Librarian of Fortune

How strong is your password?

As has been reported everywhere, LinkedIn had a security breach and 6.5 million passwords were compromised, probably including yours. I just played around with LastPass, which will look up any password to see if it was one of the 6.5 million.

Why is this interesting? Although it doesn't tell you if your account was compromised, but it does serve to remind you of the importance of using a password that isn't common.

Ten Top Tips for Searching LinkedIn

Want to pick up some tips on searching LinkedIn more effectively? I just posted the first of a series, MEB's 123s -- 20- to 30-minute webinars focusing on practical advice to info pros and knowledge workers. The first webinar, Ten Top Tips for Searching LinkedIn, is available at batesinfo.com/meb123 or on YouTube.

Dancing with Digital Natives

This is a great summary of Michelle Manafy's keynote presentation at Computers in Libraries (#CIL11). She's the author of the forthcoming book, Dancing With Digital Natives (which I have already pre-ordered).

Michelle is a great speaker - lively, forward-thinking, accessible, engaging.

WSJ discovers that lawyers have discovered Facebook!

In today's Wall St. Journal, there's an article titled "Searching for Details Online, Lawyers Facebook the Jury: Attorneys Seek Cues on Potential Jurors in Networking Sites". For the most part, I don't think this is news. I use social media all the time in my research, to glean reactions to a product, to better  understand an executive in a company, or to see how an organization is viewed.

Already, divorce lawyers have used data from car transponders (used for electronic payment on toll roads) to prove that the defendant was not in the office that night. It is common knowledge that employers will look at candidates' social media sites, as well as their credit reports.

While it may feel creepy that the lawyers eyeing you in the jury pool know where you went and who you partied with last Friday night, they only know that if you posted those incriminating photos on Facebook without first ensuring that the photo was not publicly viewable.

On the other hand, it's hard not to be paranoid after having read the WSJ's excellent series titled "What They Know". These articles look at how much individual information is collected by online marketers' tracking tools. Fortunately, they also include some basic steps you can take to limit the amount of information you "leak" to marketers.

 

The Fire Will Be Tweeted

Wildfires are still burning in the mountains about 3 miles from our house - already burned 7,000 acres and over 100 buildings, and it is 0% contained after 36 hours.

What has surprised me is how easy it's been to get unfiltered information. There are often several thousand people listening to the live stream of the sheriff and fire scanner; several people are live tweeting any useful info from the scanners; there are at least two Google Maps mashups marking the evacuation areas, closed roads and fire locations. The Twitter hashtag #boulderfire emerged within an hour after the fire was first spotted.

And, as an info pro, I was heartened to see how easy it was to find credible, reliable resources. Between search engine relevance ranking and selectively following well-connected local bloggers, I had my own news dashboard set up within minutes.

I've never felt the need to turn on the radio or TV; I had more current info online, and the traditional media were hours late in offering news via social media. In fact, yesterday the fire crews were asking people to tweet about it, as the reverse 911 system wasn't working.(!)

Building Brand YOU

Susanne Markgren, digital services librarian at SUNY, Purchase, has an excellent slide deck on using social media to build your personal / professional brand.

"Creating an Online Portfolio: improve your skills of self promotion"

The presentation includes topics such as what employers look for in job applicants' online profiles and how to build a portfolio (note, not just a Facebook page or LinkedIn profile, but a 3-dimensional profile). If you market yourself or your business online, check this presentation out.

Who's more clued in, Old Spice or Fast Company?

Blog post about how companies use social media effectively (Old Spice) and really cluelessly (Fast Company).

Fast Company is a well known forward-thinking business magazine. Conventional wisdom says they should have succeeded in a social campaign. P&G is the corporate behemoth behind the brand Old Spice. They should have had trouble with a social campaign. Turns out, that is exactly backwards.

Great example of social media guidelines

Intel has a publicly-available set of guidelines for its employees using social media. It's sensible, coherent, and clear. If you're looking for ways to convey some grown-up rules, check out Intel's Social Media Guidelines.

Intel's Rules of Engagement include:

• Be transparent
• Be judicious
• Write what you know
• Are you adding value?
• Be a leader
• If it gives you pause, pause

A use for Twitter

I was playing around with Twitter search and tried this out:

"swine flu" OR h1n1 near:denver within:25mi

Might be an interesting way to track the arrival of the Flu From Hades...

Marketing 2.0 for Info-Entrepreneurs

The latest issue of my not-monthly Info-Entrepreneur Tip of the Month is out. I talk about some of the relatively painless ways of using the social web for marketing. Yes, one could write a book about it -- these are the ones that feel like the easiest ways to leverage an independent info pro's time.