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Build the Church has been selected as a national finalist in the Podsafe Music Award category from PodCast Awards   http://www.podcastawards.com . Voting starts November 13 at the PodCast Awards website. Since the finalists are based on listener nominations and a quality review process I want to thank you for your nominations and recommendations and I hope you get the chance to vote for Build the Church once the voting begins (don’t worry, I will try to remind everyone…) Considering many of the nominees from various categories are podcasts from national syndicated networks and shows such ESPN, Fox News, NPR, Real Time with Bill Maher and the Rick Steves Show (just to mention a few); I am humbled and honored by your nominations and support.

Thanks again for everything,
MB

Go to http://www.podcastawards.com starting November 13th to vote!

Below is the video announcing the finalists.

One wonders if there is justice in the world? In our society when someone feels they have been wronged there are laws to protect them. If the act is bad enough, someone goes to jail, if not…they just get sued. It is the “get sued” part where the cross hairs live for often a person may be unjustly sued (whether true or not) or in the opinion of a community unjustly sued (whether true or not.)

Earlier today Chicago Now reported that a tenant of Horizon Realty was sued for a “tweet” they sent regarding the place they lived. If you are bored and want to read the complaint, here it is;  Twitter lawsuit.pdf.  A woman with less than 20 followers on Twitter complained about mold in her apartment to a friend, so Horizon Realty sued her for $50,000 in damages.

The purpose of this post is not to agree or disagree with the lawsuit, but rather to point out when the online community turns on someone/something because they see injustice…the results can snowball. I mean snowball in a big way. One of the top tweet topics today are commentary from literally thousands of Twitter users spreading the word about the injustice they perceive.

Business can learn a big big lesson here.

Seek to resolve before you pull out the big guns. The lawsuit and report of the lawsuit has created a huge PR problem for this company. In a world where information is in real time one would think companies would adjust their actions to take the every changing world into account. Once the mob turns against you the damage is irreversable and the public relations nightmare just grows bigger and bigger.

What would I do? I would withdraw the lawsuit, address the issue, work towards a productive resolution for all parties and if at fault, I would stand up and let the community know I made a mistake and I am sorry.

Will this happen, only time will tell…but till then you can read the Twitter communtiy tweets about it here.

With the passing of popular 70’s starlet & Charlie’s Angel Farrah Fawcett, and sudden death of  Michael Jackson, it is interesting to read, watch and listen to reactions. Both of these popular icons lives were filled with incredible success and tragedy. Farrah’s publicized fight with cancer and MJ’s legal and personal problems marked the end of two incredible journeys. Both passed the same day. But, how will they be remembered?  Will Farrah be remembered for her famous haircut and poster or for her amazing fight with cancer?  Will MJ be remembered as a boy star then the King of Pop or for his troubling legal battles?

How do you want to be remembered?

A couple of years ago, I attended a funeral of a simple man. He worked in a grocery store all of his life. He started out as a bag boy and over his career he advanced into management of the location. It and of itself, that part of the story is not extraordinary. But here is the rest of the story. For his entire work life at the grocery story, this simple man was determined to help people, give everyone a pleasant smile, thank them for shopping and made all of the customers he encountered feel welcome. Over the years he developed real relationships with his customers, knew them by name and did everything he could do to give a great shopping experience at this local grocery store.  One day, after a long battle with cancer the man’s life ended. I had the opportunity to attend this man’s funeral. I was amazed to find that at the funeral for this simple man gathered over 1500 people to pay their respects. Not just family, friends and friends of family but hundreds of customers and people this man had helped, smiled and been kind to over the years.

The deaths of two famous people yesterday caused me to pause and remember this humble man’s funeral. No, he was not a movie star a pop star or a cultural phenomena. He was a good decent man who in his small world made a difference and effected people in a positive way. In allot of ways, this man was just as successful as the stars that passed yesterday.

It is interesting how we reflect at times like these on how others will remember us after we leave this life. The equation seems to be very simple. The quality of how you are remembered is the direct effect on what you do during your life and how you impact the people you deal with. If your impact is negative, sad as it seems, I believe you will be remembered that way. If your impact is positive, again I believe you will be remembered that way. Please take note I said nothing about the size and scope of your impact. You can be remembered just a fondly as the before mentioned man and have only a handful pay their respects.

So let’s all do something, if only for a little while…Let’s treat others as we would like to be treated. Go out of your way today to be helpful. Show courtesy to everyone you contact and give them a smile.

You never know, if you always do this till the day you pass you just might be remembered as someone who really made a difference.

Ok I have to admit something. Yesterday, I almost fell for a hacker’s scam. Don’t get me wrong, I am at the front of the class when it comes to firewall protection and virus-spam-phishing-malware protection. But still, yesterday…I was so so close to getting bit.

Hackers launched an attack on Facebook yesterday and upon the 200 million users therein. The purpose of the attack was to gather passwords. Many speculated the hope of the hackers was identity theft and to solicit fake products to Facebook users.  Considering if Facebook was a country, its 200 million users would make it the 5th largest nation on the planet, I am not surprised the site’s users face these issues from time to time.

Below is a cropped screen shot of a message within my Facebook Inbox, the names and pics have been covered <so someone out there can breath a sigh of relief  >.  The message was sent to a large number of people and Heading was a simple “Hello.”  The message contained a request to check out an obscurely named website and upon clicking the link one was sent to what appeared to be the Facebook log-in page. Sadly it was not the log-in page but the phisher’s site and here is where passwords and information were gathered.  The attack looked like this in my Inbox;

As you can see, many commented on the thread as they attempted to reach the hack site. It appears that everyone in this thread clicked after Facebook cleaned up the mess.

Here is what Ryan McGeehan (of Facebook) had to say on the Facebook blog;

When the latest phishing incident surfaced on Wednesday, we quickly blocked the fake links from being shared on Facebook to stop their spread. We’ve been removing these links from Walls and Inboxes across the site and resetting passwords for any of the compromised accounts we detect. This foils the bad guys, because the login information they collect will no longer work.

Now here is my confession. I had a busy day but noticed several comments to a Facebook Inbox message being dropped into my email. Last night I looked at the message thread and considered clicking the link…but it was late and I did not. This morning, I became aware of the hack and realized how close I was to being a victim. So what does one do? This message was from a trusted source and the sending of links on social networks is very very common? Although not full proof, here are a few simple guidelines to help you stay safe;

• change your passwords often
• never open an email/message from someone you do not know
• always keep your virus-malware-phishing-spam software up-to-date
• turn your firewall on
• back up your data frequently
• update your operating system as asked
• and finally, when in doubt…check it out (ask the source if they sent the email)

My guess is that everyone reading this post knows what to do to protect themselves. You are probably doing what you need to do, I was and still…I almost clicked the link. I guess the one piece we cannot forget is awareness. We get busy, we are busy, we will be busy…and the result is a drop in awareness. That is what happened to me so please, try not to let it happen to you.

This video is so impactful and relative, I had to post it… Watch it and see for yourself, would love to hear your comments.

Help us pick the cover for the upcoming book “The Adventures of Man in the Can.” Helping us is easy, just send an email to “mb at bsmkl dot com” saying your choice of Cover 1 or Cover 2. Everyone who votes will be put into a hat and five names will be drawn and receive a signed copy of “The Adventures of Man in the Can.” Don’t wait, vote now!

Send your choice to “mb at bsmkl dot com” today!

The cover art for the book was done by the amazing David Murdoch. If you have a need for an original and amazing artist you can contact David at “davidmurdoch_art at yahoo dot com” Or go to his website at http://www.dmurdoch.deviantart.com/

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the year 1984 and the 60th anniversary of George Orwell’s epic dystopian novel “1984,” Vernon Coaker the U.K.’s Home Office security minister said the EU Data Retention Directive, under which ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) store communications data does not go far enough. Currently the rules require ISP’s to store data for 12 months. “Social-networking sites such as MySpace or Bebo are not covered by the directive. That is one reason why the government’s looking at what we should do about the Intercept Modernization Program, because there are certain aspects of communications which are not covered by the directive.” said Coaker, speaking at a meeting of the House of Commons Fourth Delegated Legislation Committee. For those that are wondering what is the Intercept Modernization Program, let me explain. The Interception Modernization Program  is a government proposal for legislation to use mass monitoring of traffic data as an anti-terrorism tool. Orwellian indeed…

Ok, so what’s the deal. According to Coaker this change is critical to track terrorist activity in the UK.

It makes one wonder if someone doing something that sinister would use a service like Facebook, MySpace or Bebo to do so? So let’s play what if?

What if…you have a family member currently living in the UK and they use Facebook to send you messages, chat with you and update you. Do you like the thought of someone reading that communication?

What if…you have a business associate that is traveling oversees and sends you a SMS from a text platform, let’s say the text contains confidential business information? How do you feel about that?

What if…someone you love is traveling overseas and chats with you over Facebook chat. Do you enjoy the thought of a government reviewing and saving the chat? Will that change how you behave?

In each case I would be a bit uncomfortable sharing any private, intimate or confidential information and would have some discomfort, but not allot sharing basic small talk.

At the end of the day, the real questions are these…Is this loss of privacy worth a safer world? And do you believe the world will be safer after the loss of privacy? Do you trust a government to keep your secrets a secret when you are not breaking any law?

For those of you that will argue, “why would you feel discomfort unless you have something to hide?” I say “get a life,” that is the same argument that propagated the persecution of people for centuries. I think that argument would fade the second someone starts going through your underwear drawer…

In Orwell’s 1984, we have a vivid picture of a government that has justified the infringement on freedom; one that  used speech codes to limit everyone’s ability to understand and used a powerful media to build unwarranted consensus. This fictional government used technology to nip opposition and the result of was humanity denied its freedom to think. No, I am not saying the sky is falling here and I do believe we need to take steps to keep society safe but when is enough, enough? I don’t have a clue what the answer is but whenever I start to feel uncomfortable and like our privacy may be going away I suspect we may be getting close.

Yesterday, The Nielsen Company released their “Topline U.S. Data Report for February 2009.”  The easy to read news release provides the Top 10 online Parent Companies and the Top 10 online Web Brands. To no surprise Google is the largest Parent Company (133,983,000 unique audience in February) and largest Web Brand (127,142,000 unique audience in February).  For those wondering what the difference is between the two categories Nielsen describes as follows;

• Parent Company: consolidation of multiple domains and URL’s owned by a single company or division
• Web Brand: consolidation of multiple domains and URL’s that has a consistent collection of branded content

The big winners for February, as far as audience is a line-up of “you could have guessed” companies and brands; Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.  So which company was fourth on the largest audience list? Apple? Facebook? eBay? Nope, AOL.  That’s right AOL.  The former king of the net and then fallen son was fourth in company audience and sixth in brand audience, still ahead of Facebook, FOX Interactive (MySpace) and Apple.

But the wins do not stop there for AOL. AOL was the stickiest place on the net with each person spending 3 hours 45 minutes on AOL in February.  More sticky than Yahoo (3 hours 27 minutes) and Facebook (2 hours 59 minutes).  It appears the AOL strategy to add more social and media features to their site. Features and applications such as Twitter apps and Lifestreaming seem to have AOL users staying on AOL longer than any other site user.

Surprised? I was.

So after a big win in the ratings today AOL announced a new CEO, Tim Armstrong; the Google veteran who help build Google into an online advertising behemouth.  So let’s take guess at the future of AOL.  Long user visits+better ad delivery=more revenue.  Could it be that simple?  I don’t know but it will be fun to watch.

No sooner did we all get riled up about Facebook becoming big brother the grand master of the community steps out today and announces reversal of the new controversial Terms of Service back to the old.  In fact Mark Zuckerberg has gone one step farther and opened a new Facebook group called, Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. This will be a place for everyone to voice their thoughts on what should be included in new and improved Terms of Service.

Below is Mark’s blog post from earlier today explaining Facebook’s actions;

Update on Terms

by Mark Zuckerberg Today at 12:17am

A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

Many of us at Facebook spent most of today discussing how best to move forward. One approach would have been to quickly amend the new terms with new language to clarify our positions further. Another approach was simply to revert to our old terms while we begin working on our next version. As we thought through this, we reached out to respected organizations to get their input.

Going forward, we’ve decided to take a new approach towards developing our terms. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now. As I said yesterday, we think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective so we don’t plan to leave it there for long.

More than 175 million people use Facebook. If it were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world. Our terms aren’t just a document that protect our rights; it’s the governing document for how the service is used by everyone across the world. Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service.

Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.

You have my commitment that we’ll do all of these things, but in order to do them right it will take a little bit of time. We expect to complete this in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we’ve changed the terms back to what existed before the February 4th change, which was what most people asked us for and was the recommendation of the outside experts we consulted.

If you’d like to get involved in crafting our new terms, you can start posting your questions, comments and requests in the group we’ve created—Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. I’m looking forward to reading your input.

The instant update phenomena has overtaken us.  With the arrival of smart phones and other portable web-enabled devices we live in a world of instant access, instant communication and instant reporting.

A few weeks ago, Continental Airlines flight 1404 and was leaving from Denver and heading to Houston.  It was carrying 107 passengers and five crew members.  The plane veered off course about 2,000 feet from the end of the runway and did not appear to be airborne.  The plane appeared to have slid into a ditch and was on fire after the crash.  Thirty-eight people were reported to have been injured in the crash, no one died.  The crash was first reported not by a news agency but by Mike Wilson as he sent out a tweet to his Twitter stream from his seat on the plane;  “Holy #$&*@%^#@* I was just in a plane crash!”  (I took out a few expletives ).  I believe this action is a mere foreshadowing to how events will be reported in the near future.  Don’t be surprised if Twitter users from across the world breaking newsworthy events becoming a very common occurrence.

Not to be outdone, on January 16th, a US Airways flight took off from LaGuardia Airport at 3:26pm.  Within one minute of take off, the pilot Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger, knew they were in trouble.

A few minutes later the plane miraciously landed in the Hudson River with all passengers safe and no major injuries.  At 3:36pm a news breaking picture of the plane was sent to TwitPic by Twitter user Janis Krums .

No news agency reported the crash until an estimated 3:48pm.

Once again, Twitter and it’s universe of user, scooped the media.

Sometimes breaking the news is not the best thing to do.

Take for example the story of Virginia GOP Chairman, Jeff Frederick.  A few days ago on February 10th, the Virgina GOP nearly was able to wrestle control of the State senate from the Democrats as they were close to convincing a Democratic Senator to switch parties.  This change would have put the Senate in a 20 to 20 tie with the Democrats.   Once at a 20-20 tie, the tie would have been broken by the Republican Lt. Governor. Then Mr. Frederick sent a tweet.

The Democrats saw and read the Tweet and quickly moved to talk the party switching Senator from doing so. This quick action to the update by the Democrats stopped the GOP coup in it’s tracks.

So was Virginia GOP Chairman reporting news?  Or is this a “what was he thinking?” moment.

We have an incredibly powerful tools to instantly communicate today.  Tools that if not used wisely, can be used against us (just ask the Virginia GOP).  So what do we do?  What are some rules we can follow?  This technology is way too new to have accepted protocol like email but if we use a little common sense, we can stay out of hot water:

• First and always report the facts as you see them.  Nothing added, no imbelishment.
• If you are involved in something that could be described as “negotiations” it would be safe to never report until the negotiations are complete, and then only if appropriate to report (does anyone remember the non-disclosure agreement you may have signed?).
• If the item is deemed confidential, keep it as such.  Leaking “secret projects” at work is something for the Marketing Department to figure out .
• If you see news happening in front of you, by all means report it (but remember the above points first.)

The breaking of major news has made some normal folks for a short period of time “micro famous” and the incentive is certainly there for people to want to be the first to break the big story.  Using some common sense will help us not only get our fifteen minutes of fame, but let us enjoy it and talk about it the rest of our lives.