» Gen X

Social Media Stalking – The Unspoken Downside for Business Professionals

Sarah White — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 10:09:33 +0000

I am an evangelist of social media. I am also a victim of it.

For the past year, I have been dealing in relative silence with a social media stalker. I was threatened & blackmailed about my reputation within the industry & my job and tracked 24/7 with every move I made.

Its been going on for 15 months now and while its gotten more normal in my life to deal with this on a daily basis – I still see the shock on others faces when they experience it with me for the first time.

In my state, they have recently updated the Stalking Law to read more vaguely to include internet, social media & cyber stalking regardless of where the person doing it lives:

940.32 Stalking. 40.32 (1) (a) 6m. Photographing, videotaping, audiotaping, or, through any other electronic means, monitoring or recording the activities of the victim. This subdivision applies regardless of where the act occurs.

So, I’m done hiding.

I owe a lot of this post to a woman I met at Blogher in NYC. She experienced Social Media Stalking during a break up with a boyfriend and it continued on for more than 18 months. While circumstances were different, our fears & experiences were eerily similar and based around the fact that we were supposed to be strong, professional women. After having someone you at one point had a professional or personal confidence with turn, you question how the personal things this person knows potentially impact your reputation as well as your career. Ironically, for both of us, our career and professional image was the basis for most of the threats.

So, I thought I’d look into this issue a little more. What I found was – as with many abusive situations – the embarrassment that goes along with the control and emotional abuse is almost worse than the physical and for professional women (& men) – either still establishing themselves in their industry or as an established figure, an all too common story about keeping quiet to keep up their appearances and move ahead in their career.

Online Stalker Statistics (2009, HaltAbuse.org)

78% of Victims are Women
61% Had a Prior Relationship (This doesn’t mean dating/etc – Just knew) with the Stalker
17% Resulted in an escalation to physical violence

(Updated) Over the first 48 hours this post was up I heard from huge numbers of people who have/are experienced this and wanted to add a few points:

An automatic sense of trust online that someone is who they say makes people accept fake profiles and for someone to gain a false trust as a “friend” over a few months or even years
Foursquare. Do I need to say more.
I don’t minimize this is happening to men – a lot of men apparently.
Sometimes stalking just develops out of a weird interest via an acquaintance thanks to new tools — check out this post
Also – Check out this great Danny Brown post that is a great read that highlights some other experience and tips

For human resource professionals & business owners, I think we are only experiencing only the tip of the ice burg as to what we may be dealing with at our organizations in the coming years as people have personal brands, organizations get more social, and it is easier for people have great access to harass and/or intimidate former employees, coworkers or friends and is something that will not be easily covered in the “official social media policy” or by turning off access to Facebook or Twitter in your office.

Have something to say? Feel free to email me ImSoSarah@gmail.com – I’m open to hearing whatever you have to dish my way.

Why do we forget about Gen X? #HRevolution #generational #geny #boomers

Sarah White — Thu, 13 May 2010 15:48:04 +0000

“What about Gen X? Why does everyone forget about us? How come its all about gen y and boomers? We matter too!” A gen x’er asked while we were out and about in Chicago after my generational panel last weekend at #HREvolution.

“Because you aren’t loud enough” was my response.

The truth of the matter is that people sell and talk about things that other people listen to and are willing to pay for. Advertisers pay more for certain shows because people watch them. Certain colleges charge more than others because they have created a demand and people will pay for it. You look at the agenda before you register for a conference – why? because you want to see if you have an interest in what is going on.

Lets face it Gen Y is loud. We tweet, blog, write, speak a lot. We have a lot of names, faces, websites and everything else to keep us in the mix. A lot of what we do isn’t self serving – its about helping other Gen Y’er move forward in the world. Its about sticking up for ourselves in the “gen y sucks” world. Its about a group of people that have always been social and public and just using their technology to enhance those relationships.

The truth is that Gen Y wouldn’t be that big of a deal and we wouldn’t talk about it so much if the boomers wouldn’t have started talking about them and then developing experts (who weren’t even gen y) to go out and talk to companies about this “crazy” new group of youngin’s coming. So, quite honestly we wouldn’t be the way we were if it weren’t for the boomers.

So, to wrap it up – yes we talk about Gen Y alot – Its all the boomers fault – and oh, shoot – I totally forgot to talk about Gen X again.

Generational Argument: Get over it (@imsocorp) #geny #genx #boomer

Sarah White — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:03:13 +0000

Today’s guest post (1 day delayed because of no wifi access) is an amazing guest post by Ben McCall of RethinkHR that came out of a great phone convo. Yep, phone. I know. Sidenote: He is amazingly smart and ready for a new challenge in HR – you should check out his blog and HIRE him!

So this is has been a loaded topic since Christ was born. Since Darwin and the Catholic Church stopped talking to one another. It has been battled over since the thousands of soldiers came home from World War II. And yet again when Pensions and 401K’s were dumped on the employee to manage. Ok maybe none of this true. Maybe it is all ludacris but at the same time – to me – that is the way I feel about the argument on differences in generations. From the way we comb our hair to how we interact and where and when we have conversations. The generational topic has always been loaded. Filled with opinions and perspectives that are both valid and ludicrous.

First a short series of sporadic definitions (more like opinions which change from person to person) on each generation:

So what does all this mean? If you look closely at each definition as describe by the oh-so-always accurate Wikipedia what they basically say is that we are different. I argue we are not, that it is only the context in which we do things and sometimes the environment in which we do them. People could argue that exposure to technology and information, early career versus lots of experience. Even the old military-style-of-“Yes Sir and Yes Mam” of working relationship could be argued but really why even argue. Because if we are so different, will we never agree?

So this is why we say – STOOPPPPP!!!

- Everyone has something to say but no one will agree: so to follow the quote that I love by Bill Cosby – “I don’t know the secret to success but I do know the key to failure… trying to please everyone.” I don’t think you can please anyone in this issue. Period.

- For some it’s more than just a conversation: Let’s face it, there are those that live and breathe the argument. They make a case, study statistics and will never change their minds.

- Depth Perception: Some, no matter how hard you try, will never see another side.

- Get over yourself and the differences: I get the fact we need to understand what makes us different in order to interact and see how we can best move towards a goal. I also understand that there are differences, but come on, why do we focus so much on the differences when we could look more at the similarities?

- I am different than you: But isn’t everyone. At one point in all of our careers we have questioned the position, the company, the people and even our personal direction.

Most of the arguments are me versus you.

- If you want to cry there are better things to cry about: In a time we have mass world disasters and wars, famine, job losses and business inability or unwillingness to be innovative, why in the heck are we having this lengthy conversation.

- I work harder and longer then you: We all work hard and long depending on who we work for whether we love our jobs or hate them. We are also lazy and don’t do anything sometimes. Does that make me any less committed then you?

- It’s not about differences or generations. It’s about CONTEXT: Everyone likes music; I may like Hip Hop and Country while you enjoy Heavy Metal and Opera. But hell, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennial’s we all like the Beatles! So let’s all get in one room and “come together, right now…”

Beatles – Come Together

http://www.youtube.com/v/xBKqDeqlDBc&hl=en_US&fs=1&“>http://www.youtube.com/v/xBKqDeqlDBc&hl=en_US&fs=1&” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″>

So what are we for and what are we against?

I am not against having the conversation at all. For some it can be enlightening and a learning experience. However, for many this subject is like politics or religion. Once you are in the sites of a sniper looking for death, you might as well give your life up because you will be trapped behind their cross hairs.

The Generational Debate is About Expectations: A Letter to Boomers/Gen X (@imsocorp)

Sarah White — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:39:21 +0000

I’ve been writing, blogging and speaking on Gen Y issues since 2006 when ERE gave me a blog called Gen Y’d (See my 1st post). As one of the “old” Gen Y’ers – I have watched the evolution of “us” in the workplace from the eager recent college grads entering the workforce as our nation was reeling from it first major terrorist attack, the mini-boom of “the talent war” and the current state of record breaking unemployment. I have seen the reality of the “why” we are distrusting of corporate America, less loyal than the boomers to a corporate setting and the reason so many of us strive to be entrepreneurs.

To a degree – the debate shouldn’t even really exist – we are a lot like our counterparts were when they were in their 20′s – we want the same types of thing of out life, have the same goals and dream the same dreams they did.

The difference lies in Expectations.

Our generation has been raised in a “me” culture, a world full of immediate gratification, instant access and always being told we can do (and be) anything. We’ve had computers in our homes since elementary school, cell phones & internet access since early in our high school years and only know about punch cards because of what Gen X’ers tell us.

Our reality and immediate need for gratification has shaped the way we do business, interact with our friends and live our lives. It has built amazing social networks, changed the history of news and impacted the way companies market, interact and work. Gen Y’s expectations are changing our culture (or are a subset of the culture we live in one can argue).

We want it all, and we want it now. And we see nothing wrong with that.

The vision that we all had of “having it all” when we grew up was built out of the defining moments we watched on television, read about on the internet and heard about via friends we may never meet. We want to have what our parents have (or more) by the time we hit 30 – not 50.

Prior generations would wait their turn. Be patient. Accepted that life doesn’t move as fast as we want. In the workplace they accepted (and understood) the idea of promotion and compensation based on tenure not performance. That you have to “earn” the right to have an opinion.

Our generation wants to learn – everything – now. We want to prove ourselves and be promoted and compensated based on our success and value – not how long we sat in our cube in a week. We want to show you a different way to look at things.

We want you to understand that our expectations don’t take any value out of what you have done in the workforce. We don’t want you to look down or discourage us. We want to learn from you and evolve (Rapidly). We don’t think we are better, faster, stronger, smarter than the generations before us. We don’t think we are “entitled” to it. We just aren’t afraid of expectations.

We want YOU to have expectations of US to do something AMAZING!

On Wednesday - I have an amazing guest post on the topic by Ben McCall of RethinkHR – he’ll talk about why the debate is getting old – lets work together and move on! (I AGREE!) Sidenote: He is amazingly smart and ready for a new challenge in HR – you should check out his blog and HIRE him!

On Thursday – I’ll be in London speaking alongside Lucian Tarnowski the founder of Brave New Talent and a noted Gen Y’er (1 of UK’s top 5 up & coming entrepreneurs, StridingOut’s Future 100, Courvoisier Future 500) at the TRULondon event. We are going to be talking about how companies can harness what differences there are to make amazing teams and success stories in the workplace.