Let’s face it – we’re probably all addicted to social networking.

Whether you can walk away from it for a week or more or have to use it to tell us every minor part of your day from what you had for breakfast (and where) to what colour socks you’ve got on – then in some way, the very fact you are reading here is likely proof you use social media and possibly are addicted to it..

Well according to CSOonline “dozens of IT security professionals have pinpointed seven typical security mistakes people make” and they are:

• Over-sharing company activities.
• Mixing personal with professional .
• Engaging in Tweet (or Facebook/LinkedIn/Myspace) rage
• Believing he/she who dies with the most connections wins
• Password sloth
• Trigger finger (clicking everything, especially on Facebook)
• Endangering yourself and others

Please click through on the above link to see the detail.

Are you guilty of any of these?

Do you feel any of these are an over-simplification?

7 Deadly Sins of Social Networking is a post from: Church Techy

There is something called “Twitter Etiquette.” There are a number of articles that have outlined what not to do with Twitter, and I have read most of them. Consider this post as a summary of all those pointers.

Some of the points are downright obvious “don’t ignore others” – “don’t defame others” – well at least I think they are; whilst others I just totally disagree with “don’t neglect trending topics”. However the one thing that really got my goat about the article was its presentation of points as accepted facts without any explanation.

Take:

#10. Do not tweet way too less (People forget your existence) and
#42. Do not be reluctant to unfollow people who don’t tweet often

Why?

If your purpose in using Twitter is to learn stuff or follow links to blog posts, etc and not to actually promote yourself or your brand / business then what is wrong with only tweeting once in a blue moon? To my mind this makes the tweets all the more interesting – so long as they are.

#11. Do not only follow celebrities (They are boring)

Why not?

If this is your idea of relaxing then why not? Personally I don’t think I follow any huge names but the few ‘celebs’ (and I use that word guardedly) I do follow all, so far, have something worthwhile to say.

#17. Do not auto follow back everybody and
#18. Do not follow everybody you meet (Be selective)

Why on earth not?

What harm can really come in auto-following someone? Clicking on random links from DM’s is another story though. Or why shouldn’t you follow everyone you meet (not quite sure what is meant by ‘meet’ here)?

It’s your twitter account so do what you want with it.

OK, if you want to build a brand or a business or a huge following then that’s one thing, but if, as I suspect, like most of us on twitter we are just ordinary Joe’s and Jane’s then I don’t get these.

Let’s have a look at some more:

#30. Do not neglect trending topics

Tell me why?

More subjectively, let’s do this by looking at the trending topics right now:

#nowplayingPeople are tweeting their media choice of the moment.
#OhJustLikeMePeople are tweeting things that they’ve discovered they have in common.
#MJis
Liverpool
#imthekindofperson
#idoit2People are retweeting things they have in common.
Justin BieberThe young Canadian R&B/pop singer has a lot of fans who like to tweet about him! His second album, My World 2.0, comes out March 23.
My World 2@justinbieber’s new album comes out March 23 and his fans are excited.
#hcrHealth Care Reform. People are tweeting news about this issue in the U.S.
I’m okay

Not one of those things is even remotely making me want to click on them.

And when Michael Jackson died I didn’t need trending topics to tell me – I’ve got lots of celeb obsessed folks around me that couldn’t wait to let me know. That and even with only a few followers you’re still bound to hear stuff like this.

#34. Do not forget to archive your tweets (Back up! I use twapperkeeper)

Another why?

I can guess some reasons but I’m here to learn from you so tell me why you think I should back up my tweets – don’t command me and expect me to do it blindly -though I know some will.

#43. Do not forget to integrate your tweets with other social media platforms, such as Friendfeeds, Facebook, and LinkedIn

Surely this is only relevant if you’re attempting to build a brand or promote one? Personally I see and use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as three separate entities. I have some crossovers but on the whole different uses for different sites.

It also makes me less ‘samey’ and a more rounded individual because I’m not following the same folks across three platforms – what’s the point in that?

#48. Do not forget to install a mobile app to help you tweet while away from your computer
#50. Do not leave your iPhone charger at home when you are going out (It has happened to me three time when I tried to use TweetDeck with an exhausted iPhone battery.)

My answer to these two – get a life and stop worrying about the online aspect of it.

It will still be there when you do get battery power.

Dis-connect for a while.

Talk to those near you that you love or love you.

Sadly this brings to mind a tweet I’ve seen only this morning:

I love “couch time” with my beautiful wife on Sunday mornings! We’re talking about our up-coming anniversary!

No names, no pack drill and I’m not picking on them but the point is why are you tweeting this? If you love that person enough to talk with them then put down the phone / laptop / whatever.

What annoys you about articles like this and am I as guilty as some of the points I’ve raised?

Sunday Rant. Why or Why Not? is a post from: Church Techy

I’ve been up all night – no not willingly as I’m at work and in 4hrs I’m attending a men’s breakfast. I’m going to try and get a decent enough seat so that I can stream the speaker live on ustream.

We have Mike Warnke over from the USA speaking – for those that don’t know Mike he was the number 1 christian comedian for a number of years. Anyway, he’s a good guy, funny and has a unique perspective on life.

Please feel free to stop by and watch my ustream – it’ll tweet when I go live but I’m not quite sure what the URL will be but you can try this one or just watch my twitter stream at about 10am UK time.

Mike Warnke on Ustream is a post from: Church Techy

Here’s one I’ve managed to miss before – so many things, so little time …

Anyway, regular readers will know that I’m a fan of keeping my children safe online and by extension all children.

I’ve long been an advocate of everything and anything that helps to promote the safety of children and not just online. Anyway, it would appear that InSafe host an annual “Safer Internet Day” and this years theme is:

Think B4 U Post!

I agree.

So what is SID? In their own words:

Safer Internet Day is organised by Insafe each year in February to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world. The topic for 2010 is “Think B4 U post!“.

To read more, simply click on the image above.

And by the way, it’s today!

Safer Internet Day 2010 is a post from: Church Techy

I’ve long been a quiet evangelist for the green movement – not that I am an out and out recycling nutjob or constantly turning off lights, etc but I do try and remind folks where it’s blindingly obvious that we all can help to save our planet.

One of the ways I’ve been trying to drive the Church in this is by moving to what I’m terming as online publishing. Take last Sunday morning for example … I walked in and was greeted with a smile, a hug and no less than six individual bits of paper. Each had a valid reason for its existence but equally each could have been condensed down to a couple of lines and put on one piece. After the service I lost count of how many of these bundles of six were left languishing on their seats forgotten by their owners.

Is there an answer? I think so but the onus to drive it has to come from our leaders as they are the ones getting the designer(s) to generate this content.

First and foremost we need to look into exactly what is being handed out and why. Does it need to be printed out? If so, does it need to be handed out to every member or is it meant for external distribution? If for members (and I ought to clarify that I also mean attenders here as well) then do we need the huge glossy flyer for what essentially boils down to a date, time and type of service?

For regular content, such as a newsletter or magazine can we not get these (on the whole) delivered by electronic means? In our Church we are fortunate that most of the members are internet enabled and have personal email addresses. For those that don’t we can still run off the odd dozen copies or so.

I’m sure I don’t need to teach any whom read this to suck eggs but I’m raising this today to remind myself to address the issue with my church leaders and to challenge the tech community to suggest alternatives when the guaranteed “but what about’s” start coming at us.

So what do you do in your Church to reduce your carbon footprint?

Online Media is a post from: Church Techy

The first aspect of this is our online bookshop – not some two bit addon to what we sell at the back of the coffee lunge on a Sunday morning, but a full blown professionally designed and built eCommerce site. Why? Simply because the Church has run a Christian book import / export business for over ten years now and this is the next natural stepping stone for us.

Due to my various involvements with the Church and my professional life I was put in charge of the web projects and although I’m involving the leadership every step of the way I have been given carte blanche to do “what I think best” and that “Stuart has the last say in anything web related”. Awesome responsibilities and an awesome challenge as well.

Part of the current challenge is in getting our developer to cough up the goods. Some of you will have already seen the “almost complete” eCommerce site. Unfortunately it hasn’t moved on from there as the developer has given every excuse under the sun to not do the work or to prevaricate over doing it. He has one task left – to ensure the payment gateway works, but rather than actually doing it all I appear to be getting is excuses. I’ve started praying for him / the project and have suggested the leadership do so as well.

As a part of all this frustration I’ve been thinking about the occasion when we do actually launch it. Thoughts like:

• what will be our daily / weekly / monthly tasks?
• how can I encourage the Church staff to keep this at the forefront of their thinking?
• how can we make the site look new / different without actually changing the template?
• how often should we change banners / special offers / etc?

Because I work outside of the Church in my professional life I won’t always be there to nudge, cajole and encourage and let’s be honest – eMail simply doesn’t hit the mark with everyone. So my first challenge is to get the leadership to have a monthly meeting (at least) that is solely dedicated to considering the online bookshop. Get them to discuss previous months sales – investigate any feedback – look at what stock to include / exclude – consider what promotional items to run – set challenges for the month ahead – involve the creative chap in designing the rotating banners and so on ….

Apart from these items is there anything else I should be considering?

After all, this is new to me as well.

Website Creativity is a post from: Church Techy

I don’t have a complete answer and likely I never will, but none the less I keep pondering it. For now, I have an idea but I’d really like to get input from others.

Do you see media as a very narrow field such as TV or radio? Or do you see it as something all encompassing, taking in drama, art, IT, communication, internet, press … etc, etc. Or do you see it as something in between two extremes? I’d really like to know your opinions and would love to get a discussion going with any of you about it – either comment here or email me directly.

So whether you are in a media ministry or head one up or see it as a distraction I want to hear about it please.

Media Ministry – What Is It? is a post from: Church Techy