Tag Archives: social media

Quality vs Quantity: Where is the balance?

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Where does one draw the line between quality work and the quantity of work? It's an argument that has been around since the beginning of human society… and we still struggle to find a balance. And for a writer, it's a question of personal standards vs the desire to make money.

Let's face reality here. If you want to get recognized for your efforts in any industry, you need both. You need the body of work to provide a range of products that you can sell, but you need to produce quality products or no one will want to buy what you have in the first place. BUT if you spend all your time on creating quality products, you won't have the quantity needed to build a back catalogue. AND if you pump out the work, focusing on quantity, then you are likely to slip in your standards and start producing sub-standard work.

It's important to find that balance. But it's not easy.

For many years now, I've been spending so much time on building my online presence and my overall platform. I'm proud of what I've accomplished. But when I started to look at what I had built vs where I would like to be, and compared it to what I still need to do, I started to cry—and not in a good way. I had fallen into the quantity trap. While I was still producing quality work in what I was doing, I was trying to do too much of everything that the most important parts of my platform were falling apart before my eyes. The things that I really wanted to do—the reasons why I became a writer in the first place—had completely disappeared from the equation.

My platform was in desperate need of an overhaul.

Step 1: Recognize where I was falling short.

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I’m where chain mail comes to die

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Frequently, I'll see a post on Facebook (or some other social media feed, but mainly Facebook, because that is where I tend to spend most of my social media time) where the post is encouraging people to copy the post and paste it into their own personal feeds. It might be a "challenge" post, sharing a photo about something random. Or it's a post about sharing some statement about being seen. Or something else entirely different. And…

Nope. Can't be bothered. Seriously, peeps, I am that lazy.

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We let them in: The online friendship scams

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I've had a LinkedIn account for a good number of years now. I signed up when LinkedIn first started, wanting to connect with my fellow researchers. LinkedIn is a professional networking site, and it was a perfect place to build those connections, particularly with those who are overseas. But when I started my editorial business, I chose to shift the focus of my LinkedIn account towards my editorial ventures.

So, I went into LinkedIn, updated my profiles and decided to connect my LinkedIn profile to my business email.

A few days later, I got an email from someone who was commenting on how pretty I was. Those sorts of pickup lines are never going to work on me anyway, but I emailed back, asking if he had any editorial business that he was interested in contracting. The sleazy pickup emails continued, and eventually I had to block the dude's email.

But when this happened, the only question that went through my mind was "How did this guy get my email address in the first place?" The email that he was sending his sleazy pickup lines to wasn't listed on my website. I hadn't shared it with anyone because it was a brand-new email. The only place that had that email in a public setting of any description was LinkedIn.

And that's when I discovered that LinkedIn has a little flaw.

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Guilty

Should Social Media be an Adult-Only Zone?

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Every so often, I encounter another teenage nightmare unfolding on the internet. It starts out innocent, but as the social media machine takes over, it's an avalanche that threatens to bury everyone alive. And I sit on the sidelines, watching all the chaos as society spirals down into another hate-fest.

For years, I've been obsessed with how social media has taken such a hold of our everyday lives. The writer in me is watching every worst-case scenario play out within the digital world, and I keep asking how it could get worse. (Because as any writer can tell you, it can always get worse.)

In the beginning, social media was a brilliant concept. It was a place where people could connect with each other and form working relationships with people who were on the other side of the planet. But as its popularity grew and more people flocked to various platforms, the social dynamics changed. In some cases, the interactions descended into a toxic cesspit needing a HazMat suit with breathing apparatus to even enter. At which point, another platform would seem to spring forth with the promise of a safe-and-inclusive environment.

Regardless of what social media has become, social media and the internet form a huge part of the world we now live in. My children have never known a life where the internet didn't exist—and my oldest is now in his 20s.

Two decades. So much of our world has changed in those two decades.

So, when I see the teenage nightmares unfolding on social media, it's not surprising to me that there is an outcry of people wanting to make social media an adult-only zone. I can understand where the viewpoints are coming from that want to classify social media usage in the same way we do alcohol and driving. But as the number of these negative events grow—sometimes, resulting in the death of yet another teen—there is only one thought that goes through my mind:

Where are the parents teaching their children how to socially behave on the internet?

If you're willing to stick around, I'll do the best I can to explain why I feel that the deplorable nature of social media is actually the responsibility of parents and how I went about teaching my children to cope with the social media cesspit.

It's an interesting tale, involving Scouts, my children, my writing, and my obsession with social media and online behavior.

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How wide spread is your email address?

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There is no question about it, internet scammers are morons.

On a frequent enough basis to be noticed, I get an email from some scammer trying to get me to click a link, send them money, or send them bitcoin—or anything else that they want me to do. And 9 times out of 10, they are badly worded, trying to sound official, but really have no clue about how English grammar actually works.

And they expect "me" to fall for the scam?

I will grant you that I'm not your typical internet user. I know better. And I know the tricks of the game that your average internet user doesn't know.

But seriously, dudes, you could at least learn how to use MS Word's grammar checker. I know it's not the best, but at least it would deal with the lack of capitalizations in your emails.

While I can spot the scammer a mile away, there will be many unsuspecting people out there who will be gullible enough to fall for the scam. It may be only one in 10,000 people, but it's statistically significant enough for the scammers to keep doing it.

And a scammer's favorite playground is email. Far too many people get emails and blindly click on the links without understanding what they're clicking on.

Of course, the first question that people ask is how did the scammer get your email in the first place. Well, let me tell you exactly how they got it.

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