This clearly looks like an Internet Deception to me.

A recent topic on LinkedIn in which I became engaged and with which I have strong feelings goes like this, "...when others import their address book into sites such as Visisble Path, Jobster and others and my name (or anyone’s) is in their addy book it appears we are members to those who search for out name. I feel this is deceptive and promotes unwelcome invitations from unsuspecting people. It is not the fault of the members; it is the site that has it set up this way. I am talking to a lady from Visible Path tomorrow regarding this situation but I am curious if others feel this is a deceptive act on the part of these sites. In an email she admitted I am not a member, but it appears that I am due to my name being in someone else’s address book. Essentially, they are using the members address books to deceptively increase membership. "

My response went like this:
This is clearly deceptive. I may or may not be correct in saying that the company that does this can quite possibly be accused of taking a LIBELOUS ACTIONS when they post your name (and mine?) for all to see and use. The paragraph below is taken from Marks, P. (2006): Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites, in: NewSienctistTech, 06/09/2006. This is also referenced in the web resources below. This is all kind of scary when combined with the abusive and deceiptful efforts of companies like the one you mention in your initial question. "Advanced Research Development Activity is a role to spend NSA money on research that can "solve some of the most critical problems facing the US intelligence community". Chief among ARDA's aims is to make sense of the massive amounts of data the NSA collects - some of its sources grow by around 4 million gigabytes a month.The ever-growing online social networks are part of the flood of internet information that could be mined: some of the top sites like MySpace now have more than 80 million members." Other web references below provide interesting viewpoints on this provocative question.

Links:
http://www.shrm.org/hrmagazine/articles/0405/0405berkshire.asp
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=mg19025556.200&feedId=online-...
http://www.socialnetworks.org/

House Fire in Richmond's Northside

The Call & The Response

Saturday, Feb 3, 2007 at 11:00 PM, I responded to a Red Cross call (my first) for a house fire in the Cloverland neighborhood in Richmond's Northside. Our team met the clients (victims of the house fire) at a nearby Travelers Lodge to process the paperwork so they could be provided with immediate shelter. The fire affected an engaged couple and her three teenage children.

The home suffered a kitchen fire resulting from the contents of a pot on the stove igniting. The kitchen fire caused smoke damage through part of the home. The kitchen was heavily damaged, but overall damage to the home was minimal because of the quick thinking of the occupants to use a water hose to contain the fire to the kitchen until the fire department arrived. Collateral damage was suffered by the wiring in the kitchen forcing the fire department to cut power to the home. With temperatures expected in single digits over the next few days, getting this family to a hotel was imperative.

The Preparation
Keeping in mind that this was my first DAT (Disaster Action Team) response, I was thankful for a number of things that helped me in this situation and that will help me in the months and years to come.

• I was very glad to be accompanied by Michelle Evans as she is very experienced in the entire response process. She was very helpful to me, as I quickly realized there were a lot of paperwork things to take care of. While I wanted to appear to the client that I was knowledgeable and able to answer his questions, I also wanted to be able to show sympathy and caring. All combined, made me thankful to have Michelle there.
• I am glad to have attended as much training I've been able to squeeze into my schedule. The education in Disaster Services and in coordinating services with outside organizations and government agencies has provided me with somewhat of a foundation on which to act confidently when called on.
• I was very thankful to have recently completed Family Services training with Kim Lefler. She did a great job preparing me for handling the paperwork requirement on a call. As good a job as she did, once in a real situation, where judgment calls are required, which form to use, how to respond to a particular question, or more so, how to tactfully ask a question still gets somewhat overwhelming.
  
• I'm glad the Red Cross Chapter is making many training classes available to volunteers over the next few months.
  

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

Disasters don't discriminate. Everyone can be a victim and must take action to be prepared. Catastrophic risk is real and devastating and can be mitigated by having a plan and practicing the plan with immediate family. For a post-disaster recovery, safeguard the essentials by investing in a safe to preserve copies of important documents and files..

Computer Records & Important Documents in Safe

Invest in a portable disk drive and take advantage of the computer age by scanning receipts and important papers.

• Your personal finance application CD
• Photo images of insured assets
• Setup CDs and support phone numbers
• Once a month update your stored computer data

Identity Documents in Safe

Every state offers both a drivers license and a state id, get both!!

• birth certificate
• social security card
• state ID
• passports
• photocopy of drivers license and recent utility statements
• List passwords, credit card numbers, secret codes

Financial, Insurance & Estate Records in Safe

Review your policy regularly, keeping it up to date. Know what is and, more importantly, what is not covered.

• insurance policies, stock certificates, vehicle titles and registrations
• phone numbers for insurance agents, investment brokers, banker, attorney, accountant
• recent copies of account statements
• photocopies of receipts from major repairs or improvements
• your will, memorial planner and name of firm holding the original
• power of attorney (may be necessary if not everyone survives the disaster)
• credit card numbers & phone numbers for cancelling/renewing cards
• bank account numbers & phone numbers for the bank
• jewelry

Emergency Items in Safe

The most important things to save are ourselves, our family members and our pets. The rest can be replaced.

• extra debit card, credit card & emergency cash
• keys for emergencies
• copies of prescriptions (medicine, eyeglasses, hearing aid, other medical needs)
  
• eyeglasses, hearing aid
  
• phone number for pharmacist, personal doctors, health insurance provider and family
• copy of health insurance card

Recap

With house fires affecting single families and to hurricanes affecting whole communities, getting back on your feet after a disaster is difficult. This road to recovery can be made easier for families who have prepared for the disaster in advance.

We all need to keep in mind that tomorrow is not promised and being prepared for the worst is the best thing for those we leave behind.

I'd like to extend thanks to all those (primarily through LinkedIn) who provided their input and ideas to me for this article. I also welcome any comments to this blog that might help me to improve upon what is now written.

How can "small" small businesses most effectively map their business processes when they are in rapid growth mode?

Business Process Mapping refers to activities involved in defining exactly what a business entity does, who is responsible, to what standard a process should be completed and how the success of a business process can be determined. Once this is done, there can be no uncertainty as to the requirements of every internal business process.

I'm interested in ideas and suggestions on effective techniques for mapping business processes in small service businesses in growth mode where the BPM can become both something to improve upon as well as a training tool for replicating the business.

What amazing web services are available, free of charge, for volunteers to use in their volunteer organizations?

Someone told me about an amazing mapping application from ESRI, free for use by volunteer-based applications. Otherwise, this ESRI application is a very expensive product. This lead me to wonder what else was available, under similar terms, that could be used to benifit volunteer organizaitons.

Through my volunteering, I participate and am active in these activities that could all potentially benefit:
--- Scout leader in Cub Scouts
--- Active on Disaster Action Team, Red Cross
--- Alumni Board for VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University)
--- lots of other ad hoc activities during the year

What advice do you have for families to be prepared for recovering from a disaster like a fire, ice storm or hurricane?

Everywhere in the world, people fall victim to disasters of various sorts. When a disaster strikes at home, it can be very unnerving for the victims in its wake. In Virginia, we see house fires affecting single families and hurricanes affecting whole communities. Getting back on your feet after a disaster is difficult, but the road to recovery is easier for families who have prepared for the disaster in advance.

My involvement with a relief organization has educated me on many of the hardships encountered by victims such as all of their identification being destroyed in a fire. For these people, it is then difficult to prove to the bank their identity so they can make a withdrawal. People need quick cash to pay for necessities and shelter. Help me with my research on this topic for the next article I'm going to write by sharing your ideas with me.

Of course, any advice provided is probably equally as applicable for businesses that also want to recover as painlessly as possible from a disaster too.

LinkedIn Q&A - Awesome Business Tool

Have you ever used LinkedIn? If not, check it out. I've been on it since 2004. They keep adding capabilities to make it worthwhile to stay on. When I first joined, there were just over 1,000,000 members. Now they've grown to well over 9,000,000 members. I don't believe there are too many web communities for social networking that rival the types services or membership that LinkedIn has managed.

The latest feature they have added is a Q&A section. This is very powerful. I was able to choose between posing the question to only my connections, select connections or the entire membership. I chose the entire membership for a couple of reasons. I didn't want to pester my connections with another needless email from LinkedIn. Secondly, most power users probably filter LinkedIn to a folder or trash and choose to use the web site for staying current. And third, the full membership represents a mammoth potential. Imagine, 1 question to an audience of 9,000,000. 90% of these people are working adults worldwide. I'm bound to get a few answers. So what to ask...

Well it just so happens that I had a legitimate question and otherwise, didn't really have the time to chase down an answer, nor did I want to bother to many people with this question. So why not pose it to the LinkedIn community. Well I must say, than in the last 24 hours, the answers have been rolling in and some of them are quite good.

Ok, enough already! Here's the question with a little supporting detail:

How can "small" small businesses most effectively map their business processes when they are in rapid growth mode?

Business Process Mapping refers to activities involved in defining exactly what a business entity does, who is responsible, to what standard a process should be completed and how the success of a business process can be determined. Once this is done, there can be no uncertainty as to the requirements of every internal business process.

I'm interested in ideas and suggestions on effective techniques for mapping business processes in small service businesses in growth mode where the BPM can become both something to improve upon as well as a training tool for replicating the business.

This is a legitimate question, not easily answered concisely and in a thought provoking way, yet most that I've read so far are quite thought provoking. So, I don't know if you can get to the responses unless you are a member. And if you are a member, here is my profile if you do want to dig in to see some of these responses.

Renters Insurance and the Red Cross

I began as a volunteer in Disaster Services with the Red Cross last year. Aside from the fact that when someone goes through some sort of disaster in their life, they are all but miserable and in many cases, left with nothing, they often add insult to injury by not being properly insured. In most of the cases I've seen, those most affected were those who were most at risk. These were people who for whatever reason, didn't have insurance.

So why blog about this topic? Well I volunteered to write an article on the topic for our Public Affairs office. so this is as good a place as any to record my thoughts.

To start with, I have a personal experience with this. While working in Nashville TN, and travelling on business, my home was robbed. The plus for renters insurance is that when you have it, then you fall into a safety net. When you don't, well I think you get the picture.

I solicited some feedback on this topic from a very wise friend in the insurance business. He had some good (insurance-speak) advice. He said there are 3 key areas of protection under a renters policy is as follows:

1. Contents protection - In apartment fires most tenants do not have this coverage. It protects your furniture, electronics, clothing etc. as it will replace these items at today's cost less a small deductible ($250 or $500). Not having this coverage can cost you thousands of dollars to replace these items.
   
   
2. Additional Living Expense - This will pay for the tenant to live at a hotel and for extra cost of meals, dry cleaning, etc. if the tenant is forced out of the apartment
   
   
3. Personal Liability - This covers the tenant if someone slips and falls at the apartment and the tenant is sued for negligence. The owner/landlord can also be sued. The liability also covers if you hit someone with a golf ball while playing golf, or accidentally running into someone with your shopping cart at the grocery store, etc.

My agent's daughter is covered at her rented home away at college in Georgia. The same concept applies to small business coverage for offices and retail stores.

Perhaps the moral here is that the ones who are affected will buy a policy for the future. The tenants in the complex who are not affected usually purchase policies at that time as well. Unfortunately disasters like fires, floods and wind create a marketing opportunity for renters insurance in rental areas.

So back to my experience with the Red Cross, well, somewhere in here is a story just waiting to be told.