Architecture

This may have something to do with why I love Chicago so much. iPhone photos of two architectural icons (330 N Wabash & Trump Tower) while waiting along the river for a meeting. It was a stunningly beautiful day today and as luck would have it, I was called to a last minute meeting downtown. It's days like today that make me wish I worked down there - you could meet your friends for a long lunch and enjoy the Chicago skyline.

Social Media

Anyhoo, meeting was good, but the side conversation really has me thinking. I was meeting with two people who are probably 10-15 years older than me and our conversation swayed to social media. This seems to be a reoccurring theme to conversations these days. What is the purpose of social media? How does it fit into our personal and professional lives? How do you use it effectively for business? All interesting questions and I don't think anyone really knows the answers. Even Google missed the boat on social media! And given that, how are we small business people to know how to really use it? I find these conversations interesting, not only because they are relevant to business today, but how the conversations are different among the age groups. Anyone in their early 30's or under is up to their eyeballs in tweets, facebook and etc. They are fully emersed in the social game and, in my opinion, find it hard to associate with those who are not. I find that anyone over 40 just doesn't want to be bothered with it and still finds value in meeting face-to-face and having a real conversation over the telephone. Then there's the 35-40 year olds (my group, the Gen X'ers), we are stuck between those who get it and those who don't and it's a most interesting position to find myself in... I sort of feel like we will be the bridge that holds it all together... hmmm.

French Fantasy

Upon returning to work, I saw a tweet about Bradley Cooper promoting the Hangover II in French. As in he is FLUENT in French. I about melted into a puddle right there in my desk chair. I've been on the BC fence - not sure if he would be on my celebrity crush list or not - well let me tell you, this just put him at the top of that damn list. Bonjour monsieur Cooper!!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYwvFU6dcv4]

I have spent two days working on a hacked gmail account and have to tell you it's been a nightmare! Just when you think you have it figured out, they noodle back in and figure out something new. AND Google is very little help. They give you a form to fill out of the most impossible questions. Could you name the exact date you opened your gmail account? Could you name the person that invited you to gmail and provide their email address??? They don't even provide a place for you to explain what you know about the hacker or explain why you think your account has been taken... Insane!

I filled out the form once and provided only a little bit of information because it was going to require calling people to find out more - that was rejected. So I filled it out again and gave more info and guessed at as much as possible and finally got the account back. That said, the hacker still had email being directed to an alternate address. I had sent a screen capture of my iphone settings to help out my colleague who was having the problems, but think that got sent to the spammer. Had to call my mail host to see what they could do with that information and as I was on the phone with them, I believe the spammers had compromised one of my company accounts. Arrrrggggg!

I now have to change every password for every user to be sure that nothing is able to be hacked - and that means on 10 computers, 10 iphones and etc. So much work is needed to correct this situation and it sucks that there is no consequence to the person who is causing all of this pain. SUCKS! SUCKS! SUCKS!

So, after all of this... I'm thinking I may drop gmail and use my own server. Seems like a much more secure option... anyone else had experience with this?

architecture, social media & french fantasy

hackers f#cking suck !!