Gun Control and Immigration Debate

Things are heating up again in Washington as the call for reform in gun control and immigration take front and center.  The interesting bipartisan immigration effort has some people on both side of the aisle wondering what the deal is going to be.  It appears clear that the immigration battle will once more hinge upon the funding to secure the borders of the United States.  The gun control debate is one that looks as if it will be just a new twist on old laws that are just not enforced.  Whatever the outcome on both of these measures, do not expect to see too many changes in reality.  The trafficking of illegal immigrants will continue.  The ability to obtain guns through the black market will continue.  I do not have the answers to these large questions but it is good that they are being discussed.  One can hope that someday our borders will be secure and people will be able to gain entry the greatest country in the world legally.  I also hope that someday we will wonder how all the mass shootings that took place ever happened.

I hope you are active and discuss these things with your children.  Your opinion is important and you should share it.  Hopefully bipartisanship will become more commonplace.  If you ever get a chance to read about the last days of George Washington's presidency, you will discover that one of the reasons he stepped down was he started to dislike the growing partisanship of states-rights proponents and federalists.

Please share your POV....

So you searched yourself and now what do you do?

So now that you have searched yourself on the internet and found out about your online brand, what can you do if you are not happy with what you have discovered?

If you found pictures or postings about you that you do not like, check out your privacy settings on social websites.  Are you getting tagged when you do not want to be tagged?  Are you in a picture that is not flattering?  You may not be able to clear it all up, but you can do a couple things to help.

First, change your settings to control what is posted about you and who can search for you.

Second, ask people to remove unflattering items. This does not mean that they completely gone but it will make it harder to find.

Third, start writing reviews of products and books that you like (or do not like) as these things will show up in a search as well.

Fourth, blog or post about things you like.  These are all searchable and the more positive items you have the better.

Do you have other ideas that work in cleaning up your online brand image?

Please share them here...

MLK Day of Service

Today, two of my children were involved with a service day at school to honor the memory of Martin Luther King.

So proud of them.  They helped paint bowls that will be auctioned off for an organization called Empty Bowls.

What did you do today to remember Martin Luther King?

Please leave your comments to let me know...

Can you name all the presidents?

I took the swearing in of the president today to talk to my son about the presidents.

We tried to name them all going backwards.

How far back can you go?

Here is a link to a list of all the US Presidents

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents

Let me know how you did...

God Bless America
Land that I love
Stand beside her
and guide her
Through the night
with the light from above...

Weekend is a time to...

It is still early enough in January to take some time and come up with a resolution.

If you did start a new resolution, please share what you decided to do and how it is going so far.

Some people say that you should not make resolutions but should rather set goals.

What is your POV on resolutions? or are you a goal driven person?

I work with college coaches and athletes and they tend to be more goal oriented.  Some times they will have a new resolution, but it is usually oriented to achieving one or more of the goals that have been set.

Have a great weekend and if you get a chance please share your POV...

Working on your brand

When the news about Hostess going out of business came out and people panicked when they realized that Twinkies might fade into nostalgia.  I stopped and thought for a bit about the power of brands and how much emotion a name or a logo can stir up in people's mind and trigger action. In this case, the action was hundreds of people rushing to the store to buy all the Hostess products they could find.

So as I tossed my Twinkie wrapper into the trash can, (I actually missed the shot, but that is another story) I was thinking about how brands have the ability to trigger an emotional reaction.

How can you work on your personal brand to elicit reactions from people? Reactions both positive and negative but passionate ones that create dialogue and possibly even inspiration and action.

I was having a conversation that other day with a co-worker about brand image and we talked for a while about our personal brand and how we can help make our stronger brand by working on our online appearance.  (I hope I didn't lose you with that exciting sentence.)  I really take a few minutes to look you will get a great understanding how you appear on the internet.  This will really make you think about your personal brand. Is it a brand that someone would want to buy?  Does your brand create action or elicit a passionate response?

Take a minute to google or search yourself online.  What did you find? Hopefully all good and positive stuff.  But if you found things you do not like what can you do?  We can talk about that next time.

Until then, I would love to hear your point of view...