someone, try talking to them in person over nice a latté and biscotti at a sidewalk café down in Little Italy as Our Lady strolls past during The Feast. It’ll do you both a world of good.

That’s it for the tips for today.

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