Rant | lynette {radio}

Why SOPA and PIPA is the wrong choice for my country

January 18, 2012 by Lynette · 1 Comment

Great song. Funny. DEAD SERIOUS topic. WE THE PEOPLE OWN THE INTERNET. We are a global tribe and will not be choked by a government that is disconnected from the vital needs of its people and the businesses that make the country thrive. Officially SOPA is referenced as : H.R. 3261 – STOP ONLINE PIRACY ACT.

The United States government are **not** experts in Internet technology or copyright issues. Yet they, openly admitting that they don’t understand ‘nerd stuff’, are attempting to pass laws that will make it financially impossible for any business with a presence on the Internet to comply with the SOPA or PIPA regulations. Existing copyright laws have proven to be sufficient to protect our rights.

Not even Facebook or Google have enough money to monitor their sites to be sure they were not breaking laws that the MPAA and RIAA have shoved down **OUR** government’s throat. (Hint, the government works and is paid by the PEOPLE, not CORPORATIONS).

Every single small business and entrepreneur that does business on the web is in danger of breaking laws if SOPA and PIPA (or any similar litigation) passes.

Work for a company and could care less what happens to those small biz people? YOUR EMPLOYER is in mortal danger of loosing their online presence too. When they shut their doors because they no longer have clients paying your salary, you wind up on the unemployment line with thousands of others competing for the same job.

Sucks, hua? Our government is slowly censoring us to appease big companies with tons of money for lobbyists.

DO SOMETHING NOW or lose your freedoms.

Learn more before it is too late…

Learn why the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are bad for the internet:

For the record, I have read the SOPA litigation. Read more on Wikipedia to keep up with the latest updates.

Filed Under: rant Tagged With: PIPA, SOPA

Picking conferences to attend in 2012

January 6, 2012 by Lynette · 6 Comments

The other day my gal Marcy asked if I was attending SxSW this year. Then my husband asked if I was getting a ticket before the price jumped up again. I realized I needed to make a decision about attending SxSW (South by Southwest) this year. I’ve estimated it will cost me $3,100 to attend:

$750 for an Interactive badge
$1,500 for 7 nights in a hotel
$250 in food for a week and incidentals – if I stretch it thin
$600 airfare

If I do go, it will have to be solo because it’s just too expensive to bring anyone else (double everything but hotel). I hate navigating such large events by myself. Attending as just one person puts me at a disadvantage to get ‘seen’ – team efforts always allow you to cover more ground.

If I don’t attend, I miss out on a lot of client opportunities that I would not normally have access to. But I wonder if the types of people that I need to meet will be attending. The vibe I got last year from attending was that the whole place was swarming with wanna-be tech startups that had an ‘idea’ for a mobile app looking for funding (that topic is a whole rage rant for me in itself). We did attend a private party sponsored by a big funding house just to get a feel for what being chum in shark-infested water was like. It was not fun. First, my husband and I were the same age as the people that had the money, and probably about old enough to be the parents of the people looking for money. It was also our opinion that VCs were only interested in companies or products they could ‘buy’ with investment money to flip or kill quickly. We are the type of company and people that like to be self-funded buy actually building a product and selling it. Like I said, that is a rant for another time….

I’m very surprised there is no ‘camp version of SxSW. When Podcast & Portable Media Expo started up in November 2005, Chris Brogan and Christopher Penn couldn’t flip the cost out of pocket and came up with the idea of Podcamp. Where is the grassroots, local version of SxSW? While the SxSW conference itself started out that way, there is no denying it has jumped the shark. The conference overruns the city of Austin with hipster app developers looking for Round A funding. Every session is a panel that offers (me) little new information or insight. There are way too many people that attend – great for the organizers, bad for a solo attendee. Besides, all the ‘best’ stuff that happens at SxSW is the impromptu gatherings and chance meetings.

The reason for attending conferences this year (outside of speaking at them) is to ‘pre-sell’ my book and scouting for professional and entrepreneurial women that want to learn how to use the ‘net to become a star in their niche. Will I be able to find either opportunity at SxSW? No.

I guess that’s my decision. No SxSW for me this year. I have outgrown the usefulness of the event. It seems the process of writing this out has talked me out of attending this year.

By going through and identifying in writing what I need to get out of an event (‘pre-sell’ my book and scouting for professional and entrepreneurial women) and comparing that to the audience attending the event, the process of selecting where I’m going to spend my $3,000 per event becomes much clearer.

Good thing I’m planning on attending BlogWorld, EVO ’12 & BlogHer this year. Have you seen any other conferences that meet my criteria??

Filed Under: conferences, rant Tagged With: blogher, Blogworld, BlogWorld & New Media Expo, conference, EVO, South by Southwest, SxSW

Back in a wrist splint again

December 13, 2011 by Lynette · 2 Comments

So this is the third time in three years my left hand/wrist has been splinted or cast (all for different reasons). This time around I injured my hand about six weeks ago at the gym and got some sort of cyst on the back of my hand. In typical me fashion, I let it go until the pain got the best of me. Now I’ve got a good chance of surgery. HELLO… when it comes down it it I’m a typist for a living I NEED the use of both my hands. For the next week I’m in a splint & typing is uncomfortable and slow (but not impossible from the looks of this post).

To add insult to injury I’m back on prednisone. That equals a week of weight gain and a very un-jolly attitude from me. I’m guessing this isn’t a good week to bake a few hundred cookies???

As an aside, people are *stupid*. Apparently according to my doctor (and Dr. Google) people have tried to get rid of the bump by thwacking a Bible on their hand. My doc says he sees a few hand fractures a year from this. I was warned not to do this myself and assured him I had a higher IQ than that.

Filed Under: rant

The Stigma of Driving a Minivan

June 16, 2011 by Lynette ·

I have declared for the past ten years that I hate minivans (before that I didn’t have any children so it was a non-issue). Old people drive them, usually too slow and swerving in and out of the fast lane. Minivans have back windows full of stick-figure families wearing Mickey Mouse ears, soccer ball decals, and faded-out honor roll bumper stickers. Usually they have all three, and I always want to run them off the road into a ditch.

The best example of the stigma and lifestyle assumption I’m looking to avoid comes from seeing a minivan with stick-people stickers on the back window. One adult female stick-person wearing a Mickey Mouse hat and SIX cat stick-animals and no human kids to be found. I still kick myself to this day for not taking a photo of that winner. To me, minivan drivers are elderly people that shouldn’t be driving on the road in the first place or stressed out and frazzled moms with scratch-n-sniff stickers all over the inside of the car windows. Or women with four kids under the age of four that have traded their wardrobe for sweatpants and stained maternity teeshirts. Or people that didn’t learn to drive in this country and think stop signs and one way streets are ‘suggestions’.

My fear? Becoming — or being viewed as — THAT. Unhip surburban soccer mom drones. Or as an old person. Or batshit crazy. I. HAVE. PURPLE. HAIR. AND. TATTOOS. DAMMIT! I’ve been wondering if my fear is becoming those things or having the stereotype applied to me. I’ve never thought of myself as a vain person but now I’m not so sure. In my head there is a vision of what I’m supposed to be. That somehow I’m expected to live up to crazy stereotypes that are polar opposites from what I really am. MILF / cougar / soccer mom. All stereotypes run counter to what I am, how I view myself, how I want others to view me, and how I’d like to be going forward. In my own head I tend to swing to the MILF side of the fence – not soccer mom – and minivans do not fit that image. [Read more...]