Work(s) in Progress

Quantity vs. Quality

Last night we hosted Mike O'Neil from Integrated Alliances to teach a seminar for Bard Center students and alumni. Mike does training for people who want to better maximize their networking potential on LinkedIn. He had lots of specific and actionable advice for building a better LinkedIn network. My profile is improving but I'm still missing some of the personalization features recommended by Mike (you can see some on his profile).

As you can tell, Mike is a big fan of quantity and increasing the number of people to whom he is linked. He does not personally know and has not met many of his connections.

I'm one of those quality driven LinkedIn users. Do I know, like and respect the person to whom I'm about to link? The answer has to be yes to these questions before I will send out a request.

What about you? Is quantity or quality an either-or scenario or does having a large quantity of links promote networking quality? Mike suggests that if you are associated with a large network that it is more likely that you will be 2 or 3 degrees of freedom away from the person you really want to meet. He has a point.

I learned some fun things that I did not know about LinkedIn last night. First, groups, where did those come from? Look for the Bard Center for Entrepreneurship group to be formed soon. [Edit: LinkedIn approved my new group! If you are Bard Center affiliate (student, alumni, faculty, staff) you can join here.] I've been posting frequently on the blog run by my Alumni Association to keep people informed about upcoming news and events but I'd like to do more. I think a LinkedIn group would be a terrific way to get and kept everyone (students, alumni, faculty and advisory council members) connected.

Also, there is a hard cap on how many people you can directly invite to join your network. I did not know this. This is not an annual cap. This is a life long cap. After you hit this limit you must ask that those people who have not run out of invites request to link to you if you'd like to connect to more people. Even for paying members, it sounds like LinkedIn is reticent to grant more invites. I'm a very long way from the cap.

Pondering Mentorship

Today is day 50 on the the dream job. Purse snatching notwithstanding, I love this job. This morning I held my first official advisory council meeting. I was feeling a bit nervous about this as I hope to change how the council operates and was uncertain how my ideas would be received. The chair of my advisory council, who is terrific, has spent about 6 hours with me over the past week helping me refine my meeting plan and presentation.

I am so incredibly blessed with people willing to mentor and coach me. It's funny, I used to be one of those people who was utterly and completely determined to go it alone. I did not understand group work. I wanted to do everything myself. I'd have been insulted if someone suggested that I needed a mentor. I had not realized how much I'd changed in my thinking until my Dean sent me an email earlier this week with the contact information for an amazing woman in the community with the idea that this person could help mentor and coach me in specific areas. My first and only thought was "great, thank you!" Three years ago I'd have been insulted that she thought I needed the help. Now, "oh, you want to help, thank you."

Thus my post-meeting conversation with my advisory council chair left me with the same feeling. Overall, he thought it went very well and was very good. He was trying to be nice and said he'd give it an A. I rebutted with "hey, 'very good' is not an A." This created the opening for him to say, well, we could work on your presentation style. I already knew that this is an area where I need improvement. But I now have a person committed to helping me work on and improve that area. Thank you.

Bye Bye Symantec

My mom recently was the victim of identity theft. I knew she used an old computer (Windows 98). I asked her how often she scanned for viruses or spy-ware. She did not know what I meant. She does 90% of her shopping on-line. Given this, it's not all that surprising that someone was able to get her credit card information and change her address and such. I thought that I had safe browsing and on-line habits. Even with the precautions I take, it can sometimes not be enough.

I've been using Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition for my antivirus protection for the last few years. I had the most current version. I had it update and  scan daily. For the last 48 hours it has detected and theoretically removed 6 instances of Trojan ZoneBac. Obviously the auto-removal feature was not very effective. After following the instructions here complete with disabling windows XP system restore, scanning in safe mode, manually making numerous changes to my Registry, my computer is now back to normal. One relatively evil thing this virus does is change your browser security settings making you vulnerable to other attacks. And of course, system restore backs up everything, including viruses so your antivirus software can't get there to remove them. Once I was sure everything was gone I created a new restore point.

I switched over to AVG, which my husband prefers. I have also checked, and rechecked my computer with Hijack This. There is now nothing running that should not be. Huzzah. This event did not require a complete disk format and Windows reinstallation. Whew. I am still not sure where I am picking up stuff.  This is twice in the past year. I use a firewall. I do not download anything except from reputable sites - e.g. CNET downloads. I block most scripts when browsing and everything is supposed to ask for permission to download,  install or run. I have not opened any suspicious email. I update and scan with SpyBot Search & Destroy every two or three days. I use the immunization function. I'm wondering whether I should switch to Ad Aware.

Is there anything else I should be doing?

Browse safely.

Recovery

The events of last Monday significantly disrupted my life.

Today my new CO driver's license came in the mail. I feel like a person again. There were several items that I could not replace without photo ID. My bank card came quickly. I use cash for 99% of my transactions and felt truly naked and vulnerable without some cash in my pocket. Six days of no cash left me feeling pretty shaky. I had a credit card that was not stolen that I used during this past week but I normally only shop with an actual credit card when I want the built in warranty/insurance of the card. I remain mystified by the $2 transaction for coffee. Yes, I did it. OK and I admit it was faster than cash. But, it was strange.

I am slowly replacing everything that was taken. I upgraded to the BlackBerry Curve 8310 within about 24 hours. The new toy is RED and has built in GPS and many other features I have yet to explore. I am thinking about insuring this one for loss just in case something like this happens again. The new toy is also password protected. This makes me feel more safe, with better data security.  I have mixed feelings about my better protections. It was the lack of protection that allowed the police to get the name of the thief.

Yep, that's right, I have his name. I'll back up. My office is under video surveillance. I did not know this when I first realized my purse was taken. Our building manager pulled the video and made us a DVD recording. A single person entered my office while I was blithely microwaving my dinner. He was on and off our floor in one minute. I was at the microwave for two. He was in and out of our building in under 4 minutes. My urge to put him on YouTube is strong. Because my BlackBerry was not password protected, he was able to use it to make numerous calls before I canceled the service about 90 minutes after it was taken. One of the people called was willing to identify the caller. He also used one of my credit cards for a purchase under $5 before I was able to cancel the card.

Amazingly, although the total loss of items was under $500, the detective assigned to my case, Norman, has been actively following up on evidence and communicating with me regularly. Thank you Norman.  First he picked up the DVD and my phone records. Soon he was able to provide me a name. Luckily, not a student, not a coworker. We suspected this internally because none of us recognized the person on the video but it was nice to be sure. Norman followed up on the phone numbers and convinced one of the people to identify the thief. They'd met in jail. Norman is trying to build a very solid case for the DA's office so now he's asked me to track down that small charge made on my credit card. He is really following up all of the leads.

We'll see. The dollar amount puts this solidly in the slap on the wrist misdemeanor category. No one was physically harmed or threatened. I was pretty dumb for leaving my office unlocked. But, it would be really nice if the person did not have the opportunity to do this to others. There should be some justice, some penalty for breaking the rules of our society. But should it cost more in tax payer dollars to get justice than was taken from me? It is here that I struggle.

Violated

This evening I came back to my office from brushing my teeth and I reached into my briefcase to find my lipstick. Alas, there was no lipstick and more importantly, no purse inside of my briefcase where the lipstick is kept. I have always kept my purse inside my briefcase, inside the closet in my office.  It was not in view from the door to my office.

Gone were: my driver's license, my ID for the dream job, my ID for the weekend research job, my health insurance card, my dental insurance card, my auto insurance card, my credit card, my ATM card, my CostCo card, my REI card, my grocery story loyalty card, my movie card, my total beverage loyalty card, and $100 that I'd gotten from the ATM over the weekend. Also gone was my beautiful BlackBerry Curve.  I carry too much stuff. I will not make this mistake in the future.

On the upside, I carry my keys, always, so did not lose my car today.

I can narrow the window of when my purse was stolen to a 1 hour time period from when I knew I had it to when I was certain it was taken. I was gone for 3 minutes. Twice. Once to microwave some soup. Once to brush my teeth. There was a trusted person in the office next to mine that saw no one unusual go in or out of my office during this one hour window.

I called the police and began the slow process of canceling everything. Two nice police men responded. Thank you Denver Police Department. First call, bank card. Luckily, it had not been used and was quickly deactivated. Second call, credit card. It had already been used, up the road a few blocks. Third call, ATT wireless. Phone deactivated. The only thing the thief can use it for is to call 911. Is it bad karma to hope that s/he will need that function? Unfortunately, unlike the nice credit card and bank people, I'm stuck with my two-year service & there is no discount on the replacement. Ouch. That's going to hurt.

On the hopeful side, our building and our elevators are under 24/7 surveillance. The store where my credit card was used was also likely monitored. If I push the detectives who are assigned to my case, we might just find the person(s). I worry that it is a student or colleague. My purse was small, easy to tuck into a backpack or larger bag. But truly this is a case of matching. Who rode our elevators between the critical window and then hastily shopped at a store just up the road?

My winter gloves went missing from my office last week. I decided that they must have fallen out of my bag on one of my journeys. Now my thoughts grow much more sinister. I was certain that I had placed them in a certain location in my office. Now I think that a fine thief knows my habits and is watching for that trip to the ladies room, to the kitchen. If it was the same person, twice, it is even more likely to be a student or colleague. Day 35 of Dream Job.

I feel violated. No I was not mugged. I was not physically harmed in this theft. But my feeling of joy in my new office, my new job, has been damaged. My feeling of hope and sanctuary has taken a major hit. I will be keeping my door locked, even for that short trip to refill my water bottle, and looking at each person I encounter with suspicion. 

Wet Rocks

There is a Total Beverage near my house. For me it is the CostCo of wine. I love this place. There are dozens of aisles separated by geography (France, Chile) or type (Merlot, Cabernet) of wine. I love to browse the aisles reading descriptions. Normally I keep my eyes open for wines that are red, rated 90 or above, and under $25. You might think these would be rare but I find dozens to choose from. For me a wine is either one I like or do not like. I do not have the proper vocabulary but have become accustomed to seeing my favorites have undertones of chocolate, raspberry, tobacco, oak or soft tannins. Today I was reading of a wine with the taste of wet rocks. This is supposed to be an advertisement correct? And the reviewer knows the taste of wet rocks because? When I think of wet rocks I think of the swampy, murky, brackish green water smell. I'm supposed to want to drink this? In my red wine? I kept walking.