Social Networking

It has been a long time since I have posted a “Miss Manners” Post, today just might be a good day since I have not been able to get any work done in the last two days (and I have piles of work to do) but somehow I keep messing up my computer!!! Breaking it in some form or another that makes it impossible for me to get to my images, or photo shop, or something! Don’t ask me how I do it, but I do. Sadly my IT guy (Anthony) works full time as a IT guy so he can’t be here 24/7 for all my computer mishaps that I seem to be having a lot of lately, I fried my laptop, broke my computer a few times and so much more!

I am going to talk about the do’s and don’ts of social networking.

I am sure most of you are familiar with facebook, myspace, linkden, blogs and the latest big one, twitter. I am on facebook and twitter. Personally twitter is a great way to reach out to people in your field or similar interests with out all the mess of facebook. One thing I don’t like about it, it feels like a bragging right sometimes, much like facebook status update, a lot of poeple post that they “did this and I did that”, which really gets sort of annoying after a while. I don’t know if I really need to know what you ate for lunch every day! lol! Once in a while is ok, but every day, really? Ok now I am ranting. What I really wanted to talk about being wise and careful and having proper manners on these sort of sites.

Here are some basic guidelines:

1.Take care with your WORDS

Be careful what you say in your “status updates” or on people’s walls, blog comments, or Twitter updates, you just don’t know who is watching/listening….for example I follow a few professionals on twitter/facebook and some of the things that I have seen written by them have really shocked me, for example, bashing other companies, other people in your business/field is not ok…these types of comments are not appropriate and are going to do more harm to you than anything else….even if you are frustrated about a service you had and you are in the right, facebook and twitter really is not the place to talk badly about others or other companies….

Take care what you say critically about people or things in general, the last thing you want is to voice your overly critical opinion on something and offend others, specially if it will weaken your credibility and make you look extremely unprofessional.

Places like facebook and twitter maybe are not a place for political views if you are a professional, being a professional is tricky because you want to be open to all walks of life, you don’t want to offend any future client/employee, there is a place though if you are passionate about certain things, say politics, animal rights or for me personally organic food and fair trade, than I suggest creating a outlet for that that is not affiliated with your professional self. So if you are a mortgage broker or an artist, whatever you do, you need an outlet for your personal opinions and thoughts, create a blog, or join a group, but try not to plaster it around social networking sites, because again you just don’t know who is listening. But in all cases proper manners apply, we have the wonderful freedom of free speech, but we have to be wise with how we word things, for example profanity is not the wisest way to get your point across.

2. PHOTOS/images

We are artists, and find beauty in all types of images, but on this blog we try very hard to keep the images “work” friendly. Which means that if you are at work and stopping by the blog the images will not get you into trouble with your boss, or look inappropriate. The same goes for the images on facebook. If you are using facebook for networking purposes and you have a wapping 10 galleries of you and your friends getting drunk and doing inappropriate things you might want to think twice about those images, who is looking at them? Possibly future employees, or the person you just interviewed with, take care because every little image, could harm your career or reputation. It shows a lot about your character and who you are, and other people see this. So clean up your facebook account, if you want to use it just for friends, make sure only your true friends can see your info and images, if you want to use it for professional purposes, keep it professional, clean and tidy. Facebook has great settings and security, so make sure to use them. You can also change your settings so that if someone tags you in an image it won’t be published in the news feed. Which gives you time to see the image first, and untag it if you need to.

3. Clean up your account

If you want to use these sites for strictly professional purposes which I recommend, than you will need to do these things…

- untag all inappropriate images, delete all galleries that are inappropriate or unnecessary, such as most personal photos (we don’t really need to see the bedroom you stayed in on your honeymoon, things like that).

- clean up your content, minimal, less is more is best, if you have a website use that, please don’t publish your address unless it is your business/office location, be careful about your number and email you use as well, your political agenda is not really needed, same as your religion (if people want to know more about who you are than they can talk to you about it) One on one contact gives you a change to explain how you see the world rather than giving your self a label that comes with tons of connotations with it.

- use facebook to post new networking info, like new blog post, or website info, or things going on in the community that you are apart of and need support. I try to mainly use my status update and twitter for mostly professional reasons…try also to not post a ton, we don’t really need to know everything every 5 minutes of the day.

- use facebook to keep in touch with friends but don’t let it replace quality time with each other, one thing I hate about social networking is that it has made it more and more easy to not talk to people face to face and to just send them a message (I am guilty of this too, sometimes I am so busy it is easier to just email someone real quick) but really spend less time on facebook and more time with your actual friends, call them instead of posting on the wall, go out with them instead of talking online. Also- as far as business relationships, social networking is great, but the best relationships I have made and the most fruitful ones have been the ones that I have actually met with person, talked to them over tea/coffee and established a professional relationship. So keep that in mind, sometimes a phone call or meeting is much more effective and memorable than any facebook or linkden message.

Well I think that is all for now, this is super long, sorry about that. Check out our facebook page here, and my twitter!

remember…

Be Kind, for you don’t know the hard paths traveled by another,

~ Miss Manners

Related posts:

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2. Miss. Manners: The City Bus Survival of a Rude Culture for the Modern Girl/Boy “Folk”:...

Survival of a Rude Culture for the Modern Girl/Boy “Folk”:

The City Bus

This week I am going to be talking about the city bus. I have experienced a lot of rudeness riding the city bus and I want to use this space to talk about it. Everyone is always in a hurry to get somewhere, so often we are so involved in our own world and what we need to do that day, where we need to go and the tasks we need to accomplish, we forget to be polite, we forget to look around us, to observe someone in need, or to just notice the basic mundane life of everyday.

With this hustle and bustle I have seen a lot of sad, horrible things on the city bus. One of my biggest pet peeves is the first section of the bus, which is reserved for elderly and handicap people. People!!! You have strong legs, you are young and limber, you can stand and let the poor old lady who is barley able to keep her balance, sit down in your place.

First off the handicap and elderly section should always be off limits, if it is empty when you get on and you sit down than be prepared to ALWAYS get up when a elderly person gets on the bus, or handicap person. Think of how difficult it is for them to ride the bus to begin with, the good old saying goes, “picture yourself in their feet”. So give up your set. If that area is completely full and you have a seat, the compassionate thing and courteous thing to do is to offer up your seat to another who needs it more. I rarely ever see this happen on the bus.

This is what I do see:

Young college students, young people in general, and even some middle aged sitting in the elderly/handicap section. When someone gets on the bus who needs to sit, no one moves, no one budges an inch to accommodate the elderly person. Now I know that their are people who do move and do accommodate  but in most cases this is what I have seen.

Basic Bus manners that should be used:

1. Smile (gesh everyone looks so serious & unhappy)

2. Chat (don’t be afraid to chat with your neighbor, great them politely, when did saying “Hello” become so taboo)

3. Basic “excuse me sir, ma’am” and “thank you” to anyone who moves for you so you can get off, and always to the bus driver! They need to know that they are appreciated, they don’t get a tip so let them know you are grateful for the safe ride to and from your destination….you wonder why the bus driver might be so crabby? Well wouldn’t you be crabby if you had to bus rude people around all day too? So make their day by saying “Hi” and “Thanks”

4. And if you are able, always give up your set for another and stand, and never sit in the reserved section for handicap and elderly.

5. When you sit down, don’t pick the aisle seat, actually sit in the window seat so that it is easier for people to get a seat as the bus fills up.

6. When loading the bus, be patient, and don’t budge in front of another person when it is clear that they were waiting longer to get on.

7. For Subway, airways and other transportation I think the same rules apply..

8. A note on harassment. I have been personally harassed on the city bus and it is very unpleasant. No one did anything to help me, not even the bus driver, if you are on the bus and you see harassment going on, stand up, help the person out, remove them from the situation, notify the bus driver right away, do something, don’t just ignore it and pretend like it is not happening. I am sure men get harassed on the bus but most often it is girls, so Men please stand up and help a gal out…yes that is right be her Knight, we need men to be Knights! Nothing is more horrible than being harassed by some creep and no one helping you!

Well I think I about covered everything I can think of. If you have experienced rudeness or you have been rude and realized your wrong and want to share, or you have some topics you want me to cover, please email me at brittany@hanle-productions.com.

Be Kind, for you don’t know the hard paths traveled by another,

~ Miss Manners

* a note on “Miss. Manners” this is just a name, a mission to help educate on manners, in no way am I claiming to be Miss. Manners because I am far from perfect.

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2. Miss. Manners: Social Networking Proper Manners for the Modern Girl or Boy: Social Networking...

Survival of a Rude Society for the Modern Girl

The Cell Phone:

Miss Manners has been a series that has been long coming. I originally wanted to start a whole blog on manners, the do’s and dont’s of life and share some of my personal experiences. But I realized that would be a huge commitment. For about the last 6 months I have been talking about starting these posts and have just simply not gotten around to it. I really feel that it is important to discuss these issues because I want people to realize that it is not ok to do certain things, and to simply just realize that they do things that can be considered rude and may just not even realize. We live in a very self absorbed culture and I feel that basic common sense and manners have been forgotten because we are always caught up in our own world and often forget that we may just be hurting someone by our rudeness.

This weeks topic is Cell Phones! The dreadful phone that we are obsessed with (I am guilty too at times). When is it ok to use your phone and when is it not?  Seems basic right, guess again!

I have had a few issues with a few friends of mine (I will never name names ever) but I am using these examples to really help people understand why this is so rude. When you schedule to spend time with a friend you expect to have them there, fully in your presence, you don’t expect to have to be fighting for their attention with their cell phone. I have experienced this a lot! It is plain rude and I have been very hurt by it! Imagine being out to lunch with your friend and having a half bash conversation with them because they are twittering or checking facebook, or messaging, or email on their iphone! This is not acceptable and completely rude.

This is the message that you are sending to people when you answer/play on your phone:

1. I do not respect you!

2. I do not respect your time!

When you are with friends or family your cell phone should be stored away in your purse or pocket. If your phone should ring or you get a text what should you do?

1. Don’t answer it (you can call them back later that is what messages are for)

2. Excuse your self and say I will be right back (only if) you can handle telling the person on the phone that you are with a friend and will be more than happy to call them back, do not leave your friend alone at a coffee shop for 20 minutes while you jibber on the phone! Again this is telling your friend that you do not respect them nor do you respect their time!

What if you are on call or at a business meeting?

If you are meeting with clients you should never answer your phone. If you need to check messages because the person you are meeting with next may have canceled or is lost than this is perfectly understandable, same rules apply excuse yourself and keep it short. In most cases whether with a friend or with a client you should remember to silent your phone or at least turn the volume down, nothing is more annoying than trying to have a conversation when the phone keeps buzzing.

How about while driving. I once spent a long ride with a friend who I had not seen in ages in the car. Neither of us was driving, and instead of chatting with me she spent the whole time on her phone doing this and that. Again you are sending the message, that you don’t respect me and that you don’t value the time we have together.

If you are driving the car should you use your cell phone? No! I am totally guilty of making a call or two while driving (I really try not to) but I am guilty of it. It really is unsafe and if you are talking or texting while driving you really are being rude because you basically are saying that you care more about yourself and your business than the lives that you are putting in danger by not giving the road your full attention.

Well I think I covered most of the basics of cell phone usage. I hope this helps, and I truly hope that people become more aware of how they may be hurting another by being  rude. So next time your with a friend, resist the urge, make it a habit to give your friend all of yourself, to respect them and your time together. And if you have a friend who has been hurting you this way, let them know (nicely)  that this is hurting you, don’t be afraid  to tell them because I truly believe people just don’t realize and don’t think to realize that they are being rude

Be Kind, for you don’t know the hard paths traveled by another,

~ Miss Manners

Related posts:

1. Miss. Manners: The City Bus Survival of a Rude Culture for the Modern Girl/Boy “Folk”:...
2. Miss. Manners: Social Networking Proper Manners for the Modern Girl or Boy: Social Networking...