May 4th, 2010 
lance4hire 
My son is 9. He invents new ways to augment the assault capabilities of his Nerf dart gun. This enterprise often involves trip wires and remote triggering mechanisms, as well as machine gun hide build-outs from his bunk bed ladder. Sometimes his ideas overshadow his ability to fashion a working prototype. He gets frustrated. (more…)
Posted in From the headlines, Internet vigilantism, Universal SoMe 
Tags: Boeing, children, Harry Windsor, invention, social media 
View Comments April 16th, 2010 lance4hire Or how I became a customer service princess warrior…
…and how you can too (and why you should)
When the phone calls and email don’t work, take it to twitter – a lot. Lather rinse repeat. Fan the company on Facebook and decorate their wall with your discontent. Wait for the phone to ring. (more…)
April 14th, 2010 lance4hire OK, so this is only really the second in this occasional series. See Number 13: Forgiveness for the first. You’ll notice the irony in the sequence here in a moment.
Whoops, indeed!
March 26th, 2010 lance4hire Birthdays are important! What better anniversary than one that commemorates another safe journey around the sun?
For Twitterphiles, there is yet another reason to celebrate. If you go to When Did You Join Twitter? you can calculate your Twitter age. (more…)
January 18th, 2010 lance4hire Posted in Universal SoMe Tags: forgiveness, kubler-ross, old friends, reconnecting, social media, triskaidekamania View Comments December 7th, 2009 lance4hire From Digital Tonto
by Greg Satell
Social Networks are revolutionizing how we view our world. People are connecting, businesses are being created or transformed, and the world seems like a smaller place. As with any transformation on a grand scale, a plethora of consultants, gurus, blogs, and how-to books have risen to meet the demand for information about the social revolution.
However, it is very rare to hear anything about the underlying forces that actually drive the social network phenomenon.
It’s a shame because the story is a great one that has implications, not only for social media, but for fields as diverse as counter-terrorism, ecology, economics, organizational theory and cancer research. Network Theory has fundamentally changed our understanding about how the world works since its inception a decade ago. Most of all, by understanding how networks form and grow, we can build better ones. (more…)
November 14th, 2009 lance4hire 
This whole social media thing is kinda crazy. I did it before I knew what it was. Years ago, I was at an open mic event in downtown Fort Myers in a hookah bar with cushions all over the floor. The emcee, now a good friend of mine, made an announcement asking for participants’ email addresses and MySpace usernames. It was the first time I heard about MySpace. I went home and tried it out. I spent far too much time. It was silly. But the most important thing is I was turned on to this easy and dynamic way to get in touch with people. (more…)
Posted in Good stuff out there, Universal SoMe Tags: EditRed, passions, poetry, poets, ReadWritePoem, Ryun Horn, social media, writer's networks View Comments September 18th, 2009 lance4hire My little forum here on the world wide web, it’s a fun experiment. I see my stats go up and down. I read spam from Russia. I bitch about people misusing social media platforms. I wax not-so-poetic about everyday irks.
My favorite thing to do, however, is use what little attention I draw to myself to put a spotlight on things that really matter. charity: water turned 3 this month. Evan Slusher, operations, took time out of his busy schedule earlier this month to help draw attention to our Twestival Local cause: Lee County Pace Center for Girls. His organization had been the beneficiary of the first Twestival Global, which raised $250,000 to bring clean drinking water to people who didn’t already have it. For our part, we raised $2,025 for girls who need educational support and a fresh start.
Aside from the water issue, charity: water invokes the power of community to create sustainable change. By traveling all the way from New York to Fort Myers, Evan underlined the fact that we rely on each other. Together, we can help each other reach our goals – and be better citizens of the earth.
In this time when civility seems to have taken a back seat, take a look at what others are dealing with. Knowing they need help – and together we have a better chance of providing it than any of us can alone – might be the perspective a lot of us really need right now.
Go to borninseptember.org
July 6th, 2009 lance4hire Pay attention for a couple of minutes on Twitter, and you can’t help but notice the stream of references to the Law of Attraction, sometimes hashmarked as #loa. This got me thinking, maybe social media is uniquely suited as a vehicle for the premise, which was thrust into the mainstream zeitgeist with the film and print release of “The Secret.”
If you’re not familiar with it, the law states that like attracts like. Put out feelings of abundance, for instance, and abundance will come to you. That’s an oversimplification, but I feel an inner chicken-and-the-quantum-egg kind of debate coming on and my sauvignon blanc is still chilling in the fridge. (What’s your existential argument wine?)
At any rate, social media works by connections. Twitter, in particular, works by quick, often serendipitous happenings that connect unlikely folks together. There isn’t the resume screening inherent in LinkedIn, there isn’t the long-sought reunion between third-grade homeroom mates. You put out a little content, follow a few people, and before you know it, you’ve got an instant audience for any of your ramblings – and they’re rambling about the same stuff.
Not only, then, is Twitter a vehicle for the premise, but it IS the premise in action. But then again, it is anything we make it. And that’s the definition of the law right there.
June 26th, 2009 lance4hire I scratch your back, you scratch mine. That’s at least supposed to be the ethic on the microblogging behemoth we know and love as Twitter. But if you’re seeing your following numbers far outstipping your followers, you could be feeling a little shafted.
Paul Simon sang that there are 50 ways to leave your lover. What if I told you that you could leave 50 (or 500) of your deadbeat followees in one fell swoop? Now that’s how I spell relief.
One of the fun things about Twitter is how simple and bare bones it really is, challenging folks to come up with third party applications to make it more functional. Dossy is the blogging nom de plume of one such enterprising soul. He created something called Twitter Karma.
I had found tools for everything I needed to do with Twitter – minus one: I wanted to see all those nonrequiting you-know-whats listed post-office wanted-poster style all in one place. And with this app, that’s what you get. (more…)
Sara Fitzpatrick Comito is a poet, freelance writer, communications director at Elemental Stone and Waterworks, Inc., and a member of the Social Media Club of Southwest Florida steering committee.
She is a frequent contributor to Naples Daily News and her has appeared or is forthcoming in nthposition; The Camel Saloon; Short, Fast, and Deadly; Barrier Islands Review and Hip Mama. She is the editor of the online art/literary journal Orion Headless.
She lives in Fort Myers with her husband and nine-year-old son.
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