Ever since my brother passed away in 2005 from colon cancer, I’ve dreaded holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, Mother’s Day has got to be one of the hardest that my family goes through, especially for my Mom. I wanted to try to convey how much I love my Mom in this video I made for her and my entire family and I hope it shows how special of a mother she truly is. She’s always been there to help raise me up over my hurdles in life and for that, I will always be grateful. Happy Mother’s Day!

One of my goals is creating this blog is to discuss the moxiest, newest technology out there. Although Jott has been around for a little while, the services that Jott has recently added now have my attention. Once you’ve created a free account with Jott, all you have to do is call a toll-free number and speak whatever it is you wish to say clearly. You then have the option for Jott to transcribe what you say and send it to any of your contacts on email or now even Twitter.

They also just added cross functionality with Wordpress, the software I use for my blog. I can literally call the Jott toll-free number next time there’s breaking news and within seconds, Jott will transcribe my voicemail into a new blog post for you to read. Moxie indeed!

Here’s an example of a call I just made to Jott:

“Hey guys I am using jott to write my new blog posts and I just wanted to say hello, this is very moxie.” Listen to Jeff’s Voicemail Here

PC Magazine defines social networking sites as a website that provides a virtual community for people interested in a particular subject or just to “hang out” together. In this ever changing and expanding era of social media, I can’t begin to describe the impact that sites like YouTube, Twitter, Pownce, MySpace and Facebook have had on me personally.

In a matter of a couple of months, I’ve been able to build a wonderful community on Twitter that consists of peers, co-workers, friends and acquaintances. No longer are the days where people JUST sit in a chat room and socialize. Just last week, @nealcampbell and @calilewis had a Dallas Twitter social in which I attended. Instantly, I began recognizing people as they walked in the door. It didn’t take long for me to begin thinking “wow, what have we started here?” Check out some of the pictures from our Dallas Twitter hangout here.

Social networking is definitely the future of the web, in my unprofessional opinion. These sites and mediums are no longer just for the geek or just the expert. Anyone and everyone is welcome. If you can’t find a community of similar people on any of these major social networking sites, then you just need to continue looking. I really believe that social networking can be a positive move in the right direction when it comes to lending support (technical, professional, personal) to your fellow neighbor.

So, my awesome blog readers, which social network site is your favorite? I would love to know so please leave a comment below.

I know the title sounds like a catchy, new book that is about to come out but the reality is a dream of mine came true today even though I’m going through one of the hardest trials in my life. Some things will always remain private, but my life has turned upside down (literally) a few days ago and I don’t think I’ve personally felt as much pain and angst as I did since my brother passed away in 2005.

On a much more positive note, Cali Lewis from Geekbrief.tv not only mentioned my name in today’s episode but she also discussed a blog post I wrote regarding getting Woopra installed on a Mac. This has been a dream of mine ever since I began watching Geekbrief.TV back in August 2007.

Thank you, my readers, for keeping me blogging and for subscribing to my blog and continuing to support me. It means the world.

You can watch the Geekbrief episode here.

The post of mine that Geekbrief is referring is here.

Reputation is defined as the opinion of the public toward a person, a group of people, or an organization. More specifically, online reputation is a growing concern in this Web 2.0 world of networking and recruiting.

I decided I wanted to write my next recruiting post related to online reputation and the effects some social media sites have on it. Even if you currently are not looking for a job, your online reputation is everything. Just like your credit score, it’s a perception of how you function in life as a human being. Regardless of your present job situation, evidence is growing that show companies do care what you say and what others say about you online. Even if you’re not a popular blogger with your own domain site, companies can view your online reputation within minutes.

In a recent survey by a social network, 59% of employers are influenced by what they find on a candidate’s social network profile and/or online in general.

As a recruiter for 9 years and counting, reputation used to be based on a reference check or a referral. If I found “John Doe” on CareerBuilders.com and I thought he may be a good match for my company’s position, I would bring him to my office for an initial screening and then ask him to provide me two references. These references would then be the avenue in which we assessed the person’s reputation and credibility.

Now, with the creation of social media and web 2.0, reputation has taken a new course. Do you know that recruiters, HR departments, headhunters, and hiring managers not only do background and reference checks, but will also go online to assess your online reputation? Do you think it was smart to post that video on YouTube that showed you and a few friends doing a prank to a neighbor? Or what about those heated, political comments you left on a MySpace bulletin one night after a few drinks? Did you publicly breakup with your partner and then leave a personal yet humiliating message to him/her one night? It’s not as private as you may have thought.

Below are three main areas of where recruiters and your employer may begin assessing your reputation online…

(1) “Google You” - the first and easiest assessment of your reputation online is to google (or yahoo/MSN/altavista) the candidate’s name. These results can vary from your high school entry in your online yearbook to an award you won in college. They also can show results of one’s picture with one’s girlfriend or fraternity brothers on a MySpace page. If you tag your name to any image on any social media site, it can be easily found. “Googling a potential candidate” also shows what social media sites he or she is involved in and some of these sites could be considered questionable by your potential employer.

(2) Blogging - anyone knows that all someone has to do is create a google alert with your name on it and anything that’s in a blog (video, picture, text) has the potential of showing up in one of the several search engines around the world. Blogging has become a controversial topic between employees and employers because some argue that every one has the right to express themselves in any way they see fit. If it’s not on company time then it’s not my company’s business, right? Others argue that your blog and personal branding online can damage the reputation of your employer. So where does the line get drawn? A lot of companies require their new employees to sign an “exclusivity agreement” as well as a “Code of Ethics.” In a Code of Ethics, most companies have now begun to create a “blogging policy”. While it’s true that some companies allow you to blog as long as you leave the company’s name out of it, others absolutely discourage your right to blog about anything, depending on the level of your position. And if you sign this code and continue blogging, your employer has the right to terminate you.

(3) Social Media Sites - Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Pownce, etc. All of the profiles you build, comments you leave, videos you post, tweets you write and other personal promotion can lead to your potential employer OR your current employer making an assessment of you, regardless if it’s accurate or not. Recruiters are using MySpace and Facebook not only as network venues but also to pre-screen their candidates before presenting them to their hiring managers. Assessing your online reputation is huge. Companies are all about assessing risk and that even goes with assessing the risk of hiring a potentially controversial or unethical employee. Take it from me, I recently learned that every message I write on Twitter is indexed by Google. Therefor, I have the potential of someone reading one “tweet” completely out of context. It was eye opening for me.

These are just three ways for anyone to assess your online reputation. What you create about you is the most easily controlled. What others say about you or how they react to a comment you made or a video you published is much harder to control. The reason I wrote this post is to make people more aware of your online reputation. Your “online footprint” isn’t in sand… rather it’s in wet cement and it can stay online for years and years to come.

If you’re further interested in managing your online reputation, LifeHacker wrote a brillant article about how you can begin managing your online reputation proactively.

I’d also LOVE to hear YOUR comments about this. Do you feel like companies and recruiters are taking this too far? Is this an argument about freedom of speech or privacy issues? I’d love to hear your comments below.

For weeks now, I’ve been wishing and hoping I could find a way to get the Woopra desktop client installed on my Macbook. As most of you know, you have to have version 1.6 Java Virtual Machine to run Woopra. Well, last night, I figured it out!

For those who don’t know what Woopra is, feel free to click here to learn more.

While I was researching other websites that explained how to install Woopra on a Mac, everything that I was reading was still not allowing it to work on mine. I then came across a wonderful website that provided an additional step and voila: it works!

From my understanding, this only works on Intel Macs running Tiger or Leopard!!!

Please feel free to add a comment or email me if these instructions do not make sense.

(1) Download the Woopra Desktop Client here. Once you’ve downloaded it, COPY THE INSTALL IMAGE TO YOUR DESKTOP (in other words, copy the .dmg file to your computer). After you’ve copied this to your desktop, right-click your mouse on the Woopra Install image. You will then click on “Show Package Contents”. Open the file under the contents folder titled Info.plist. In your text-editor, you will need to change the following:

Under the line <key>JVMVersion</key> change “<string>1.3+</string>” to “<string>1.6+</string>” (w/o the parenthesis)

Once you’ve changed this key, save the Info.plist and you’re done with that (for now). DO NOT ATTEMPT TO INSTALL WOOPRA JUST YET. THERE’S MORE TO DO.

(2) As of yesterday, you can download the correct Java version directly from Apple - it’s super easy. Go here to download the file. (I was just informed of this today, after I already installed Woopra. I guess Apple just released the version of Java that we’ve been needing for Woopra yesterday.)

(4) Install the new Java software. After you install, though, there’s one more step (this is where I kept getting caught up). You have to tell your Mac to begin using this version of Java rather than the other, previously installed versions of Java OR Woopra will not install correctly and you’ll get errors. To do this, on your Mac, go to Applications->Utilities->Java->Java Preferences.

(5) On the General tab, under Java Applet Runtime Settings, select “Java SE 6″. You will then re-arrange the list of Java versions so that Java SE 6 is the top item. Click Save. I PERSONALLY REBOOTED MY MACBOOK BEFORE I COMPLETED STEP #6!!!

(6) Now, you should be able to install Woopra on your Mac. It worked just fine for me! I’d love to hear your comments and let me know if this helped you!

Feel free to leave a comment below if you need help or email me here.