A Complete New Design and Refreshed Interface

I have worn the wpstudios.net label for years without many issues and lunarpages was a decent hosting vendor.  Yet, there comes a time when change is needed.

I am retiring wpstudios.net in favor of the tigersndragons.com . This is partly due to want for expressing creativity, having fun with the site, and partly due to change in hosting vendors.  With the new vendor, I am able to use more advanced Java technologies at a good price. However, I still have to migrate older work to the new site (maybe with a refreshed look as well).  So for the interim, I have built a mock up of what tigersndragons.com look and feel will consist.  As well, I have designed some work for Bret's cosmetology work.
In the new design, I have found usefulness in jQuery, HTML5, xhtml, and CSS3 as a really nice display tool. I mean to move content to Blogger as a Content Managment System like how most people use WordPress. In this way I can keep content fresh without having to design or redesign portions.

I hope you enjoy the work and look forward to your responses.

Social Media Basic Policies for Companies

Basic Policies

• HR fairness and capacity to learn about employees and potential hires.
• Legal obligations and issues (Who, What and Why?)
• IT security requirements
• Address confidentiality requirements, address defamation, appropriate conduct and use of your organization's technology
• Build public relations contingencies and avoid a BP nightmare
• When you speak into a telephone there is no reason to believe you are not being recorded. (Likewise for social media, email and instant messaging).
• Policies should enforce inappropriate behavior as actionable (especially commenting about other employees).
• Policies have to be thoroughly communicated throughout the organization in order for them to be enforced.

 All organizations should have and communicate to their employees what is considered to be appropriate behaviors. This especially concerns trade secrets, stakeholder information and internal affairs. Lack of an clear and "actionable" policy allows for substantial risk to the organization and its mission.

Social Media Foundations to Strategy

Foundations to Strategy

• Strategy – targets? Scope, focus, find the right discussions (or create them) and join the discussion. Is your subject relevant for a particular site or discussion?
• Establish presence – reinforce credibility and create excitement for events, workshops or services.
• Expand reach into markets through collaboration and communications
• Nurture relationships and strategic partnerships
• Properly maintain presence
• Conduct a proper SWOT and due diligence for using these methods.
• Decide which part of social media technology is applicable for your organization and how you would monitor its use.
• Good strategies require good planning and consideration of the business model.
• Effective strategies require presence and interaction that builds relationships with customers and other stakeholders.

Important to realize that whether you have a planned presence or not, you have a de-facto strategy of ignorance. The question is begged whether the social media channels offer opportunities that the firm should use.

• 8 Tips for Redesigning Your NonProfit Website
• 5 Small Business Tips for Social Media Success
• Mashable

Social Media Effective Habits

Effective Habits

• Understand privacy settings and be careful with posting personal information online especially: birthdates, birth places, pet names, information about children, or password hints.
• Remember what you post online has endless paths to the public regardless of any privacy settings. (Once something goes line, there is no telling where that item will go).
• Positive comments and work will improve your social networking value. From the old days of billboards systems, flames and constant negativity will reflect on your online reputation.
• Understand who is on your follow lists (exs and people associated with them) since posting items may invoke some jealousies. As well, co-workers, classmates, or teachers on your follow lists may require scrutiny of social media communications.
• Be involved with discussions if you mean to network with people or to discuss issues. Network only with those groups or people that you would want to actually network. If you are not involved in the discussion of which you are a part of the group, then you may find yourself approving comments or groups attitudes simply by association regardless of your own viewpoint in the issues. In other words, do not simply add yourself to groups or become fan of people just to increase your numbers.
• Careful about posting questionable material. Warren Buffet's point is appropriate here that an upstanding reputation of quality can take years to build but only a few minutes to destroy. While one should not censor opinions or actions, be mindful that those opinions and actions define you both in cyberspace and in reality.
• A sub point to that is to search your name on Google (e.g. search engines) and the social media networks for questionable material about you. Knowing that material has been posted can help you prepare for handling that situation, and you can decide whether you want to be involved with a particular discussion.
• Using social media for business can generate leads and business if you are willing to build relationships rather than front a corporate image. Consumer and business trends indicate less attention to advertising and corporate image, but more people are focusing upon building more intimate personal relationships and establishing trust in order to conduct business. Conducting business on these networks requires a foundational strategy and focus of purpose for using them as well as be able to handle reputation attacks via social media.
• Be wary of adding people (followers) or approving friend requests that you do not know to your networks especially when the entity is asking for information. Phishing schemes are developing to entice users into giving up personal data via social networks that can be used to gain access to other sites (e.g. financial institutions, mail, employer networks).
• Whether you choose to be involved in social networks, they exist and chances are someone you know is using them and you may be involved indirectly because of their involvement. You can choose to be a part of the discussion or you can ignore these communications channels. Yet, a vast opportunity exists for those that leverage these tools.

Social Media Technologies

Types of Web 2.0 technologies

• Social networks (e.g. Facebook or LinkedIn)
• Blogging (e.g. Blogger) & Micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter)
• Podcasting
• Google Analytics, WebTrends - traffic analysis

Using interactive technologies to build communications channels for organizations and businesses through the web. 

These pages are brief summary of a presentation that considers social media channels as business communication and information streams. 

For more information, please contact me

Social Media Sharing

Defining positive social sharing in personal interactions is just as important as they are for business. The question is begged whether the social media channels offer opportunities that the firm should use.

Social Sites

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Biznik
• Fast Pitch
• Plaxo

Time for a Third (and more) Party

Time for a Third (and more) Party  

Mar 2012 

Tony E Hansen  

For most of the post-World War era, a two-party frame has plagued our political system with useless politics and posturing. Yet as the comic, Lewis Black, explains, the system “is a bowl of sh!t looking in the mirror at itself.” Democrats and Republicans are slivers of the same mold that cater to the corporate elite that have little interest in preserving middle class integrity.  We are accosted during election cycles by political pundits and parties with tired, worn, and partisan rhetoric that do nothing to solve the real issues.  Anyone brave enough to try to run against this machine will be squashed by these powerful interests and disregarded as inconsequential (or unworthy to be on the same stage as the party clones). Neither party has proposed serious and substantial policy directions in Congress, yet they keep getting to go back to office. The time has come to rid us of this outdated framework that inhibits innovative and productive public policy.   

The current political debate is more about personality, the tired rhetoric, and being able to drink with someone rather than substantive policy questions.  Rhetoric is a nice-to-have feature, but we need to focus upon the issues if we mean to solve crisis. Otherwise, we continue to kick the proverbial can as has been done for the past few decades.   Whether we have President Romney or President Obama, we need voices from the middle class that are tired of rhetoric and more interested in solutions.  (In municipal elections for Des Moines, the parties are not declared as part of the election process and the policies that are instituted are far more constructive than the policies and regulations coming from Washington or the statehouse.)   

Democrats and Republicans claim to have enough room in their “Big Tops” without actually representing anyone.  The primary elections of the past Presidential elections prove there are vast differences between factions within the parties.  Why do these factions have to conform to a “big top” while masking their real intentions? Lewis Black is correct in that the two parties tend to be mirrors of each other because they have big powers in both pockets, and thus, the two parties have a vested interested in keeping the current power structure intact.  As long as we maintain this ridiculous system, we may never see real progress in favor of maintaining the status quo politics.

A coalition (similar to European parliamentary systems) has the potential to yield the actual voices of people without masking those real and innovative opinions. Progressives, libertarians, socialists, greens, social conservatives, and others have distinct and interesting opinions that easily get ignored by the establishment as “irrelevant.”

Consider the television series Star Trek: Deep Space 9 where there is a fictional race called Ferengi  (FER-en-gee) whose motives are the acquisition of wealth and profit.  They often quote set of “Rules of Acquisition” (ROA). For one, ROA 239 is quoted, “Never be afraid to mislabel a product.”  This is marketing to customers to buy inflated values or outright false claims.  That is what the Democrats and Republicans do to Americans about their brand of politics “being good for America.”

Just think of the real issues here. We must rid ourselves of the foreign oil dependency or major shockwaves will hit our economy. Until then, our military and economic security will be tied to hostile supply chains. We need to build and to revitalize infrastructure that supports this goal.  We should not be rewarding companies for shipping jobs overseas, but instead reward business for creating local jobs by building locally. We need to promote local businesses rather than the big-box chains because they are the cornerstones to thriving communities. They are likely to keep their products, services, and jobs here.

We need to recognize the worth of all individuals in America (e.g. white, black, Latino, gay, or non-Christian). We need a responsible immigration policy that does not reward illegal immigration or company recruitment of illegal workers and punish the firms that do.  For immigration, do not reward those who came here illegally, but of those who did not, give them a fair path to citizenship equivalent to the many people have paid the price to be here legally.

We need a tax structure that is simpler and fair. Ensure that Social Security and Medicare are available for the next generations.  Protect the rights of workers and their savings by limiting how much destruction the upper elite can impose upon us with their reckless investing mechanisms. Stabilize the market by putting a moratorium on trading for a period of 30 days because the current reckless volatility is destroying savings and retirement accounts.

Put the focus back on science and math rather than athletics, and reward the teachers that show progress in their classes.  Buy back federal student loans and reduce cost of college educations instead of giving the banks bailout money. 

All of these are real substantive policy issues that require tackling hard issues. For these, I would vote and like to see the votes for the interests of Iowans rather than party line vote.   We must focus upon the policy issues rather than towing rhetoric that serves to stalemate progress or promotes a popularity contest.  I know what it is like to live paycheck-to-paycheck, and I know what it is like to save money in investments to watch the fickle Wall Street bozos ruin nest eggs. I know what it is like to lose precious people in life and have government intervene where it should not. I have studied political science for years, and we need something better than this antiquated system of corrupt politics in America that shows the wealth of American interests and American innovation. 

Different Perspectives and Bridging Divides

Different Perspectives and Bridging Divides

Tony E Hansen

12 Dec 2011

Listening to outsiders talk about the LGBT rights struggle is fascinating, sometimes irritating even, to learn about their perspective of what the gay community is and what they think of the struggles we face in life.  Of recent, I have been a part of a couple discussions where people expressed opinions about the gay rights struggle.  Some of the remarks resembled the dispositions revealed by some of the candidates running around Iowa. The question is to wonder why people do not recognize the struggle and how do we reach people who have such varied notions of the LGBT community.  The inaccurate and destructive characterizations of rights and the community lead to stereotypes that endanger not only the LGBT community but also of the whole society. 

Hearing candidates, like Representative Bachman, refer to equality as “special rights” gives an indication that some people feel that recognition of rights somehow validates a superior position in society rather than an attempt to equalize society. We are not asking for “special rights”. Instead, we are asking to enjoy the same opportunities and liberties that everyone enjoys without prejudice.  Do we really want a tyranny of the majority with respect to liberties, and if she is arguing “special” rights, which rights are “special” that some are excluded? Equal rights are not privileges, and expecting equal treatment is not horrible but is, instead, American.

Another misconception: Gays can simply hide the differences where, say, black people cannot. That is no different than religious expression since I can simply be silent when someone makes a remark about my religion. Yet, the remark has the same type of impact.  One even suggested no one has ever died for gay rights like people have for civil rights. I had to point out that LGBT people know, too well, that people are brutally killed simply because of homosexuality and some LGBT are so distraught by their orientation that they commit suicide.   Such statements clearly indicate that the worlds these people live are far removed from what the impact of discrimination and ostracism can do to real people’s lives.  Examples of people impacted by such treatment will help to understand the reality of discrimination.

Another discussion point that was raised mis-characterized LGBT people as a group of wealthy and pampered partiers without morals or discipline. Unfortunately, I, like many other LGBT people as well as my straight allied friends, have to go to work and pay bills.  We have families to support and goals to achieve. There may be wealthy LGBT as there are wealthy straight people, but using a type of class warfare to attack the gay community may say more about the accusers’ own work ethic and fiscal discipline. The vain attempt at connecting class warfare to LGBT equality struggles suggests they are losing faith in their arguments.

Oddly enough, the context or importance of equality and the features of the LGBT community are challenged from members within the community almost as much as from outsiders.  A healthy debate about life and processes is beneficial to all, but why are members of the LGBT community so interested in causing more grief, mockery and hostility from within the community?

There is, as well, this notion of a “gay agenda” that is perpetuated by a spooked religious base that suggests this so-called “gay agenda” will destroy civilized society. Every time I hear someone speak of this “gay agenda” idea, I think of my Outlook calendar with work appointments, concerts, breakfasts, church events and such. Yet, nothing in there vaguely resembles homicidal or criminal ventures or even bad intentions (unless the occasional party is a crime).

These examples illustrate how disengagement can provide room for incorrect stereotypes to grow unfettered by reality.  We need to reduce these stereotypes by engaging people and showing them what reality is. By engaging, we help to bring down the barriers that have encircled our community because of those stereotypes.   Our society is a mixture of many different cultures, religions, ethnicity, opinions and classes.  The LGBT community is reflective of that diversity as well. We must remember that their religion is not the only way to worship, and they (whoever “they” is) do not own the truth.  By engaging people in civil discussion about mutual interests and mutual concerns, people will be more inclined to relieve some of those false stereotypes in favor of the real examples before them. 

There will always be people who will never change their mind, but that is not who we need to engage.  We know that most people are decent (especially in Iowa), and we are willing to let people live in peace.  There is a majority of people that are good and willing to grow. Those people need to realize that we have mutual interests in having civil society and equal opportunities. Those are the people who have heard the wrong stereotypes for far too long.  Those are the people that need to understand and want to understand that there is more to the issue than ranting and bashing from the pulpit or soapbox.  Those are the people that must realize that “an injustice against one is an injustice against all”.