The Benefits Of Using Social Media To Market Yourself

May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Using a Dell to access social media is an easy and smart thing to do especially when you are trying to market yourself.  Social media has become the newest darling of advertisers who still have no idea how to use it correctly or how to best move the online community from passive acceptance of free entertainment to active purchasing.

The online community has turned marketing and advertising on its head.  Most of the people who use social media are tech savvy, jaded younger people who are wary not only of face-to-face contact, but also of any kind of business or government that is trying to manipulate them.  Their intelligence and what sometimes borders on paranoia sets their spider sense tingling when a business tries using social media for direct marketing, and while it is certainly easy to set up the parameters where and how an ad should appear, the harder job is to actually get the user to click on the ad and then to follow through with an action based on the ad.

As a person, it is important to realize who you are advertising to.  Many young people, as tech savvy as they are, make the mistake of thinking that only their friends will see what they have posted at their social media site, and while this is becoming more of the case, people still mess up with posts or tweets that make them sound dumb, insensitive, racist or just plain flaky.

Remember whatever is posted on the net stays forever on the net – even when the original person who created the post tries to remove it.  Nothing can ever be truly expunged from the worldwide web.

Remembering this information every hour of every day is crucial to creating the brand that represents you.  If you want people to see you as an upright, serious, business person, it is important that no one, not even yourself takes pictures of you drunk at a bachelor or bachelorette party wearing nothing but your underwear.  Sure, your mom may be proud of you if you chose to wear clean underwear that day, but every one of your business contacts may question your judgment.

Therein lies the rub of the internet.  With amazing number of great laptop deals  available in the market it isn’t just celebrities who have all of the sordid details of their lives revealed to the public.  Now it is everyone with a computer, laptop, or smartphone and so many people are doing it to themselves.

Using social media to create a positive image that employers can look at and feel good about is a great idea in the brave new world of the information age.  Not only will it help you get jobs and create a buzz, it will also help you realize your role in both the work world and the social media world, and when you can recognize both of those, you are going to be ahead of everyone else who is still dealing with the change that internet wreaks in our lives.

Filed Under: Education

How to Cut the Cost of College?

January 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to pull things out of context? So what IS the point of going to college for years to in order to hold the lowest level care home and daycare jobs? If all someone is going to be doing is lifting dead weight and shoveling shit, they can get those childcare jobs right off the street. My very highly accomplished aunt was an RN, and it was a field that I had considered as a kid. This country would grind to a halt without RN’s. Or rather, there would be a four hand scramble to get substitutes in pronto, and open new schools to train new ones.

The case in point is the two year degree RN programs. You would be hard put to point out any other professional field that has a shortcut to someone who needs the work. Nursing is one field where the educational dept doesn’t throw in roadblocks to getting there.  An LPN essentially undergoes a training-on-the-job with a few classes, and the program quite often IS specifically intended to get people trained to do some of the “nursing” jobs that don’t require much technical knowledge (cleaning and changing dressings, etc.).

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The Importance of Preschool

January 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Preschool is not academically necessary, any more than traditional school is necessary. However, like any other homeschooling parent a parent who chooses not to do the traditional preschool or childcare jobs should be sure that their kids have social interaction with other kids, time spent listening to books, and lots of learning experiences-in fact, all kids need these no matter what type of preschool they have.

Having said this, some public schools and many private schools look on preschool as a beneficial thing to have on school entrance, because of the social and behavioral aspects. If this is the case in your area, it’s a good idea for your child to have some pre-k experience, so he/she won’t be viewed as “less able” than the students who have it, regardless of actual skills.

The learning philosophy is important. There are four basic kinds of preschool philosophies: Montessori, Waldorf, academic, and playful learning. There was always some free play time, with various centers (blocks, play kitchen, book corner) available for each child to choose. Then there were age-appropriate toys, stories, craft projects, and activities for the whole class. These always had a learning component, but there was never any “school work” that was identifiable as such.  There was outside time with a jungle gym and swings, except in very inclement weather

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Safety screen: Worker Tests to Protect Children

January 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Childcare workers, school bus drivers, teachers and ministers of religion will be screened for child sex convictions under new laws to come into effect next month. All people working with children including scout leaders, private tutors and sports coaches who have direct access to children will have to make a legal declaration that they have no child-related convictions.

All preferred applicants for jobs that involve working with children will be screened for child abuse, child pornography, sexual activity or indecent acts. All other paid employees and volunteers in childcare jobs including amusement arcade workers, nurses and doctors in children’s wards and hospitals, scout and guide leaders, ministers of religion and sporting coaches will be screened.

In an Australian first, all new preferred applicants for jobs with children will also be checked for Apprehended Violence Orders involving children and completed disciplinary matters relating to children. The new laws, among the toughest in the world, will apply to anyone in unsupervised contact with children in both the public and private sectors and volunteer organizations.

Employers will also be able to do “spot checks” on employees to ensure children in their care are not at risk. If someone is declared a “Prohibited Person”, their name is registered with the Commission for Children and Young People and they will be banned from any child-related employment

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Do Boys Ever Think They’re Ready for Kids?

January 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

On top of that, a recent NPR program described a case where a group of boys is regularly asked to spend a portion of each week taking care of small babies. He announcer also mentioned that the boys now look forward to it. Unfortunately, I don’t have any more details on this, but it certainly sounds good. Indeed, very good!  Those boys can now go out and get babysitting jobs or childcare jobs, moving in on the girls who monopolize it, and preparing themselves to be involved fathers.

Except that the current monopoly will work very hard to keep them off “their turf”. As does any monopoly which is threatened.  Those boys are probably less likely to be afraid of, or threatened by, babies. However, they may be more aware of the responsibilities of: kids. In practice you probably need to convince the parents (especially mothers), who are the people who select babysitters… Chances are that if you are human, you have been babysat before.

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Different Features of Parenting and Employment

January 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It makes a certain amount of theoretical sense, and, yes, you’re off-base on this. First, parents (or other guardians) have a joint full responsibility for the child. If they agree on a 50-50 split, and one of them (for any reason) does only 25 percent of the work at a given time, the other one can’t just stand back and say, “I’m doing my 50 percent.” The _work_ may be split 50-50, but the _responsibility_ is split 100-100. I just don’t see it making sense, socially, legally, or in any other real-world way, for an employer to be in a position to say, “Yes, your child has a high fever, but we think your spouse should take a sick day instead, so the kid’s just going to have to sit home alone and uncared for.”

That brings me to the second part, which is the extraordinarily offensive notion that employers should be able to micromanage their employees’ lives for maximum business convenience. Would you have to keep a log of child care activities to prove that you and your spouse shared the work equally? Bring it up to some kind of corporate hearing board in case of disputes? Sick leave and other forms of time off are specifically designated for illness of self or other family members. For employers to pass judgment on which family members should be allowed to take time off for bona fide illness at the very best invites a counterproductive bureaucratic mess. Thinking in such narrow, ompartmentalized terms is, btw, traditionally considered a male, “rational” activity. Determine what the childcare jobs portion is. Even if the employee IS divorced, suppose part of the responsibility of the non-custodial spouse involves helping out the custodial one if the kid is sick, so that one person doesn’t have to miss work all the time.

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Child Workers Face Scrutiny of their Past

January 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Anyone applying for paid or volunteer work with children in NSW will have their lives scrutinized under new employment screening rules. About 100,000 people will be subject to the rules, which are believed to be a world first. They will apply not only to teachers and child-care workers, but also to school bus drivers, football coaches and school gardeners who have unsupervised contact with children. Under the two-tier system, no-one convicted of a sexual assault or child abuse crime carrying a penalty of 12 months or more will be allowed to work with children, whether paid or as a volunteer.

But those who have had only apprehended violence orders taken out against them, criminal charges dropped, or disciplinary procedures at work laid against them for physical, sexual or emotional abuse of children, will be assessed for childcare jobs. Their chances of a job will depend on the detail of their case and the position they apply for. Existing employees will not have to undergo these checks unless they change jobs.

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