OK, so I’m being more than a little melodramatic to get your attention, but if you are guilty – you’re making a really big mistake. Not only in regard to my health, but your own networking and marketing health are suffering. Mark my words!

Look, I’m all for breaking rules to be avant garde  and stake a claim in cyberspace. But misusing profiles isn’t the way to do that.. it just makes you look like you don’t know what you’re doing. The rules of social engagement call for respect of user agreements.

Some ‘Don’ts’ from the LinkedIn User Agreement (10. LINKEDIN USER “DOS” and “DON’TS.”) 

• Don’t create a user profile for anyone other than a natural person
• Don’t upload a profile image that is not your likeness or a head-shot photo
• Don’t invite people you do not know to join your network (this one is just plain asinine, against the rules of social engagement and doesn’t count – must be a left over April Fool’s Day prank )

What would better suit your needs is a Company Page.

LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook have specific provisions for company pages. Twitter on the other hand functions quite differently and the best solution is to create separate personal and business accounts to strategically engage the twittersphere.

What’s wrong with networking as a business rather than as a person?

When you ‘hide’ behind a company profile, rather than present yourself as a representative of the company, you’ll find that you have to constantly police your attitude, sense of humor, distribution of content and personal relationships – because you are acting as the company. I can’t say how many times I have seen a ‘company’ post something not in its best interest because the individual behind the posts had a ‘personal’ hat on and missed an opportunity to represent the company in the best possible light.

When you wear the company hat the content character must be purposeful, selective, targeted and engaging to the right audience – often meaning the general public. Think of it as being a billboard with potentially immense global reach (depending on how good you, your strategy and execution are). It should be the company’s character that is promoted not the individual’s. That’s a heavy responsibility.

Managing your personal online presence is also critical matter – if you care, and you should. It’s expected an individual – regardless of how high up the food chain they are, has a unique personal style, character, sense of humor, off the cuff comments, candid moments, personal conversations, photos, etc. You can be the CEO and post about your family, vacation, what you had for lunch, and personal opinion, and it can crystallize the essence of ‘social networking’ and make you human and approachable – something that hiding behind a logo cannot do.

Can you see now why posting personal content directly under the company banner just doesn’t do the company any justice at all and it’s important to have both personal and corporate identities?

P.S. Don’t bother considering that I am being inappropriate with the inhaler here… I’m all too familiar. 

I went and did as I was told and true to his word, amazingly that’s how it happened. I filled out what amounted to be a formality of an application, Mr. Someone shook my hand and bestowed upon me the title of Rubber Band Packaging Machine Operator. I went to work the the following morning.

There were good things and areas of opportunity about that day. The company had a commitment to hire veterans and would ‘find’ a job for them. The process at the unemployment office was well-meaning but as I look back knowing what I know now, it was fraught with failure.

Day one was interesting, I job shadowed and was marveled by the machinery, how the boxes were automatically folded, the timing of the assembly line and how whistles ran the place. Day two I mastered my job by lunchtime and in the cafeteria looked at faces more than twice my age who had never had another job, doing the same thing day in and day out forever. Day three I went in halfheartedly and resigned at the end of my shift. I’m as much a fit for a rubber band packaging machine as I am for ragweed farming – not. I’ll bet I was a grand disappointment. I may have even appeared to be ungrateful, though I wasn’t.

There have been milestone improvements in what was once called the unemployment office, renamed by the US Department of Labor as one-stop shops, with a different moniker in each state.  The unemployment claims process was separated out and relegated to call centers and the Internet, leaving state employed career specialists the opportunity to source jobs, prepare candidates and make the match. It’s still not swanky, clearly not cutting edge and still very blue collar oriented – but it has improved greatly. I’m sure there are centers of excellence – depending on the leadership and I know there are centers that still operate as if we were in the 80′s. I won’t give addresses.

One of the best advents to come out of the Department of Labor is O*NET, the nation’s primary source of occupational information. Central to the project is the O*NET database which provides the basis for Career Exploration Tools, a set of assessment instruments. It has been recently retooled for veterans as My Next Move for Veterans. It’s useful to military personnel and new veterans researching civilian careers. You can browse careers by industry or keyword and something new and super helpful is the ability to enter the name or code of your military classification for translation to civilian careers with similar work. You can learn more about DOL employment initiatives and opportunities for veterans here.

Three major forces of the Internet, Google, Facebook and LinkedIn have all stepped up in 2011 with products for transition to civilian life and career.

Recently, Google donated 600 Chromebooks to Walter Reed  Hospital that can be checked out from the Red Cross so wounded members of the military can communicate, research and help plan their future. This past week they helped launch the Veterans Job Bank in collaboration with the National Resource Directory. And then they did something else equally as awesome and beautiful. They created Google for Veterans.

The Google Veterans Network is our employee volunteer community that strives to make Google a great place to work for those who have served, their families and their friends. We also aim to be a positive contributor to the veteran community at large. Google products and services have made our lives a little easier – whether we are still in the service, transitioning out, or on a new path in our civilian lives. We wanted to give back to the community and help other veterans and their families discover how useful these tools can be. So we created Google for Veterans and Families – a collection of free and useful tools from our veterans’ community to yours.

The description is humble to say the least. They have assembled a very powerful suite of tools – some you are already familiar with and others that are new, based on Google technology. The site is made up of four main tools.  VetConnect allows vets to find other vets with similar experiences. Google Veterans Channel is a YouTube channel for videos and discussions related to military service. Resume Builder powered by Google Docs provides auto-formatted resumes, and Tour Builder powered by Google Earth (coming soon) will display “3D maps of veterans’ service histories, complete with photos and videos”. Visit, you won’t be disappointed.

Facebook recently rolled out U.S. Military on facebook. There are many, many pages on Facebook that are military related but until the launch of this page there has been no consolidated effort.

Our goal is to bring together resources and information to help the millions of military personnel, veterans, and families stay connected and informed.

The page’s Career Resources are still slim in variety but I expect – hope – they will grow. Right now they rely on BranchOut and Military.com, a Monster Company and the largest military and veteran membership organization — 10 million members-strong. Facebook is of course the great friend finder, it’s where I found my Air Force buddy Debbie after a 28 year loss of contact. Search the word military on Facebook and you’ll find enough affinity groups and pages to keep you busy for a long time.

Not to be outdone, LinkedIn and the White House have joined forces to kick off the first ever Veterans Hackday. They invited hackers to put together projects that can improve any aspect of a veteran’s life. For encouragement, they assembled a phenomenal lineup of judges; Sumit Agarwal, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media, and Jeff Weiner, CEO LinkedIn. Wow…. I am following the action at @LinkedInEng and simply cannot wait to see what they come up with!

In the meantime, visit LinkedIn’s new microsite for Veterans  tailored with tips, tools and information to help veterans find new opportunities across LinkedIn, including a free one-year Job Seeker subscription for all US veterans and current service men and women. Be sure to knock out a a great profile and join groups like  U.S. Veteran and U.S. Military Veterans Network, to find profiles of veterans who have made the transition to civilian careers.

I’m filled with joy that now, more than ever before, military personnel can start exploring and preparing for their M2C career transition from wherever they have an Internet connection.

P.S. I read a ton of Veterans Day posts but 100 Ways to Honor a Veteran by Breanne Harris  won my heart. It’s timeless and full of splendid ideas big and small for honoring veterans every day of the year. You should read it.

Apart from breathing, it’s perhaps the most important way to spend :30 seconds. So, when I found the Harvard Business School Elevator Pitch Builder, I had to try it and then share..

I’m not sure if it’s the academic environment or long vowels of the Boston accent that has HBS suggesting a one minute pitch. On the other hand, google ‘elevator pitch’ and you’ll find everything from a :30sec to 3 minute suggested length. It’s probably a good idea to have a few versions in your back pocket. After all, most buildings don’t have elevators that get to the 80th floor in :30sec like in the Empire State Building.

Because times change and things evolve, so does one’s elevator pitch. It might not be the same today as it was say… two years and four months ago. You might feel instability in your current role and want to prepare for transition. You might be in the middle of business plan development and need one of these. Or, you might do some consulting on the side and decide to take it a step further into a full-time venture. Whatever the case might be (ehemmm), the good thing is that HBS doesn’t charge to reinvent yourself as often as needed.

I decided to go with the :30sec version for this example because I don’t ever want to be caught without enough time…

Human Capital and New Media Management helps organizations achieve excellence through progressive solutions for candidate attraction, employee retention and employer branding. Our three pronged approach analyzes the current recruitment process, retention and employer brand, designs a strategic plan for dynamic optimization to reverse negative trends and capitalize on positive findings, and provides assisted implemention to achieve desired outcomes. We bring global best practices to the table, along with an analytical and creative approach to customization for any employer, any budget, any geographic location. We would be happy to provide you with a snapshot analysis of how prospective candidates view your company and discuss solutions to drive positive change from within that result in an employer of choice brand.

Post yours in comments!

Connection with force

Although actually a measurement of acceleration, the term g-force is, as its name implies, popularly imagined to refer to the force that an accelerating object “feels”. These so-called “g-forces” are experienced, for example, by fighter jet pilots or riders on a roller coaster, and are caused by changes in speed and direction. The relationship between force and acceleration stems from Newton’s second law, F = ma, where F is force, m is mass and a is acceleration. This equation shows that the larger an object’s mass, the larger the force it experiences under the same acceleration. – Webster’s Online Dictionary

Google+ is the new positive G-force

A few weeks ago on Google+ launch day, the value of the social web accelerated exponentially with positive g-force.

I like portals and command centers (throwback to the military?) and as a compliment to the extensive suite of many other very fine apps the big G provides, Google+ promises to provide the one-stop communications command center I have longed for.

Over the past few weeks I have been informally polling people from various professional backgrounds, “Are you on Google Plus” I ask? The typical response is “Oh that new Google Facebook thing?” So, while there have been several very good tutorials to share written by other bloggers, my thoughts are that there is no need to recreate the wheel …. I have enough work to do. I choose to share the best by far – it comes right from the source. However by all means, add your favorites in comments – please.

Until the launch of Google+ I was a Mozilla Firefox maven. But, the same day David Graziano hooked me up with an invite, I decided to take the final plunge into the Google pool of goodness and go Chrome. What I have found immensely useful are a few of browser extensions to customize the experience. Since I added the extensions I have spent little personal time on other social networks – with the exception of LinkedIn (yes it is). If I didn’t manage so many Twitter and Facebook Fan Page accounts I doubt I would continue to spend time on them at all.

G+me for Google Plus – Enhances the Google+ web app to make it much easier to process a large stream of incoming posts and comments and unlock the potential of its real-time updates.

SGPlus - Complete social network integration: post to Facebook and Twitter, see your feeds inside Google Plus, and much more.

Plus One (+1) Button – With this extension, you can ‘Google +1′ all web pages and websites. Great for sites that do not have a +1 button installed (hellooooo ST).

This week, Google pulled out all the stops with a campaign to convert holdouts of email accounts from other web based email providers over to the dark side. I approve of this type of conversion…

Working on a project to find the preferred web sites/resources that people use to search for jobs. What are your favorites or those that you recommend ??

What I found in the handful of answers was that many of my peers across the country dwell within the federal or state systems (one-stop shops) and don’t often peek their heads out – however, to their credit they are beginning to use LinedIn. Besides one-stop shops, answers ranged from LinkedIn, Jobcentral national labor exchange, following Jim Stroud (rock on buddy-great advice for felons today!) and AARP WorkSearch, to DOL’s Job Search Challenge where one must search through over 16,000 responses listing over 600 resources  (slightly overwhelming?) many of which really could use a good weeding out.

The question was asked in earnest by someone conducting research for a Workforce Investment Board. I cringe at the fact that with the information he was provided, the government is actually going to receive feedback that  the products they designate our dollars to  are  highly effective…. And so the vicious circle continues.

I could not help but to fight the good fight… and so I contributed this:


Whether true or not, the corporate perception is that state one-stop system and its job boards are for labor, blue collar and low paying jobs. Therefore, many employers of white collar and well compensated jobs do not use the system – they do not wish to attract what they would perceive to be unqualified candidates.

Other obstacles for employers are that state systems tend to be cumbersome (it could be compared to filling out a US Census American Community Survey) and not user friendly to post and market jobs, do not tie in with applicant tracking systems (ATS), and are not linked with social media sharing tools. Good recruiters have so many creative and effective free ways to make their job postings viral and wide reaching they prefer to use those tools.

Companies with slashed recruitment budgets are posting less and less on big job boards because of the cost and avalanche of untargeted, unqualified resumes that pour in from all over for any job due to the high amount of unemployed. When a company is not prepared to pay relocation costs it makes little sense and is not cost effective to conduct a national search on a big job board.

Our solution in northeastern PA was to create a free to post regional job board supported by chambers of commerce, business and industry and other economic and workforce development agencies, in 2004. The platform became outdated and it became time for a new look, updated functionality and features.

I took over project management from another organization and relaunched the new WorkNEPA last week. It is well branded in our region and employers and job seekers know to use it. From all indications since the relaunch last week, with the incorporation of web 2.0 and mobile features and functionality (now powered by Job Rooster), it will have more success than ever. Even the smallest employer now has access to free job posts that aggregate to Indeed, pre-qualifying questions, text SMS capability and social media sharing, to ensure jobs are promoted widely. We have a Facebook Fanpage and Twitter account that repost all jobs into the far reaches of cyber job search and also repost on the appropriate targeted LinkedIn local group job boards – all nicely indexed on search engines like Google.

I also recommend to job seekers that they use LinkUp – a job board aggregator that scrapes corporate career pages for jobs that are often unadvertised on external job boards. Additionally, when I speak to job seekers, whether it is at a local job club or networking event, I refer them to my own website for job search tips and techniques (OK so I self promoted a tad LOL).

I’m interested in knowing your take on government sponsored job boards. Whether you’re a Recruiter of Job Seeker, do you use them, and if so, which ones and are you happy with the results?

You may be wondering how that happened during a recession, stock market, banking and real estate crash. It’s complicated and I’m not an economist so I don’t pretend to know all the intricate and gory details but Ken Goldstein, economist at The Conference Board, says most of the money that large corporations are holding stems from “tremendous cost-cutting and shedding employees.” I don’t disagree.

Though I am not an economist, my career in workforce development has me glued to labor statistics like a fly on….. well, you know. Clearly one of the critical conundrums we have going on as 2010 goes out is what I am calling the Jobs War™ (I googled it, it doesn’t exist so I’m claiming it). The Jobs War™ is not the war for talent, though they are both going on at the same time.

The concept of a war for talent is interesting but for all the talk about how dang hard it is to find the right worker bees I don’t really believe there is much of one going on at all.. The truth is, the war for talent keeps business on its toes and competitive, challenges us to up skill, find, burrow out, educate, train, and learn. It causes business to invest in technology and talent, enhances job security and creates opportunity. That doesn’t sound much like “war”.

The three million job vacancies that regularly appear in monthly DOL reports and cause suspicion that there just aren’t enough James Bonds in the U.S. to fill em’ all really don’t deserve that much attention. Most are recurrent short-term, temp, seasonal or high turnover long-term (the kind that can’t keep employees) jobs. They’ve always been there give or take half a million, aren’t going away and it is impossible to have zero jobs available regardless of the unemployment rate. These are not the same as say a vacancy for a financial analyst, full-time with benefits. They are more like 30 hours a week so you can’t have benefits, work second shift in our burn and churn call center jobs.

War invokes organized struggle, great sacrifice, multiple casualties, winners and losers, suffering and pain.

In mass amounts, business has armed a faux talent crisis by taking advantage of the economic downturn to raise the bar needlessly to require degrees for jobs that have no real requirement for them, import H1B workers at lower than market wages displacing qualified candidates, hire senior level candidates in junior level positions at junior level wages – because they can, therefore impacting the ability to place the right people in the right seats, and not making intelligent decisions about where to locate and where the skilled workforce is that they need. To amass and hoard even more money, they also cut back on national recruitment events and relocation packages – hindering their ability to find the right hire and hire right.

First they off-shored, then they near-shored, now they are re-shoring and importing off-shore labor. The war on talent is largely fabricated.

Full employment means always having more vacant jobs than unemployed men, not slightly fewer jobs. It means that the jobs are at fair wages, of such kind, and so located that the unemployed men can reasonably be expected to take them; it means by consequence, that the normal lag between losing one job and finding another will be very short. Jobs, rather than men, should wait.

- William Beveridge (1944) Full Employment in A Free Society

I’m coining the Jobs War™ as the organized triadic struggle of government, corporations and talent to balance economy/profitability with unemployment/underemployment, job creation/growth and quality of life, exacerbated by efficiencies gained through technology, penchant for higher profit margins, an aging workforce and loss of blue collar jobs – and it means great sacrifice, suffering and pain for all.

The national unemployment rate for October 2010 is 9% as calculated in the neat way the government chooses to do it that leaves out an awful lot of people. Though it is almost twice as high as a few years ago, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. More telling is the real number of the 40 million plus who are unemployed, under employed and mal-employed. If you’re are waiting for jobs to “come back” I’ll posit that you’re deluded.

If you owned a company that downsized and then maintained production, affording you higher profit margin, would you revel in your new secret for success or run out and hire?

If you could buy technology that increased your efficiency and reduced the need for manpower and benefits would you do it?

All that talk about musical chairs when the job market opens back up.. a flood gate isn’t going to open.

For additional analysis see Andrew Sum: Is Rising Structural Unemployment a Problem?

I wasn’t affected as much as some of my colleagues because I keep a lot of my work on a cyber cloud or thumb drive so I always have access to it. Though this isn’t a tutorial on external backup I’m going to tell you that if you don’t do it you need to start or you’ll end up exploring ugly disaster recovery if you have a systems crash.

Whether you run a one person consultancy with a laptop or a larger networked enterprise with multiple computers churning out mega data, it is a huge disruption and inconvenience to conducting business as usual if what you need is not available. If it’s not retrievable – and quickly, might I add – you can suffer potentially irreparable loss.  If you back up to an external hard drive located next to your computer or server that is located in the same building and that building burns down or some competitor sends a ninja to steal it, you’ll wish you had used an off site back up service and that your data was encrypted in a vault on a cloud with multiple data centers around the globe for ensured retrievability, security and peace of mind. With all the technology available at very reasonable prices to back up and secure personal and business data, if you don’t don’t do it and do it the right way – don’t expect sympathy if all your  digital media and hard work go up in smoke.

The event reconfirmed to me why it’s a good thing I monitor my reputation online to ensure it would never be a liability or embarrassment to me, my employer or my mother (hi mom =)). The first couple days after the crash I got filing and cleaning done, went out for lunch and made calls about things I would normally send email for. After the second day when I stopped believing it “would be up in an hour” I started bringing my personal laptop and picked up free wifi from downtown Public Square.

People found me….

Facebook and LinkedIn message traffic picked up and my personal email account started to receive work related email. I received more text and instant messages. No one complained, most never even mentioned that the email they sent to my work account was being kicked back. The rerouting of communication and data migration  happened naturally without me posting even one message anywhere about my email being down. It reminds me of a documentary I watched in grade school science class about ant colonies. The worker ants carried things many times their weight along a path and if the path was obstructed they would just find another path. But they would get there.

People who had my vcard info or to whom I had given a business card did not have my personal email, social media profile info or personal website URL. Yet, they found me. If you are thinking I’ve lost it and that’s what Google is for… that’s exactly what a professor at Kings College said when I met with her after receiving a notice about a Global Landscapes Conference planning meeting to my personal email.

Well Karla, you know, in these days of Google… Dr. Bindu Vyas

**As a side note, if you are interested in attending or speaking at the conference check it out – I would love to see you here in Wilkes-Barre, PA!

She had googled me for alternatives… To my credit, I was easy to find because I understand and practice good SEO. To my credit what she found when she searched me didn’t make her think twice about sending the planning meeting invitation to me. To my credit, my personal email address isn’t something like sexyhrlady@virtualkiss.biz – my email is innocuous and wouldn’t be offensive to anyone, it’s my name. To my credit, I understand I could jeopardize my credibility through carelessness or not understanding the importance of positive professional branding.

There are many lessons here to consider if this has never happened to you.

The multiple ways I have enabled people to communicate with me could be seen by some as a curse, an encroachment on my personal life.. and I know people who do feel that way. In my opinion they helped me survive the crash of 2010 in a fairly seamless way with minimal impact.

Have you had to deal with a crash or extended downtime? How did you deal with it?

P.S. Because of this experience, my mind is wheeling about the way we employ communication tools. Another day I’ll post about my thoughts on individual unique identifiers for seamless communication and in the meantime if you are an Internet architect looking for the next big step in evolution and would like to talk about it let me know.

What I found was a ton of validation that HR is not the ER or Human Services. Those are very important places in every community, but they are never located inside a company, unless of course it is the nature of their business or there are clinicians installed there with that purpose.

Most HR professionals don’t acquire first aid skills by osmosis because they administer health care benefits and FMLA. It’s clearly not logical to assume they should be responsible for alcohol wipes, thermometers and the blood kit – or counseling personal problems or be subjected to gory stories about bodily functions, despite the fact that in so many companies in the HR Suite, there is a sick/lactation room, massive first aid kit, freezer with ice packs, red bat phone to call the police, info on suicide prevention, toll free numbers for the mental health help line, etc.

Organizational Development God, it needs to change – that’s not our job.

The basic HR Generalist job description is something like

Responsible for all human resource activities for the company. Provide advice, assistance and follow-up on company policies, procedures, and documentation. Coordinate the resolution of specific policy-related and procedural problems and inquiries, perform specific research/investigation into operational issues, as requested. Provide on-the-job training to new employees.

Who is this reminder for?

• Anyone who got into HR because they “like people” and is now miserable because of people or confused HR with  Human Services.
• Those who favor spending hours counseling people on personal problems instead of how to maximize organizational performance.
• Those who aspire to be the next Mother Teresa or feel they can save people.
• Ditto for those considering a career in the field.
• Managers who send people to HR because they don’t know what to do with them or don’t want to deal with their issues.
• Employees who go to HR like they used to go to the nurses office in school – to get out of assignments, talk to someone or take a nap.

If you aspire to the sainthood, don’t dial 1-800-work-n-HR to inquire about canonization.

“How many of you use social media?” I asked. Silence, and then, “You mean like Facebook?” someone asked. “Yes, like Facebook,” I said. About 80% of the class raised their hand for Facebook, but when I polled them on Twitter only a few did, no one had a LinkedIn account and just one person had a blog. He posted his gaming scores there. As I gauged the class – because I didn’t want to talk below or above their level, it occurred to me that examples outside of my presentation would come in handy and make the class more interactive. We were in a computer lab after all.

I asked what the value of establishing a personal brand and then applying it to social media would be for a student. I got the deer in headlights look. “Well, let’s look at an example,” smartly said the ninja…. “Google my name, Karla Porter.” Heads went down and keys rhythmically played my name in unicode asynchronous cacophony.

And then, one by one, heads raised up as eyes as large as saucers honed in and locked with mine. I sensed something clearly wasn’t quite right. I advanced forward to the nearest student’s flat screen. There it was..

Karla Porter – Six denied bail in murder scheme

As I reassured the class I couldn’t be in jail and in their class at the same time they recovered quickly and grins appeared on their relieved faces. Over night, this woman had knocked me to page rank hell with a lot of stupidity and a little payola to some hit men.  “Don’t worry class,” I chuckled, “I’ll knock her back down to where she belongs right quick,” and I continued on with my presentation.

As it turned out, it was the perfect example to make the statement – when someone searches your name who and what will they find?

There is another Karla Porter I have come to know via social media, she’s my tocaya the Modern Media Mom, and she rocks.

P.S. I put the unsavory character back in her place but it wasn’t easy, she got tons of media attention.

Sheepa is 17, or 82 in human years. As his life winds down and he sleeps more and perhaps eats less, I thought it prudent to take him to the vet for a blood panel to see if his kidneys or thyroid are to blame. Now normally you can’t get me out of the house early on a weekend morning but the clinic was kind to offer me a last minute appointment yesterday for this morning, at 8:30am. I set my Blackberry to turn on at the time I needed to get up, and as email filtered in I checked it.

I looked around and ensured myself  I was in my own home, I didn’t send this email at 5:30am yet it came from my account:

Hello!
I’m sorry I didn’t inform you about my traveling… am presently in London, on short vacation and as i write to you now.. its unbelievable am stuck here,got  mugged at gun point on my way to the hotel and my money,credit cards, phone and other valuable things were taken off me at gun point, thanking Almighty God for save keeping my passport., i really need your urgent assistance quickly ? I JUST NEED SOME FEW HUNDREDS $$$ TO SORT OUT MY HOTEL BILLS AND i promise to refund it back to you once i get home cause i still have some cash in my account but i cant access any here right now ,already canceled all my cards immediately after the muggers took my things off me!!!  still at the public internet library where am making use of the free internet access,  i will forever be grateful  if you can help me,Waiting to hear from you quickly cos my flight leaves in few hrs but need to  sort the hotel bills and please me from been embarrassed.
Thanks,

I don’t posses that level of English grammar either, something was phishy……..  As the minutes passed and people were  checking their email I was flooded with inquiries via text, phone, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Skype asking if I was OK.

My friends and contacts around the world (literally) deserve hugs and gratitude for being there for me. As inconvenient and frustrating as this little terror session was, it was very comforting and meaningful to me to know that not just one but several tens of friends (many I have never met in person) would have helped me had I truly needed it. My friends in the UK would  have come to my aid in person.

I tried to log into my email account and couldn’t. It didn’t recognize my password. My email account was compromised. Someone had figured out the password, changed it  and was using it the account to try to scam my contacts for anywhere from $850 – 1,500.  Sheepa was going to be late for his appointment…

As we drove to the clinic I talked to Sheepa about the beauty and pitfalls of technology. I also conveyed my thoughts on how as desperate or poor a person might be , taking advantage of others just doesn’t cut it. He acknowledged each thought with a soft meow. He’s the last of the Cozumel rescue cats to share my home.

Back at home, honorary Special Agent, Mike VanDervort, was chatting with the hacker. He let me know. I was outraged. I asked what he said. He was getting the same pity plea about being mugged and stuck in London. I decided I wanted to talk to him too. I logged in to another account; our chat was rather unpleasant. He wanted a ransom for liberating my account. I was having none of it. He ended the chat rather all of a sudden, just as I was warming up with verbal karate.

I sat there with a numb left arm. He was having fun at my expense. He wanted to rip off my friends. He wanted to rip me off too. All the while I was working with Google tech support to resolve the situation. They didn’t let me down. After a stringent and thorough exercise in proving I was the rightful account holder, they booted the buffoon out and sent me a reset link to an alternate account to get back in. I’m still crazy about them. I don’t care if they spy on my bathroom habits, I’m all theirs.

I spent the next few hours answering all the various messages in the various forms they arrived to let my friends know it was over… The mission was accomplished and the the account was recovered. I reminded them to change their passwords and to make them complex and challenging to hack. Now go on, you do it too.

Hey, ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friend?
People can be so cold.
They’ll hurt you and desert you.
Well they’ll take your soul if you let them.
Oh yeah, but don’t you let them.
You just call out my name and you know wherever I am
I’ll come running to see you again.
Oh babe, don’t you know that,
Winter Spring summer or fall,
Hey now, all you’ve got to do is call.
Lord, I’ll be there, yes I will.
You’ve got a friend.
~ James Taylor You’ve Got A Friend