Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Could Social Media Ruin Your Company?

Excerpt from: The Legal Intelligencer (click for full article)

 

The question is no longer whether your company should be involved with social media — it already is, whether you're leading or following. The skyrocketing popularity of these services is undeniable and the potential reward — for engaging, expanding and strengthening relationships with your key communities — is enormous. So are the risks. Risks come in many forms, and the prudent organization will assess its specific situation and take appropriate preventive steps to manage both risks created by others as well as risk created internally. Social media is a shockingly effective catalyst for both.

The key is understanding the nature of this new medium. The company and its counsel must be familiar not only with the rules, but with the culture of the online community. Social media is not just a new way to disseminate your message; it's a conversation taking place on a massively multi-person scale, worldwide. But just like any face-to-face conversation, it must be a two-way process (albeit on a massively multi-person scale) or it dies.

Here are the most frequent areas where companies can get in trouble, as well as some ideas for how to stay on the right side of the risk/reward curve.

Audrie Pott suicide: Grim picture of Saratoga teen's final online cries of despair

Excerpt from: The Oakland Press (click for full article)

Patti's comment:This is so very heartbreaking. Girls be careful out there!

 

A few days after Audrie Pott killed herself, while her baffled parents were grieving and students across the Saratoga High School campus wore her favorite color, teal, in her memory, a couple of the 15-year-old girl's closest friends came to Audrie's mother and delivered a shocking message: "There is more to this than you know."

Sheila Pott rushed to check her daughter's cellphone, emails, texts and Facebook page. And then she found the haunting words of her beautiful, once-bubbly daughter: "These guys did (expletive) to me while I was sleeping," read one message. "This is the worst day of my life," read another.

Not only had she been sexually assaulted after drinking too much at a house party, her family's lawyers say, but pictures of her naked during the attack were being shared online.

 

Noyo Food Forest

Noyo Food Forest is a non-profit organization in Fort Bragg, California doing amazing work for their community.  They are currently trying to raise money to build a special accessible garden to be used by all community member but with raised beds at wheelchair and standing height for elders and disabled.  They believe that growing organic food should be accessible to everyone.

 

Please go visit their Kickstarter page to see their extraordinary vision.  For more information, visit Noyo Food Forest's main page.

 

 

Google Lets Users Plan ‘Digital Afterlife’ By Naming Heirs

Excerpt from: Wall Street Journal (click for full article)

 

Google on Wednesday became one of the first major Internet companies to put control of data after death directly into the hands of its users.

The Internet giant unveiled a dashboard for users of its Gmail, Google+, cloud storage Drive, Picasa albums, YouTube and other services that lets people identify what they’d like to happen to their data after they pass away or become inactive for an extended period of time. You can choose to delete some or all of the data after three, six, nine or 12 months of inactivity, or pass data from the accounts along to one or more other people.

Call them your Google heirs. Google, for the record, calls the offering its “Inactive Account Manager.”

Online Habits Coming Slowly to Older Adults

Excerpt from: The New York Times (click for full article)

 

Older adults hit a digital milestone last year: For the first time since the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project began conducting surveys, a majority (53 percent) of people over age 65 used the Internet. The proportion has since inched upward, to 54 percent.

Which certainly represents progress. When Pew first began tracking Internet use in 2000, only 13 percent of seniors were online. But it remains a fairly anemic number compared to the rest of the adult population, more than 80 percent of whom use the Internet.

And among the older old, those over age 77, only about a third are online. Yet that’s the cohort most likely to become isolated by physical limitations, poor transportation and the loss of social connections — the group, in other words, who might particularly benefit from being able to interact with the world digitally, for everything from banking and ordering groceries to e-mailing faraway friends.

What is your Digital Legacy? (Presentation by Patricia Dudek)

Have you ever wondered what will happen to your Facebook account or other digital assets if you become disabled or when you die? Are there some personal profiles or digital profiles to which you want to LIMIT access?? Then, this presentation and materials are for you.

 

Download Estate Planning in the Digital Age

HUD KICKS OFF FAIR HOUSING MONTH WITH LAUNCH OF NATIONAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN

Excerpt from: HUD.gov (click for full article)

 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) today launched a national media campaign to educate the public and housing providers about their rights and responsibilities under the Fair Housing Act. The campaign, titled “Fair Housing Is Your Right. Use It,” includes English, Spanish, and Chinese radio and print public service advertisements (PSAs) that feature examples of actions which violate the Fair Housing Act and let the public know what to do if they experience housing discrimination. In addition to radio and print public service announcements, the campaign will use the latest digital and social media to amplify the outreach effort.

The launch of the campaign coincides with the beginning of Fair Housing Month when the nation marks the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act following the assassination of Dr. Martin Lu-ther King, Jr. The Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to discriminate in the sale or rental of housing based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, familial status or disability. This year’s Fair Housing Month theme is “Our Work Today Defines Our Tomorrow,” spotlighting HUD’s current enforcement and education and outreach efforts and the work of its fair housing partners are helping to foster sus-tainable, inclusive communities of opportunity for future generations.

One of the campaign’s print ads features a woman in a wheelchair and her service animal, drawing attention to persons with disabilities who often face housing discrimination. Another print ad featuring a woman wearing traditional Muslim headdress highlights the persistence of discrimination based on religion. Each PSA encourages anyone who experiences discrimination to call HUD’s hous-ing discrimination hotline (1-800-669-9777), contact a local fair housing agency, or visit HUD’s fair housing Web site: www.HUD.gov/fairhousing.

Social Media Affects Your Website's Search Ranking

Excerpt from: Find Law (click for full article)

 

Social media is a great tool for communicating with clients, but it can also have a secondary benefit for your practice by boosting your website's search ranking.

The way most clients will find you is by searching on the Internet for a lawyer. Hopefully they'll narrow their search by area of law and location, but even then there are lots of competitors out there. Having a professional and informational website can be a great way to get clients, but it doesn't work if no one sees it.

Getting a professional consultant to manage your website's search engine optimization can be a valuable way to improve your rankings. But you can also help yourself by stepping up your social media presence.

To prove that claim, we have some insight into how Google and other search engines rank web pages.

How to Keep Control of Kids' Online Use

Kids Are Logged On—and Tuned Out (click for full article)

Taming the Online Monster, Part 2  (click for full article)

 

Great resources for getting kids off the computers and focused on other activities.

5 Great Videos from World Down Syndrome Day

Excerpt from: Friendship Circle Blog (click for full article)

 

This past Wednesday, March 21 was World Down Syndrome Day. Down syndrome organizations throughout the world organized and participated in events to raise public awareness of Down syndrome.

This year was the 7th annual World Down Syndrome day and for the first time the U.N participated with a commerative event called “Building our Future.”

Many people took the day to promote awareness and inclusion for children with Down Syndrome. Of course social media was a big part of the day and a number of videos were posted to YouTube as well.