That (and a tad more) describes Maddy Dychtwald. She’s pretty well known, ridiculously successful and, dang, good looking to boot.

She’s the author of Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better. She’s also the co-founder, along with her husband Ken, of Age Wave. Together they’ve been warning us for a long time now about the dangers of ignoring the demographics of aging and the talents of our senior citizens.

(Ken Dychtwald, by the way, is one of the very best speakers we’ve ever seen. He’s always understood intuitively what Seth Godin warns about in Really Bad PowerPoint – that bullet points slaughter audiences, but the right emotional images help deliver the message).

So, why in the world would someone like Maddy Dychtwald feel it necessary to tweet? She’s got it all, already.

Contribution

Chris Brogan (one of the most knowledgeable social network experts on the planet) will tell you that online social networking is not about selling – but instead about contributing, mentoring and giving back.

In Maddy Dychtwald’s case she contributes her expertise. She’s intimately involved with issues like the marketing power of women and the implications of demographic shifts. She uses that expertise to link her followers to news, resources, studies and articles on the topics she knows best.

Sure, she tweets about her own books and appearances. (we should be so lucky to have such success and such a schedule!).

But, she also uses her background to lead us to intriguing articles like a Christian Science Monitor article about the popular television show, The Closer; and an NPR story about Sarah McLachlan’s fight to keep her wonderful concert series, Lilith Fair, alive.

And, those are just a couple of examples. Follow her and you’ll see a lot more.

So, what makes Maddy tweet?

Well, it’s certainly not what makes Sammy run.

Nope, those who are already successful, accomplished and knowledgeable are in the best position to give back – and they’re the ones who most need to pick up their keyboard and tweet with us.

Maddy does. Now, we just need to work on her husband Ken.

You Have a Friend in the Facebook Business

Honestly, I don’t really know Mark Zuckerberg all that well. I mean, we’re not “Friends,” or anything (for those of you without a scorecard, he’s the head guy over at Facebook).

I do know that trusting Mark to fix privacy controls is like trusting BP’s Tony Hayward to insist upon safe oil drilling procedures in the Gulf. Not really his strong suit.

In the past few weeks, Mark and his cronies have yet again gotten themselves mired in deep, squishy cow-flop by making more raucously stupid decisions about your safety and privacy.

Oh, you mean just like the one where they thought broadcasting what you buy online to all your friends was a good idea? Yup.

Oh, you mean like when they declared that all your photos and stuff on Facebook belonged to them if you leave? Yup.

Now, here we are again. Another firestorm of protest as Facebook decides to spread your stuff all over the Internet. And, one more time, Zuckerberg is sweating it out and re-thinking his position (was there ever any thinking in the first place?!)

Here’s what I’m thinking. It’s impossible to calculate how just how grave the danger is when corporate America is run by video game-playing snots like this guy.

Sing along, then, with me (and Eric), as we move on:

I don’t care what you do at night oh
I don’t care how you get your delights
We’ll leave it alone
We’ll just let it be
I don’t love you and you don’t love me.

Back to Those Fan Pages

Yes, I’ve became a “Fan” on Facebook of a few of my friends and business acquaintances. These were called “Fan Pages.” (Clever, huh?) Then, in the blink of an eye, I guess I started to “Like” them. Who knew?!

Now? I’ve decided not to “Like” anyone or be a “Fan” of anyone, period.

The “Like Button” nonsense has gotten totally out of hand. It’s all one big giant morass of marketing voodoo and privacy violations.

Wired Magazine’s Ryan Singel (”Facebook’s Gone Rogue)” says:

“Then there’s the new Facebook “Like” button littering the internet. It’s a great idea, in theory — but it’s completely tied to your Facebook account, and you have no control over how it is used. (No, you can’t like something and not have it be totally public.)”

And, as Singel points out, there’s a Facebook Fan Page (Facebook Like Page?!) for every word and phrase in the universe. Whether it’s “My Boss is Crazy,” “existentialism,” “putrid” or “cursive,” there’s a page for it.

How Could We Know that Promises End?

It makes me feel just like The Blogger Also Known as @Snipeyhead. Recently she commented back on one of her own blog posts about Facebook Fan Pages:

Every time I try to sit down and write about the privacy crap they’ve recently pulled, I feel physically tired.

Which is exactly how I feel. I’m tired of trying to keep up with the changes on Facebook. I’m tired of people I don’t know suggesting that I should “Like” their twaddle. I’m tired of the exploitation that Facebook wrangles out of my private likes and dislikes. I’m just plain tired.

So, it comes down to this. I still like all of you. I really do. I just don’t “Like” any of you, anymore. Especially you, Zuckerberg.

The card said:

“You recently tweeted about your ReadyTalk experience and even used the word ‘Awesome.” We appreciate your feedback and for sharing & spreading the word about ReadyTalk. Enclosed is a hard drive as a token of our appreciation.

With Regards, April.”

Wow. Just wow. That’s all we could say.

ReadyTalk.com is a Denver-based, online meeting services company. Think WebEx and GoToMeeting, only without the hassle. ReadyTalk is actually easy to use, doesn’t crash your computer and allows you to hold a webinar without the usual attendant brain damage.

We’ve conducted ReadyTalk.com webinars for the Colorado Society of Association Executives (CSAE). We’ve done a couple others for their Web Seminar Series. But, oddly we’ve never written about them on our blog.

Sure, we’ve gotten online Twitter thank-you messages back for a “tweet,” but we’ve never, ever gotten a card (and gift!) for a “tweet.” Makes you think about your online strategies, doesn’t it?!

Eat, Drink and Be Married

What do you do if you’re pretty much a 100% online company? That describes MyWedding.com. They’re an online local wedding resource, as well as a total management site for the happy couple (RSVP, email, registry, blog, etc).

They already do a great job of creating relationships online, but last week they blew it all out and invited everyone in the Denver/Colorado Springs area to show up at their new offices in Castle Rock, Colorado.

And, boy did they ever provide offline goodies – wines from Castle Rock Winery, superbly neat little gift boxes from Keltoy.com, food and excellent service from Occasions by Sandy, and on and on.

The place was packed! Photographers, florists, DJ’s, caterers, brides, grooms and every other type of wedding hob-nobber, rubbing elbows with Woody Pastorius and the rest of his welcoming crew at MyWedding.com.

Get Off of It

It made us think about online businesses. When was the last time you took your online business – and got off of it?

These days, when it comes to social media everyone wants to pitch its money making power. They tell you that if you just twerp your web site, use the right keywords and tweet 20 times a day you’ll be a success at the online game.

Ever stop to think that perhaps the real power of social media is to keep the “social” in it?

Pretty sure ReadyTalk and MyWedding have. What about you?

What are criminals and stalkers up to these days? What state-of-the-art strategies are being used by the really bad guys?

To answer those questions, we decided to ask novelists Michael Connelly and George Dawes Green. But, darn. Neither of those authors was in our Outlook phone directory. Go figure.

Amazon’s Sneak Peek

So, we had to turn to Amazon.com’s special feature called “Search Inside This Book” (also known sometimes as “Look Inside This Book,” but we digress):

For instance, let’s use this Amazon search feature on Mr. Connelly’s super-scary book, The Scarecrow. Type in the word “LinkedIn” and it will make you more than pause:

What did Michael Connelly’s stalker find out about his young prey by visiting her LinkedIn page? He learned her dog’s name, her favorite band and the name of her favorite pizza hangout. Indeed, here’s this exceedingly dangerous criminal musing on the naïveté of his victim:

“They believed they could bare their souls on the Internet, post photos and information at will, and not expect any consequences.”

We won’t tell you what happens or what other dangers lurk in this masterful mystery. But we will tell you that:

“He was circling her and she didn’t even know it.”

…by Mr. Green, with a MySpace, on the Internet

Use Amazon.com’s “Search Inside” method to get inside George Dawes Green’s compelling new book, Ravens, and a chillingly similar message unfolds.

In this case, Green’s stalker finds his prey’s pictures (and more) on MySpace. Those pages reveal that his intended victim has a very close relationship with her grandmother – closer even than with her mother. He also learns the victim’s age, devotion to Johnny Depp and her favorite bands. Using that information he…. but, we promise not to ruin the story.

The Friends of Your Friends

If you read either of these two books, my guess is you’ll head right to your privacy settings on MySpace (or Facebook, or LinkedIn).

Better yet, buy both of these books for the young people in your life. No, young people don’t know everything about the Internet. You just think they do.

If you’re younger, buy both of these books for the old codgers in your life. They’re on Facebook and LinkedIn these days even more than you are – but they usually have no idea how vulnerable they are.

Sure, your friends are all wonderful folks. But, what about the friends of their friends? Can they see the photos and private information that you post? Usually, unless you’ve been very careful – the answer is “yes.”

Are you and your family at risk when you post information to social networking sites? Just ask George Dawes Green and Michael Connelly. Or, better yet, read these books – and then decide for yourself.

The press is oh so fond of focusing on the numbers and percentages of unemployment – and this repetition of gruesome statistics can demoralize even the most dedicated job searcher.

The deflating result is that we begin to think, “How will I ever get the kind of job that will fulfill me?”

The Opposite Problem

Consider this. There are tons of unfilled jobs in this country. The challenge is to put the right people, with the right skills, into those jobs.

Sounds easy, right? And, in this age of computer databases and 1/10th-of-a-second Google searches, what could possibly be the problem? Obviously, technology is the answer, right?

“Putting Folks to Work”

Well, maybe not. Say hello to Michelle Diaz. Her job is, as she herself describes it, “putting folks to work.” She doesn’t work for the government. She’s doesn’t work for a non-profit. She works for a company that actually makes money putting YOU in the right job.

Michelle is the Regional Vice President for Spherion Staffing Services. She covers four states and any number of local offices that generate 75 million real live American job-placement dollars.

Motivational Job Hunting

The way Spherion makes its money (and keeps its investors happy – look for SFN on the New York Stock Exchange), is to help employers match the right people to the the right job openings. This matching process, it turns out, is only partly about skills.

When we talked to Michelle, she told us:

“We can interview for skills, but the right match is mostly about getting to the bottom of the question of motivation.” 

And, guess what, it turns out that computers just aren’t all that good at plumbing your true motivations. It still takes people like Michelle, and the folks who work for her, to do that.

Don’t Beg Uncle Harry

So, if you are looking for a job, before fixing your résumé, before buying a new suit and even before calling up Uncle Harry at the factory, you need to get your head on straight.

What you need to know is that there ARE jobs and that companies ARE looking for you. You just need to find the right kind of agents who will not only match your skills, but also get to the bottom of your motivations.

That’s what we liked about Spherion. They “put folks to work.” And that has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Editors Note: As always on this blog, we do not accept referral or affiliate fees from any of the companies or resources we write about.

The thing is, he didn’t do it on purpose – he got it from Facebook. In fact, he got it from one of his other Facebook friends who he knew would never send him anything nasty either.

A Lot More Dangerous Than You Think

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are all under constant attack, not just from spammers, but from smart, seedy, and even violent criminals.

While you might think this sort of thing is just a pain in the rear end, it’s not. It’s a real threat to your, your family and your business.

The USA Today article pictured above tells the story of Alice and her Facebook buddy:

“With a click of her mouse, Alice let the attackers usurp control of her Facebook account and company laptop. Later, they used Alice’s company logon to slip deep inside the financial firm’s network, where they roamed for weeks. They had managed to grab control of two servers, and were probing deeper, when they were detected.”

You’d Be Fooled Too

We’re all pretty savvy now when it comes to email spam. We know our bank is not really asking us to verify our account and we know SusieQue is not really hot for our body.

But, on Facebook, it’s our trusted friends who send these messages. In my case, because Tim has a band I just figured his link would connect me to a video of one of his songs, or maybe an upcoming concert. Wrong!

When I clicked the link, my computer went nuts and warned me that  cyber-zomboid bots from evil lands were trying to take it over. I still don’t know how badly it’s been infected (read the USA Today article pictured above and it will scare the pants off you).

The Trust Issue

Tim, of course, is mortified. But, it’s more than that. As Gene Leganza said in our recent post, Twitter Spam – Your Friends are Innocent:

“What really bugs me about it is that it made me an unwitting agent of spam. It impacted my followers’ trust in me.”

For Tim, trust is his band’s most precious asset. Just think about who follows his Facebook Fan Page:

“The thing of it is, Michael, many of my Facebook  friends are important music business contacts, and that business is built on trust. Anything that damages it could endanger my livelihood.”

Get a Clue, Facebook

This trust issue is why we are so critical of Facebook. They are dealing with this explosion of spam, crime and personal assaults on their site by stonewalling.

They simply ask us to trust them. We don’t, and you shouldn’t. It’s not enough for a Facebook spokesperson to say:

“We are constantly working to improve complex systems that quickly detect and block suspicious activity…”

We’d never stand for that kind of namby-pamby response from a politician after a terrorist attack. We’d demand swift and specific action that would protect us.

Facebook doesn’t seem engaged or concerned. They never send warnings and they don’t connect or respond to their customers in any meaningful way. This is a social network, isn’t it?!!

And, worst of all, sites like these are being given a free-pass from the hoards of social media gurus and pitchmen who act exclusively as cheerleaders. Almost no one holds up a hand and says “wait a minute.”

You better believe that Tim Champlin now says “Wait a minute.” You might want to, too.

Yes, Cinde Dolphin might make it big in her new endeavor, chronicled in that NY Times article, The Job You Make. But, what happens to those entrepreneurs, store owners, consultants, speakers, inventors and other risk takers when they don’t make it big – and have to (ugh) get a job again?

Yesterday I got a text message from an old friend who is nearing retirement. After working in corporate America for about 13 centuries, he told me he’s now ready to branch out on his own and “find my passion.” My response was simply, “I’d rather find my paycheck again.”

It’s in the Water

What happens when you follow your dream, and then find out that your dream didn’t follow you back? Too often (and these stories never make the New York Times), you squander your 401K, max-out your impossibly high interest rate credit cards and pay millions of dollars supporting your health care coverage habit. Don’t ask us how we know.

I don’t know if he invented the term, but UC Santa Cruz professor Robert W. Fairlie points out that there are a lot more “necessity entrepreneurs” when the economy is bad. (Dr. Fairlie sort of wrote the book (or at least the PDF) about individuals creating businesses in his “Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.”) 

“Necessity entrepreneurs,” then, are those folks who get laid off of often high-paying jobs and then decide to try speaking, consulting, stand-up comedy or other death-defying gambits.

But, as you can see in the screen shot above, some necessity entrepreneurs now find themselves looking longingly at those regular paychecks of yore.

Who You Gonna’ Call?

You know what comes next, right? Yes, we thought we’d do a little research, send some emails and place a few phone calls to try to find out what’s going on – and then report it faithfully here.

We thought we’d follow some current job searchers and report on their tactics, strategies and mental breakdowns. Our interview line-up looks something like this (we reserve the right to change it without notification):

• New Job Searchers
• Frustrated Job Searchers
• Internet Job Experts
• Old-Fashioned Job Experts
• A Recruiter (or two)
• Some HR Big Wigs
• And anyone else we choose….

Where You Gonna’ Look?

Along the way, we’ll reach out and try to separate the truth from the bunk about how Internet and social networking sites can help your job search, what kinds of strategies are best and what you can do to keep from jumping off a bridge if you don’t find employment right away.

We won’t, of course, be able to resist showing you a few Internet research tricks that might help:

But, that’s just what we do. It’s called Internet research and we’re pretty sure it will lead us to some interesting people and great ideas along the way.

We’ve written a lot about Timothy Bishop and the Ellensburg, Washington Downtown Association, and how they’ve been fighting the good fight to revitalize their shopping district. The most recent was “Associations that Truly Associate,” about how they use MySpace, Facebook and Twitter to get the message out.

Dark Clouds on the Horizon

Well, now Ellensburg (and Kitsap and Gig Harbor and Port Townsend and tons of other small communities in Washington state) are all facing a huge challenge. They are facing a complete cutoff of their funding.

It’s sort of predictable. Times being what they are, there really is a big crunch when it comes to how states will spend the money they don’t have (just ask California).

But small communities, cities and ‘burbs of Washington are fighting back by tweeting, Facebooking, and MySpacing in order to reach the folks who hold the purse strings – the state legislature. And, it seems to be working.

They found the support of two state Representatives, Dean Takko and Bill Hinkle (one Democrat and one Republican), to sponsor a bill to save Main Street programs. Just shows you what those folks can do when they work together.

The result was a 91-7 vote in favor of the bill in the House. Now, though, it heads on to the Senate – and that’s a tougher sell.

Gonna’ Bet Against Them?!!

Where does your money go when it’s spent on buying up car companies and propping up the big banks? I know, sometimes it seems to go to bigger and bigger bonuses for the even bigger doofuses who created the mess in the first place. And, you might not be wrong.

But, guess what? The money spent on small communities and their bedrock businesses pays you back many times over – creating 11,810 jobs and 3,721 new or expanded businesses in Washington State alone. Not bad! Timothy Bishop tells us that every dollar spent in downtown renovation multiplies around 100 times in private investment.

Which is why you’ll find Timothy working the streets, the back rooms in Olympia and typing away on his social media pages – carrying the message. There are good ways for the legislature to spend your money – and this is one of them.

By the way, that article we mentioned at the top of this blog post? It said:

“Grassroots efforts to save the Washington State Main Street Program are generating bipartisan support among legislators during the 2010 legislative session.”

Nice job, Timothy, and all the other folks who are rallying around investing your money – instead of spending it.

Recently Facebook asked us (actually they told us) to change our privacy settings, or else. It was an “Important Message” that read something like this:

“We’re making you change your privacy settings. And, since we know that 99% percent of you are too busy to doodle around with our impossibly complicated and arcane instructions, we’re going to suggest some to you. These will end up risking your bank account, expose you to viruses and endanger your personal safety, but what the heck.”

The problem is that, as many people have pointed out, Facebook’s suggested “privacy” settings would open-up your most private information, allow the juice-will-save-your life folks to accost you and expose your kids to muggers and rapists.

No big deal. Heck, what really got to me was the way they did it. They forced all of us to change our settings at that very moment. Not even banks do that!

That’s right. Here’s the screen – and good luck to you if you’d like an answer to the question, “Well, Ok Facebook, what were my old privacy settings?” Forget it – there was no way to check. You were locked out of your FB account until you filled out their form.

Let’s just take that first one, the “About me” section. Here’s what Facebook suggests for your “About me” profile – make it accessible to everyone.

Go to your Facebook profile right now and see if you can find “About me.” Do it. Good freaking luck.

I looked for 20 minutes and decided that the time I waste deciphering social networking sites would be better spent watching paint dry.

Maybe I’m missing something somewhere, but that’s why I’m ticked off. Oh, and that little bit about your privacy and safety being in jeopardy. That too.

Now, off to see if I can find someone, anyone, at Facebook who cares.

We bumped into Charlotte’s Stallings again this week out on the speaking trail. We hadn’t seen her for some months and it has been almost 11 months now since we wrote about her in Run, Charlotte, Run!!

We chatted for a short time before she zipped off to the airport. We didn’t have the heart to tell her that the valuable information she had learned from her trusted fellow speakers in the National Speakers Association Linkedin Group had been washed down the drain.

Discussions Held Hostage by LinkedIn

Here’s the problem. Smart, savvy speakers are asking their group (in this case the National Speakers Association Group on LinkedIn) if they know anything about a company called the International Speakers Network.

Again this week, another speaker, Shawn Kershaw, asked – “International  Speakers Network – Anybody had experience, positive or negative, with them?”

What Shawn didn’t know is that there have already been two major discussions within the NSA LinkedIn Group about the International Speakers Network.

Yes, Charlotte Stallings asked the same question 11 months ago. The responses added up to the most comments ever up to that point. Almost 100% of the comments were explicit warnings, a few of which we listed in Run, Charlotte, Run!!

Then, just a couple of weeks ago, Orvel Ray Wilson asked the NSA Group about a sister company of ISN, with the same results – tons of warnings about the business practices of ISN and its ilk:

“Let’s call it like it is — Both Brenda and her last employer ISN are scam artists and we’ve all lost way too much money to them.”

“I think you get the message: Stay away. Period. Many of us learned the hard way. “

“She promised me lots of stuff at her last job, took my money and I never heard from her again.”

These two discussions are a treasure trove of warnings about this questionable company. But, they are more than that. They are not just warnings from anyone. They are warnings from current NSA members who have had first hand experience and know what they are talking about.

Poor Shawn, however, might never see these warnings. Isn’t the search function of any web site what really provides its power by saving you time? Instead, LinkedIn’s pathetic search system is keeping this information from the very group members who need it the most.

Try This at Home

Try this yourself if you are a member of the National Speakers Association LinkedIn Group (or try similar searches within the LinkedIn Groups you belong to).

To properly search within a LinkedIn Group, you must be signed in to LinkedIn and be in the “Discussion Section” of your particular group.

Take a look what happens when Shawn does her most likely search for International Speakers Network.

She gets absolutely nothing about ISN. Nada. She does get 5 results that have nothing to do with the International Speakers Network. And, it doesn’t even matter if she puts her search terms in quotation marks.

After such a search, Shawn would have no idea that at least two speakers have already asked her question – and received tons of emphatic warnings.

Oddly, if Shawn were lucky enough to do a search for the initials “ISN,” she would connect to the two most relevant results in the NSA Discussion Section that we have shown above.

This is not just odd or unfortunate. It’s a huge problem.

In order to be effective, group sites such as this need to be searchable – and effectively so. Otherwise, the same questions and the same answers will continue to recycle, and who’s going to waste their valuable time doing that?

Editors Note: We have not linked to the International Speakers Network for obvious reasons. Go there are your own peril. We have also not linked to any of the Group Discussions in LinkedIn because they will not work unless you are a member of LinkedIn (and sometimes even a member of a specific group).