When I was growing up and in school, the main distraction was the phone.  Not not a smart phone but a regular-old-corded-attached-to-the-wall phone.  Oh yeah, and the only thing you could do with it was talk on it – no texting, surfing or playing games. I’m not sure how I would have dealt with all of the competing distractions that face kids today.  But it’s not just kids that have to learn how to balance all of the new ways of social interaction with other responsibilities. Adults need to as well and perhaps even more so. Like so many things, it might be even harder for adults to learn how.

I am not saying that social media is a waste of time. It can be a very valuable and important communication and connection tool which gives us inroads and insights to people, customers and potential clients but it must be balanced.  The same can be said about email and texting. While social media (and even texting) is a relatively new medium, email has been around for a long time and there are many who have become slaves to their inbox.

The definition of our “inbox” changes as technology changes. Think about it, an inbox used to only be a physical box sitting on your desk or wall where mail and papers that you had to look at, work on or respond to would go. Now the inbox has become digitalized in many different forms, but just like with the physical one, we must learn not to become slaves to it, else we will find ourselves “busy” but not necessarily working on the right things or the best things.

Question: How do you balance social media, email and work? Do you have a different three points on your triangle? Leave your comments here.

(HT: Ministry Best Practices Image: Fuchsia Macaree)

• Michael Hyatt answers a great leadership question – How can you keep inspiration alive in your team or organization?  Clue – it doesn’t involve creating more rules or policies!
• Should Jesus be thought of as a product? The knee-jerk reaction might be worth a little more examination. CMS challenges with this question and why we need to think about it.
• Speaking of challenging conventional thinking, Tim Stevens poses a very thought provoking idea in his post on how churches have a statistical problem.  The coming decade is going to require some different thinking and for some churches to take some risks to try some new methods.
• Do you realize that your office chair may be killing you? This could explain a lot!
• Facebook has been under a great deal of heat and pressure about their privacy controls. This week they made another change to try to simplify it for everyone.  What do you think? Any better? [Here is the complete update from Facebook]
• You can now measure how much your Facebook Page is worth with the Social Page Evaluator.  Looks like a great idea, but lacking in some specifics.
• One of the great challenges with new technology and gadgets is what do we do with all of the old stuff?  Apple has an excellent marketing and environmental idea – ship them your old stuff for free and they will give you credit to the Apple Store or Gift Card.  Even if there is no monetary value to your old computer (mac or pc) or other devices (ipods, mobile phones, etc) they will still dispose of it in an environmentally responsible manner.
• iPhone users – you can now access your desktop Firefox bookmarks right from your phone.
• This post by Ron Edmondson about the differences between leading people vs controlling them wasn’t new, but I just saw it for the first time this past week.  If you are responsible for a group of people in any way, do yourself a favor and read this!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

• Ever wish you had a personal assistant to run down things you just don’t seem to have time for?  Check out Fancy Hands – your personal assistants in the cloud.  Send them an email with what you need and they’ll get it done!  I think this is going to catch on and could be very helpful for some individuals and start-ups.  Here is a review by a someone who tried it and loved it.
• E-books are getting more and more popular. Look for the battle to get even more intense as Google prepares to jump in with their own digital bookstore – Google Editions later this summer.
• Ever find a tweet you liked and wanted to quote it on your blog or website?  Now you can embed tweets directly and preserve any links in them.
• Did you know you can “tweet” via email?  Might be a good idea for those that are really wed to email and reluctant to try separate apps to engage in the Twitterverse.
• Facebook check-in appears to be in the works.   The location-based services seem to be of high interest as of late but really haven’t become mainstream. If Facebook jumps in that could change.
• Craigslist has been in the news recently and taking some heat for allowing very questionable content in their ‘adult services’ ads.  It caught the attention of the Christian community and surprise, surprise generated new petitions to boycott Craigslist.  However, not everyone agrees with this approach – here’s why.
• The battle between Google and Apple in the mobile phone market is getting serious as Android-based phones are now outselling the iPhone.
• It looks like the Apple / Google battlefield will also be extended to the tablet market as well as Google announces plans to partner with Verizon on a new device.  Verizon CEO even confirmed it.
• Looks like these rumored 4G iPhones keep showing up in strange places.
• Speaking of the iPhone… the rumors of being able to get one on Verizon are really heating up.  I think we will see this happen later this summer and AT&T will really suffer.
• Folks who go on mission and volunteer trips could benefit from this cool idea – the Volunteer Card.
• Gmail users can now drag and drop images directly into the body of the message.
• Looks like you’ll be able to use your Android 2.2 phone to connect your laptop to the internet.
• So many people are upset about the recent changes in Facebook’s privacy settings – there is a new movement to create a new alternative - and it’s not MySpace.  They have already raised $115K!
• Apple announced las month that it is shutting down the popular Lala.com streaming service at the end of May.  There are strong rumors that Apple is getting ready to announce a cloud-based iTunes in early June.

So, here are this weeks links in no particular order.

• Facebook Chat can now be integrated with your AIM or Tokbox chat clients.  I don’t know about you, but I have always thought the idea of Facebook Chat was a solid one and made sense, but the interface was clunky and tied to the Facebook webpage. Now you can still chat with your FB friends and not have to worry about having to keep you FB website visible to do so.
• Google Maps Goes 3D – A feature that was previously available in the downloadable Google Earth app is now available on online users as well.  Very cool. (Note: Google Chrome Browser & Google Earth Plugin are required)
• Do you work on multiple computers? Looking for an easy way to keep track of synchronize your home & office and not mess with USB thumb drives to move files areoun?  Three great solutions include Evernote, Dropbox, and Google Docs.  Check out this overview.
• The floppy disk is officially dead – RIP – I’m starting to feel even older now.  I can remember when the 3.5 floppy replaced the 5 1/4 disks.
• How to Get Confidence from God – A great post from Donald Miller this week.   How do you get yours?
• Noah’s Ark (possibly) Found – If this turns out to be true it is the biggest story of our life time.  Do you think it will matter or cause anyone to suddenly find faith in God?
• More and more schools are turning to Google Apps for their collaboration solutions.  Why would any non-profit not take advantage of this robust free tool set?
• If you know me, you know I am an avid user of social media, but here are 6 good reasons why you should avoid it!
• There has been a lot of news this past week about the announcements and changes Facebook made at the F8 conference.   What you may not have heard is this report on how Facebook CEO doesn’t really believe in privacy anyway.
• If you have tried YouVersion, you’ll be happy to hear they now have a Reading Plan Calendar to help you read through Bible.  Earlier this year they released a major upgrade to the reading plans and now you can track your progress more visibly.
• Carlos Whittaker released is first full length CD “Ragamuffin Soul“.  This is a great worship set that I’m sure that we will be singing in churches for years to come.
  
  

• Lala is shutting down – The online streaming music service will be shut down on May 31.  I think this stinks as I’m a big fan of lala but apparently Apple (who bought them a few months ago), has other plans.  There is talk and rumor of an iTunes.com site that will be based on the technology that Apple acquired through their purchase.  I can only hope so.

That’s my highlights for this week.  Let me know what you think!

Several sites have partnered with Facebook to help make their sites more social.  Below is an example on Pandora when you are listening to a song that one of your Facebook friends also likes it shows you.

Obviously this has many alarmed about privacy and how to control it.  I don’t think it is quite as alarming as some are saying, but you should educate yourself on what it means. This post on the Facebook blog is pretty helpful.  If you haven’t done so already, you should also review and adjust your privacy settings for the various types of connections.

I think a more social web is a good thing in general, but getting there must be done carefully and with proper education.    What do you think?   If you are a Facebook user do you only want to share with your friends and family inside the walls of Facebook or would you like to see Facebook extended and help make the rest of the web more social?

Just curious, do you follow everyone who follows you on Twitter (automatically or manually)? Or do you apply some criteria to who you follow back?

I turn on the setting in Twitter so I get an email anytime someone starts to follow me and I look at the profile of everyone who does. I got this one today and had to laugh. I sure hope @nathanaelwang isn’t looking for any follow back!

Social networking is about engagement and conversation. If your conversation is one way (either all talking or all listening) it isn’t going to work for very long.

I’d love to hear some feedback about what criteria you use before you decide to follow someone back on Twitter or accept a friend request on Facebook.

Better Security through Software

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by Jake Brill Today at 12:47am

One of the best defenses against security threats is a good offense, and we want to help you take the offensive by having the latest security software installed on your computer. Today, we are announcing a year-long partnership with McAfee to offer all 350 million people who use Facebook the ability to download a six-month subscription to McAfee security software at no cost, along with a special discount once the six months are over.

I was both surprised and glad to see today that Facebook is teaming up with McAfee to help you protect your pc from malicious attacks to steal your identity or ruin your computer.

If you don’t have an anti-virus, anti-malware product, I STRONGLY encourage you to take advantage of this partnership today. 6 months for free – who can argue with that?? NO EXCUSES!

Read the entire post here: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=248766257130