SchwartzBlog

I have seven email accounts. Yea I know it’s a lot. But I guarantee almost every one of them has a specific purpose. Kind of.

Anyway, there are certain emails I give out and certain emails I don’t. I am also very selective in what I subscribe to. Because when I get an email in one of my “priority” inboxes, I check it almost instantly.

I got an email a few days ago:

For those of you who haven’t read part 1, click here…

When communicating online or even in person, the types of words you use are key. When online, it can be even more important.

But, its a two way street. If you hear someone say something inappropriate like “that’s so gay” or “that’s so retarded”, you can’t go up to them and say “Why on earth would you say something like that!?!?!”

I see it all the time, especially on facebook. People will have status updates like:

1 in every 10 people are gay.That means 1 of every 10 people is
instantly put down, given bad labels, left alone, put in minority and
more… for something they didn’t ask for. Many gay teens are turning to
suicide as a way of escaping. If you want to tell them that life will
get better and that you respect them for who they are, copy and paste
this. Most of you won’t, but lets see the 5% of you who will.

That is a Facebook status update from a friend of mine. It has great intentions, but it doesn’t help the cause in a healthy way.

So what can we do about it? I’m glad you asked. I happened to be an avid blog reader and today I came across a post by a friend of mine who has uncovered a new way to help minimize certain language in a healthy way.

Here’s the link…

We Hate The Hate, Do You Really Mean That?.

Take it in and spread the message…

Peace.

As I started writing this post I realized why I had such a long gap between posts this past month. It’s because this past month I have read more literature than ever before.

Because for the first time, I have found the kinds of books that I simply cannot put down. And its about time.

My reading habits are a function of my intrinsic motivation. While I have always been assigned reading material, I didn’t always read them. And the ones I did, I didn’t always enjoy. What I did enjoy were the books that weren’t given to me as an assignment. They were books that I chose to read on my own; books that had nothing to do with science fiction, nothing to do with magical realism, and nothing to do with something that never happened. The books I dove into dealt with real world issues, issues that I could connect with. Those books were not only read cover to cover, but they changed the way I thought for the better.

The first type of consistent reading I had was in ninth grade. I didn’t love the content, but I loved the way it was taught. My teacher used his assignments to make me want to focus on what I was reading. So while I may have been reading Shakespeare, I also had to connect what Shakespeare was saying to a song by Nickelback, which back then was my favorite artist. It was because of that teacher that I started appreciating Shakespeare, which came in handy when I went to the Globe Theater in London.

Sophomore year was different. While I had nothing against my teacher personally, I didn’t like the style of reading she chose. Magical Realism was a joke to me because I could never connect it to any part of my life. For the first three quarters, I rarely read. I still read the USA Today every day, but I didn’t read my assigned English content. This was until the fourth quarter when we received a new teacher. This teacher was more into class participation, which I was a big fan of. The one book he chose, The Glass Menagerie, was the only English book I read cover to cover that year.

Junior year I got back on track. My first class, Ethics and Existence, focused on content that I could connect with. The second semester, however, was on American Literature; Fictional American Literature. However, in this case, I still had an incredible time. While initially I didn’t care for the content, I loved the assignments given around the content. I loved the miniature reading assignments given daily, because those assignments had to do with real issues in this country, issues that I could connect with what I read every morning, which by then was the New York Times. It was because of the assignments given by my teacher that lead me to start enjoying the books given. This would be the first full semester that I would read at least three books cover to cover.

My senior year had positives and negative. My first class was Mythology in Literature. And while I had great respect for my teacher, I couldn’t get into the content. I would read “And then he grew wings”, and would think to myself “uh, no he didn’t.” However, this year there came another source of reading material. Material that while I was not forced to read, I loved. The first was $20 A Gallon. I read its book review in the Times and that day I bought it. It was a theoretical book, but it used current hot issues to prove its points. The second book was recommended to me by a friend, called Never Eat Alone. It talked about how in today’s business environment, self marketing is crucial.

Then came Drive. It was an amazing book that basically explained to me why I didn’t like reading most of the books I had read prior. My kind of book is one that talks to me directly. There is no main character, no magic, or anything like that. It’s a piece of writing that changes the way I think. That was drive in a nutshell.   It had to do with a new type of motivation that many had not considered a sort of “intrinsic motivation”, the kind of motivation that had caused me to read the paper every morning instead of my English book for the past four years. And I fell in love with it. I had two long flights the next two days, so I read that 300 page book cover to cover in 48 hours, a feat I had never completed before.

I don’t read because I am told, I read because I get curious. I don’t read because I want to see action and adventure from text, I read because I can’t wait to see how an idea can dramatically change my way of thinking.

I’ve read two more books since then, Outliers and The Tipping Point, both by Malcolm Gladwell. But that’s another post

Thanks for reading…

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Wow. It’s been almost 6 weeks since my last post. So what have I been up to? Not what I’m used to. Since midterms ended I have learned the practice of low stress. It’s not that I don’t do anything, but I simply don’t do anything I don’t want to do.

February then was pretty uneventful. That’s not to say that I didn’t have a lot of fun. Skiing, Trumpet, & just meeting new people. Uneventful, but I loved it.

This past monday I was invited to be part of a panel as part of a PTA meeting. The topic was students and social media, and I guess they thought I knew a little about that.

So I made a powerpoint with a few videos, some snapshots of my Facebook profile and others, and gave parents some suggestions on how to ease their kids into social media.

here is what I covered (in short):

Today your “Digital Identity” is more important then ever. Not only is everything you do public, but it is saved. And you never know when something you post today is going to creep back in the future.

Facebook is like a megaphone. It makes the good things you do better and the bad things you do worse.

As a parent, it’s important to be a part of the experience. Kids need to understand that while social media is a great tool, it needs to be used wisely.

What I also told them was that it needs to be a mutual experience. If a parent tries to put major restrictions on their children when it comes to social media, that kid is just going to find a way around it. It isn’t rocket science. If your parent has access to your Facebook profile, you make a new Facebook profile. If your parents put locks on your computer, you use your friends computer. All in all, parents cannot completely control internet access anymore. So if they want to be a part in it at all, they need to be more of a guide and less of a governor.

I gave them my checklist of what I think about before I post things online:

Would my mother have a heart attack if she saw what I posted online?

Would my girlfriend have a heart attack if she saw what I posted online?

Would my boss have a heart attack if he saw what I posted online?

Would Carnegie Mellon have a heart attack if they saw what I posted online?

Yea I know an entire school can’t have a heart attack. Just go with it.

In summary, I had a blast. but it wasn’t because I got to talk about Facebook. It’s because I got to talk.

I love public speaking. I love the idea that in a few minutes I can communicate so much to such a large group of people without missing a beat. And believe me, I don’t miss a beat.

That’s one of the reasons I decided to go into Information Systems. I love technology, but I can’t spend my life behind a desk. I need to be out there, I need to have that ability to change the minds of others.

BTW, after the presentation, a few parents came up to me and asked if they could pay me to come talk to their kids about Facebook. I told them I’d have to look at my schedule…

But that’s not even the best part. The next day I was exchanging emails with Tom Krieglstein. If you don’t know who that is, get a life.

Tom is a social media guru and public speaking guru. You can see why I would want to be exchanging emails with someone like that. So anyway he says he is doing an event at a nearby high school next week and he invited me to join him. Only problem is I’d have to miss school.

I walked upstairs to my parents office and said:

“Guys, I would never ask you this before I got into college. Next friday i’m skipping school to watch Tom give a presentation on social media. I’m not asking”

and they said

“You’re going to make up everything you miss. We’re not asking”

end of conversation.

I sent that transcript to Tom and he put it on his blog. Here’s the link.

So yea that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve got a few more posts in draft mode so keep tuning in and as always, thanks for reading…