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Using the Web at Work, by Andrea Vogel

Posted on June 9, 2009

The Geek Girls were recently asked “Is it safe to log into my mint.com account from work?  I never have time to work on the budget at home, but during lunch is the perfect time.” This question, along with its sister query “Can my employer read my personal email if I am accessing it from my work computer?” and twice-removed-illegitimate cousin question “Is it OK to surf porn at work?”, is one many of us never had to consider when beginning our careers. Placing whispered personal phone calls to a date or a doctor, sure. Surreptitiously reading City Pages under the desk, of course. But only in the last decade has personal usage of company technology become such a serious issue – one often resulting in employee termination, lawsuits, identity theft and more.

The purpose of this article is to outline the answer to this question on four levels: rules, reputation, ruin and reality:

1. Rules. What can and cannot legally be monitored, accessed and/or forbidden by an employer (as it pertains to technology only – I’m not going to comment on the political propaganda hanging in your cube or the micromini that should have been retired when you were 17. Not in this article, at least.)

2. Reputation. Even in company settings with more lenient policies, consideration of your professional reputation is important and often overlooked. If non-work-related online activity is affecting the quality or productivity of your work, it’s time to curtail it. Similarly, if you are visiting “questionable” (read into this however you wish) sites using company technology, your credibility and integrity could be affected within the establishment.

3. Ruin. As in financial: Identity theft. PIN number swiping. Rare, but unfortunately feasible and a serious issue to address.

4. Reality. Situations in which it is most likely alright (highly caveated that you are not to use this article as your defense if you get busted) to disregard the policies and guidelines from points 1, 2, and 3 above.

Rules

Without exception, it is completely legal for an employer to monitor an employee’s online activity and information on a computer that is provided by the company. During working hours, after working hours, data saved to a “private” folder on the hard drive, emails sent from a work-provided email address, and even emails sent from a personal email address using said computer.  This information is all legally accessible by the employer – even if it is password-protected.

Even after an employee leaves a company, the employer is within its rights to access and review activity and information from said employee’s computer during her tenure. This 2008 Techdirt.com article reiterates the fact that “anything on the computer is fair game for the employer (even if it’s password protected).” Now granted, this particular article pertains to a former employee that was stealing from the employer, whereas our reader simply wants to check her finances during lunch. Night and day, right? One would think. But it is important for her to know the facts: Her financial information can and may legally be accessed by her employer if she is using Mint.com on her work computer. Even if her manager condones the employee’s taking 5 minutes to do some personal budgeting during the day, another unscrupulous colleague could very well be accessing her financial information. More on this in “Ruin,” below.

While it is legal for employers to monitor and access the activity and information noted above, it goes without saying that many do not. It’s just important to know that they can. The majority of employers I have had, as well as those of my family, colleagues, and friends, will not admonish a competent and productive employee for spending some personal time online during the work day or at home on a work-provided machine. Let’s face it: Most of us work upwards of 40 hours per week and there are bills to be paid, news headlines to be read, and personal correspondence to attend to—and just not enough hours after work to manage all of it. In addition, more and more employers are encouraging their employees to spend some time online each day in non-task-related/billable activities—social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter or company blogs being examples of potentially positive ways to gain knowledge, share information, and promote the company via nontraditional methods.

Unsure about your employer’s policy on personal use of company machines? Ask your manager, read the employee handbook, or play it safe and do it as little as possible…or not at all.

Reputation

When I informed my manager that I was writing an article on personal use of company technology, he snorted and reminded me that I am on Facebook and Twitter all day. OK, guilty as charged. However,  my productivity reports and completed tasks/projects indicate that my manager’s expectations are being met even with these diversions. If this is the case for our reader as well—that her workload is not being affected by her lunchtime personal budgeting—and she is fortunate enough to work for one of the more understanding employers noted above, then her professional reputation should remain intact. However, if productivity and/or performance are slipping, whether noticed only by the employee or by her colleagues or manager, then it goes without saying that personal use of company technology needs to stop during working hours, plain and simple.

Our era of tweets and blogs also brings up another sort of reputation damage control: that of TMI (too much information.)  Employees who are using company technology to save/send/ post photos of last week’s kegger, or oversharing via status updates that can be viewed by clients or colleagues can find themselves in a world of trouble. Take the recent downfall of Ketchum VP James Andrews, who insulted the fair city of Memphis when in town to meet with his client, FedEx. FedEx employees immediately circulated the tweet corporation-wide, as well as responded scathingly. Awkward.

Be smart about the sites you visit while on company time and equipment, and what you post on said sites. You never know who might be paying attention.

Ruin

If the reader is using Mint.com, a free online money management application, on a company-owned computer, then her employer has access to any personal information stored within her Mint.com account, even though it is password-protected. It is illegal for her employer or colleagues to use or access that information without just cause, of course, but it is definitely feasible and could lead to theft of finances or identity.

Think twice before accessing financial or personal information on company machines. You could become a victim of identity theft.

Reality

So, in a roundabout way we have answered the reader’s question: Is it safe to log in to my mint.com account from work? No, it is not safe – yet it is likely that if your employer condones occasional personal use of company technology during work hours, and if your productivity is not being affected, it is probably fine. Just save the porn-surfing for your own computer on your own personal time, OK?

Andrea Vogel, Geek

Andrea Vogel is a Senior Producer at Popular Front who leads teams in the development of online experiences for clients including Hasbro, Deluxe and Gustavus Adolphus University. She holds a BA in French with a minor in Women’s Studies from the University of Minnesota, as well as a cosmetology license, of all things.

Follow her on Twitter: AVogel75

Keeping Your Kids Safe Online, Part II

Posted on May 12, 2009

This is just a brief follow-up post to my previous essay about Keeping Your Kids Safe Online.  I’ve had several people send emails asking for links to additional online resources that they can consult for ongoing support in this area.  I dug around a little and I found the following websites that might be of interest.  If you know of others that I haven’t included, please feel free to add them to the list via the comments on this post. 

  1. The first site was actually suggested by a reader and it’s a site sponsored by and managed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children – NetSmartz.org.
  2. The National Crime Prevention Center has info about online safety on it’s McGruff.org website.  
  3. The Girl Scouts has a website where girls can talk to each other and girls and parents can get info about online safety.  LMK = Let Me Know.

Here’s a list of links to software and web-based tools parents can use to monitor their children’s behavior:

  1. Monitor your child on the web and on their cell phone with websafety.com.
  2. The McGruff site offers a free chat and web filter (McGruff Safeguard) – it monitors intstant messaging, social networks and website visits, just to name a few.
  3. Internetsafety.com has both a home and mobile version of its monitoring software.  You can keep a close eye on your kid’s internet usage and interactions on the web and the mobile web — which is a growing concern among parents.
  4. My Mobile WatchDog is another product that allows you to watch your kid’s cellphone activity.

Just to be clear, the Geek Girl’s Guide does not endorse or claim any in-depth knowledge of any of these products.  This is just a starting point, a simple resource list for parents to begin to explore the plethora of options available to them for limiting and monitoring their kids online behaviors.  I am not a big fan of limiting, unless it becomes necessary.  I am a fan of monitoring to inform an active, ongoing dialogue between you and your children. 

Stay tuned to the blog for the cell phone safety post I am currently working on.  We’ll explore the different types of phones and the different types of monitoring devices available to parents for cell phones. 

At the end of the day its communication, involvement and awareness that will keep your kids safe online.  Those things don’t come from a software package.  They come from you.

 

The Rules of Engagement (or Why I Said Oprah Doesn’t Get Twitter)

Posted on May 4, 2009

A couple of weeks ago Ashton Kutcher gave me a virtual smack on the nose.  Don’t worry.  I don’t plan on making this my claim to fame.  I had tweeted moments before that he and Oprah didn’t seem to get that Twitter is about ‘tweeting AND listening’ and this was his response.  I’ll say here what I said to my buddy Ashton in my reply – I want to be wrong.  But I don’t think I am.  See, engagement is a two way street.  Social media isn’t taking off the way it is because we can more easily push information to the masses, that’s just part of it.  It’s become a social phenomenon because of the interactive element – we put information, opinions and content into the universe and people respond to it.  We have whole conversations, sometimes in 140 characters or less.  But we have them.  And sometimes we have them with people we might never have known or connected with had it not been for this digital network. I’ve always said that the web is the great equalizer – it gives us access to people and ideas that 20 years ago would have been impossible to touch. What’s more, because of the web, we can influence those ideas.  Social media has taken that a step further by adding immediacy to the equation.  I can tweet a question, a news link, an opinion, a conversation starter, and I get an immediate, and sometimes very diverse set of responses.  It’s conversation in real time.

Before I got too far down the road in this discussion I wanted to make sure that my perspective on Twitter was accurate.  What was the point?  I mean — I see what the value is, and how it has evolved, and how the audience has responded to it.  But I wanted to understand the thinking that was the impetus for Twitter.  I happened upon this February article from the Los Angeles Times that discusses that very thing – why Twitter came to be. The article is sort of fascinating. But the piece that I found really intriguing was this:

The whole bird thing: bird chirps sound meaningless to us, but meaning is applied by other birds. The same is true of Twitter: a lot of messages can be seen as completely useless and meaningless, but it’s entirely dependent on the recipient. So we just fell in love with the word. It was like, “Oh, this is it.” We can use it as a verb, as a noun, it fits with so many other words. If you get too many messages you’re “twitterpated” — the name was just perfect.

“Meaning is applied by OTHER birds.” My issue with Oprah, and even Ashton, is that this social universe isn’t just about collecting followers.  It’s about conversing with them.  It’s tweeting and listening.  It’s hearing  them. Real engagement happens between people, not from them.  So, while Ashton’s 1 million plus followers, and Oprah’s nearly 900,000 followers are impressive (to someone, I’m sure), they aren’t really the point.  When I responded to Ashton’s reply to me I also said that I worry that this kind of communication will just be an extension of the celebrity bubble. I can expand on that here, because it’s my blog and I get more than 140 characters.  Those beautiful people in Hollywood that entertain us on the big and small screens are called celebrities because we celebrate them.  They are created and supported like any brand and, after a while, they are so insulated from the realities of everyman that they buy into their own celebrity.  I mean, come on, how can they not?  It’s the only world they know.  And we’re as guilty of it as them – -we’re the ones who elevate them and give them this kind of power and hang on their every word.  So Oprah really demonstrated a kind of entitlement that must come with celebrity when she signed up for Twitter, tweeted other celebrities right out of the gate, followed only 11 people (to the 900,000 following her), and now tweets every few days about random stuff (when she remembers to tweet).  She’s not really responding to anyone.  She’s not hearing people respond to her.  Essentially what’s happening here is Twitter is another channel for Oprah to broadcast her wisdom. 

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m no different than any other woman in this country.  I love Oprah.   I would vote for her if she ran for president.  But I still don’t think she gets the *social* part of social media.  And that’s fine too.  She doesn’t have to.  She’s OPRAH, for god’s sake.  But what an amazing missed opportunity.  For her and for us.  Am I naive enough to think Oprah should respond to every nutjob who tweets in her direction?  No.  Am I stupid enough to think Oprah needs to bump up the people she follows to 900,000?  No.  But I do wish she’d take an interest in people that aren’t Larry King or Ashton or Demi.  Because that’s the beauty of what’s happening here.  It’s not our perfect figures or faces, our wallets or our celebrity that matter here (in the social media space). It’s our ideas.  It’s our participation.  It’s what we add to the experience.  It’s how we listen to and respect and interact with others. We’re just birds.  Oprah is just a lone tweeter. Tweeting at a wall.  A lone bird isn’t music. It needs other birds to create a sound that stops you dead.  That cacaphony.  That symphony that gets you looking up and smiling and realizing what happens when birds are truly engaged. Oprah needs other birds.

Keeping Your Kids Safe Online

Posted on May 4, 2009

The Geek Girls have had the privilege of working with and talking to a wide array of people over the last year.  We cover a lot of ground in our discussions and here on the blog.  I have to say, though, that there is one topic that baffles and disturbs me over and over again.  I can’t count the number of times I hear parents talk about how advanced their children are on computers and, by extension, online.  A good number of parents tell us that their kids know more about “this stuff” than they ever will and they basically let them handle it, mostly unmonitored.  I make it a point to never judge how people parent, because everyone needs to have the room to do their own thing.  But I do think that the web is no place to let a child, or an adolescent, run free and unfettered. And with the proliferation of mobile devices, the web is everywhere they are — which is, oftentimes, where parents are not.  I don’t want to mix words here – parents need to accept the expanding landscape of opportunity and potential trouble for their children, they need to embrace the technology around it and take an active role in monitoring their kids in the online space.

When I visited the Pew Internet website to get some statistics around the number of teens online I was struck by this quote in the sidebar of an article I was reading:  “Adolescents have been called “digital natives,” but data suggests that they are both comfortable with new technologies, and yet not always as technically savvy as we collectively believe them to be.”  This is sort of reflective of adolescence overall, isn’t it?  They are ready for responsibility, and yet not quite equipped to handle it all of the time. If we know they aren’t yet totally able to make the best choices, why do we give them the keys to the internet and trust they have the skills to manage anything they encounter when they’re out there? This post is probably the first of several.  This topic really requires relatively lengthy discussion and this is just a starting point.  As access to the internet becomes easier and necessary, this issue will become even more critical.  My first order of business is just encouraging the conversation. 

What is there to be concerned about if we’re separated from any potential problem by a device and distance?  Distance is easily surmountable and a device doesn’t protect you from anything.  Kids don’t think this through when they engage in behavior that their friends endorse.  Cell phones and rich media mean that compromising yourself on the web really just takes a few seconds.  And then it’s there forever.  By now, many of you have heard of ‘Sexting‘ — sexually suggestive text messages that may be accompanied by photos or videos of sexually charged behavior.  This topic is hot right now, and with good reason.  Teens are sexually exploratory by nature.  Sharing sexual materials via a computer or handheld device allows for a false sense of security.  For one, kids aren’t thinking about their futures in the moments when they might be making these questionable choices.  But when you’re talking to your teens about why this behavior is dangerous, its important to aknowledge that its not just about them making themselves sexually vulnerable, its also the fact that anything on the internet is forever.  While a sexually explicit message or photo might feel temporal today, the long term potential for damage is very real. 

Sexual predators are also a very real threat.  With global social networks experiencing massive growth, our kids are connecting to more strangers than we could possibly police.  Let’s face it, our children might have good instincts, but we know it takes maturity to really develop that 6th sense about people.  I like to think I’m a good judge of character or sincerity, and I still manage to surprise myself by investing in the wrong people every now and then.  Our kids need our help and we shouldn’t be apologetic about it.  The Geek Girls are often advising organizations about setting up acceptable use and privacy policies for social media. And yet, very few people ask about similar sorts of policies for their homes and families.  I think it makes sense.  Your family should have a set of values around acceptable behavior online.  You should be vocal about it.  Talk about what is appropriate and what isn’t and revise the list as necessary.  Your kids will roll their eyes at you no matter what you talk about, you might as well integrate online behavior.  But take it a step further.  Talk to your kids about how you plan to monitor their behavior online and what you’ll do if they push the boundaries you have in place.  Again – be unapologetic about your intention to friend them on MySpace or Facebook.  Oh yes — you are their friend! And there should be no social interactions online unless you’re right there.  In fact, here’s a list of 10 ways to keep yourself in the loop where your baby’s online behavior is concerned:

  1. Don’t allow laptops in the bedroom.  Desktops and laptops that are connected to the internet should be used in common spaces.  All teens want privacy, and that privacy can be exploited by predators.  You wouldn’t give your 12 year old the keys to your car.  Why would you give them a laptop with access to the entire world and let them take that behind closed doors?  Perhaps you’re one of the lucky ones, your child is ‘perfect’ and you doubt they are at risk at all.  It’s not your perfect child you should be concerned about, it’s the experienced predator who manipulates his/her way into the homes and heads of vulnerable folks FOR A LIVING.  They are pros.  Your perfect kid is not.  Common space means your child is less likely to give a stranger the time they’d need to con them.
  2. Share passwords.  I know, its not a teen’s dream.  But if you raise them in an environment where this sort of information is shared as a matter of practice, it won’t seem so unusual.  Start young — when they begin using the web you establish their passwords for them and that’s just the way it is.  Make it clear that those passwords will be used to monitor activity because that is your job.  Again-be unapologetic about it.  Don’t give your kids grief for info you discover that isn’t dangerous.  Respect their privacy to the degree that you can.  Only respond or react to potentially dangerous or threatening behavior.
  3. Get on the networks your children are on.  If your kids are on MySpace and/or Facebook — so are you.  Don’t let them stay there unless they agree to friend you.  Be active, but not embarrassing.  I think visible parents are a great deterrent for potential problem friends.  But again, don’t say or do anything that your kid could be embarrassed by or this space will just cause conflict and you don’t need it.
  4. If your child is totally resistant to you being around for their online party – there are software options that are so stealth that you can monitor their every key stroke without them knowing.  I think it’s important to know this software exists, but I recommend a more open and honest approach because you get your kid thinking critically about their online behavior and it will help inform the person they become as they mature.  Encouraging that kind of open communication will also ensure that your child will talk to you if someone they don’t know or trust communicates with them online in a way which might be uncomfortable to them.  In fact that is the next point:
  5. Establish guidelines around when your child should inform you of certain behaviors or ask questions.  More is better.  Give them an open line for communication.  Commit to not freaking out on them for poor judgement if they tell you the truth about a person of concern.  Perhaps they did talk to that person and now they regret it – they need only tell you and you’ll pursue appropriate action.
  6. Children should never meet anyone they meet online in person unless you have prescreened that person and are able to attend the first meeting with them – in a public place.  Because the web is so integral in our communications it doesn’t make sense to expect that we won’t be making new friends online.  But there needs to be a screening process.  You should be sure of exactly who you’re meeting before that face-to-face meeting happens.
  7. One house rule needs to be – never share personal details with someone you think you know.  Full names, addresses, phone numbers — those are hard stops to conversations with strangers or new friends.  Unless you know who you’re talking to, this information should be deemed sensitive and not shared.  Once you have an established relationship, you should still avoid sharing this info until you can be sure you know who is receiving it.  Screen and meet in a public place. 
  8. Pictures and videos are easy to take and make and share.  We need to establish family guidelines around how those items are shared.  I’m a big believer in asking permission – encourage your kids to ask permission to share images.  Make them aware that if they don’t ask permission, you’ll find out anyway — you’re on their friends list, you have their passwords.  Talk about what kinds of pictures and videos are appropriate for sharing.  Check their images and videos.  Do not be afraid to enforce the rules you establish to the letter.  Better they have parental consequences to contend with versus long-term consequences of shared media that invites the wrong element into their lives, or demonstrates behavior they didn’t think enough about at the time.
  9. Be aware of where your child goes — check email, social network sites (the more likely place for interpersonal messages between kids), their cell phones.  Set limits on text messages and the amount and kind of media they can share.  Learn your way around a cell phone – not knowing how to text message is no excuse for giving your kid unparalleled freedom with their phones.  Get a family plan, review your statements closely, and grab your manual to learn how to send messages and media so that you can check their phones regularly.  Be open about it.  Remind them that this is your intention.  The shared passwords extend to the cell phone.  And your behavior guidelines apply to mobile behavior as well.  It’s all one web — at home and in their hands. 
  10. My final tip is probably the one I feel the strongest about — don’t leave the web to your children.  Don’t be resistant to the point that you put the burden of the web and technology entirely on your children.  This is the World Wide Web for a reason.  The technology is accessible.  You can do it.  And you can’t break it.  So don’t leave them out there to fend for themselves.  They need you.  The world is getting more and more complicated and noisy.  Your parental duty can’t stop because you’ve convinced yourself that young people know things you can’t possibly figure out.  Take the time to figure it out too.  Find online activities you can engage in together.  Don’t be sneaky.  Don’t act like this is coming from a place of distrust.  Just make transparency a family value and then enforce it.  You’ll all sleep better if you do. And, when in doubt, the Geek Girls are here for you.

David Allen, Me, and the Thousand Dollar Tweet

Posted on April 28, 2009

A week ago today, around 4:30pm, I was sitting at the Clockwork kitchen table (kind of like I am right now as I write this) and working. While rocking through emails, I saw a note from David Allen about an upcoming GTD seminar called “Making It All Work.” I perked up immediately, as I’m a huge fan of David Allen. I read his first book, Getting Things Done, about four years ago and have been working on adopting his methodologies ever since. I noticed that the closest city he’d be speaking in was Chicago (I’m in Minneapolis). I daydreamed for a moment about being able to go. But, it was in Chicago. And it was $995 (not including airfare). So I gave up.

But, before really giving up on the dream, I tweeted: “I wish the magical money fairy would give me cash to go see @gtdguy in Chicago!” Then, I sighed wistfully and moved on.

And then, a few minutes later, David Allen direct messaged me back: “Meghan, you’re welcome to come as my guest tomorrow at the Omni. My treat. All for posting your note.”

WHAT?!

I nearly passed out. Then, I nearly declined. But, my co-workers were egging me on, “C’mon, Southwest Airlines flies there now! YOU GOTTA DO IT!” So I didn’t say no. I went home and talked to my husband. If I was going to go, we’d need to coordinate me being gone from the wee morning hours until the evening, which meant he’d be on his own for the morning and after-work hours (no easy task with a three-year-old and a six-month-old). He was also presenting that evening at Ignite Minneapolis, and I’d miss his presentation.

Long story short, we worked it all out: I got up on Wednesday morning at 5am to catch a 7am flight to Midway and spent the day with someone I idolize. I stepped off the elevator at the Omni and there he was! In person! I shook his hand and tried not to come off like a dorky fangirl. I got my conference materials and stepped into the conference room, expecting to see 100 people. There were about 25. WHAT? I was about to spend an entire day with with a handful of other people listening to, and talking with, David Allen.

I wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of such a last-minute opportunity if it weren’t for three things:
1. an employer who supported my desire to go and
2. the fact that I already follow the GTD methodology enough that I could pick up and go for a whole day and know, confidently, that nothing would blow up and
3. Twitter.

Think about it: in what other universe would a random woman from Minnesota (me) be able to directly contact a best-selling author who travels the world (David Allen) and GET A RESPONSE? Within minutes, even! That is the insane power of Twitter. If the “celebrities” who use it are using it to actually connect and converse with their audience, they can develop an incredibly powerful connection.

Last night, David Armano led a discussion about the future of advertising (I wasn’t there, but I watched in on UStream and followed the tweetstream from home with a baby on my lap — another social media WIN!). My favorite thought from his presentation was the comparison of the mass media audience vs. the social media audience. That advertisers and brands (and let’s face it: authors, celebrities, etc. are brands) need to weigh the value of reaching millions of potential viewers against the value of thousands of engaged consumers.

I was already an engaged consumer of the David Allen “brand.” I’ve even given informal presentations inside our organization around how people can apply his productivity principles to our work.. Through Twitter, I was able to connect with him in a way that would not have been possible years ago. And, by investing just a few minutes of his time in tweeting back to me (and the cost of giving me a complimentary admission to his seminar) David Allen solidified my loyalty to him, his “brand” and his product. More cost effective than a print ad? I have to believe it is. I’ve told this story to anyone who will listen, including to a roomful of people at Social Media Bootcamp last Friday.

Added bonus? As I boarded the plane in Chicago, and as soon as we touched down in Minneapolis I pulled up the #ignitempls tweetstream and was able to follow along what was happeninig with the presentations. The minute I walked in the door, I pulled up the live UStream feed and caught the tail end of the video. The next morning, I checked out my husband’s presentation. So, while I wasn’t there in person to cheer him on, I was able to send him supporting tweets. I was able to “listen in” on what was happening and tweet to people I knew who were there. They gave him the support that I wasn’t there to give. Through social media, we had a shared experience despite our physical separation.

The real power of social media is in it’s versatility: it can be used for a business or a brand, and it can be used to stay connected with the ones we love.

I’m fond of comparing social media to a hammer: you can pound a nail, you can pull a nail or you can hit yourself in the face. How you use it, and therefore your feelings about it’s usefulness, are really up to you.

Lots of people have asked me about GTD: what is it, how do i use it and why do I like it. I’m working on a follow-up post about that.
Update: I finally wrote a GTD post on June 24: read it here.

Does Your Site Need a Makeover? Part I of II

Posted on April 27, 2009

Recently, at my “day job“, a client asked, “How do I know when it’s time to refresh our site?” She offered this analogy, “I don’t want our site to be the woman with the same hairstyle 30 years later.”

My reply? “Yes, but you also don’t want to be the grandma wearing skinny jeans and a Juicy couture shirt.”

Because many of our readers work in marketing and communications, I thought this topic would be helpful to cover here at the Geek Girls Guide. Quite often, those who are in charge of the budgets for web sites aren’t always confident in their own knowledge base on the topic. We’d like to change that. We’re working on a series of posts aimed at helping people evaluate their needs and make good decisions about their web site. We’ve also got some guest posts in the works from do-it-yourselfers — small or independent business owners who, because of budget, need to do things on their own.

So, back to the topic at hand: how do you know when it’s time to give your site a refresh? (I almost used the word facelift, but I really can’t stomach the plastic surgery analogy!) And, how do you know whether you need a refresh or an overhaul?

Scheduling

First, I suggest evaluating your web site annually.

  • Put a recurring event on your calendar so that you don’t forget, and in the description or notes section add the following list of my suggestions and any others that you think of that are specific to your site, industry or business.
  • Don’t schedule it around the first of the year; there’s too much other stuff going on then.
  • Pick a time of year when things generally aren’t overwhelmingly busy. Frankly, spring is a great time — schedule it between March and May and think about it as Spring Cleaning for your web site.

Evaluation

Review your site on three main fronts:

Your Audience

  • Do a gut-check on what your target audience is looking for. What are their goals and does the site still make it easy for them to achieve those goals?
  • Review your site statistics to see where traffic is heaviest on the site. Do you know why? Is that where you want traffic to be heavy?
  • Has your target audience changed since this site was launched (either has your company focused on a new/different target since then or has your existing target changed their habits?).

You, Your Company and Your Brand

  • Does the site still accurately reflect who you are as a company, both visually and in tone/content of copy?
  • Does the site fit in with internal workflow (does it get updated regularly or is it forgotten)? If you want to make updates, it is easy to do or are you at the mercy of the CEO’s nephew to make changes for you?
  • If search traffic is important to you, when you Google your company’s name, or important industry keywords, does your site come up in search engine results?

Your Competitors

  • Does your site still stand out effectively from the competition?
  • Have your competitors, or your industry as a whole, changed how they talk about themselves? Does anyone have any significant online offerings that you need to match or do better at?

Next Steps

An answer you don’t like in any of those categories may prompt you to:

  • make a small tweak (like optimizing the content for better search engine performance or updating the CSS with a slight style change to headlines);
  • an addition or reorganization (adding a new feature/section or moving pages around);
  • or a complete overhaul/redesign.

My next post on this topic will cover what to do once you’ve evaluated the site and come up short in one of those areas.

The Geek Girl’s Guide to Freelancing, by Kristi McKinney

Posted on April 22, 2009

Freelancing can be simultaneously the best and worst job. When contracts are plentiful you can charge a fair rate, but you’re self-employed and without health insurance and other benefits. You have the flexibility to work the hours you want and at the pace you want, but you don’t get paid when work is slow.

I chose to start freelancing because my financial situation is changing.  My husband is a medical student. Up until now, he’s been amazing enough to be able to hold a part-time job and help contribute to our mortgage and other expenses. He’s now entering the phase of his education where he won’t be able to do anything other than school. That leaves me the primary breadwinner. Though I’ve been bringing in the majority of our income for the last year, it’s never been solely up to me to ensure our financial future. Talk about scary.

I still have my full-time job and am grateful.  I have a reasonable salary and good benefits, but without my husband’s contribution it isn’t enough. A few months ago, I decided it was time to find more sources of income. The easiest way for me to do that without incurring further transportation or other costs, was to freelance from home in my spare time.
You can freelance in a variety of job specialties, everything from Web design to film. I chose writing because it comes so naturally that it’s absurdly easy for me. That means I’m highly productive and can get more contracts done in a small amount of time.

Here is what I’ve learned:

  1. The market is full of freelancers who are willing to work for any price. That means your pay-per contract will likely be lower and the rare contracts that offer really good money are going to be extremely competitive.
  2. The market is full of companies seeking bloggers for little to no pay. I can’t tell you how many blogger positions I’ve applied for in the last several months. Everything from technology blogger to environmental blogger to corporate blogger, I’ve seen and applied for it all. The offers I received back were insane. Most wanted to pay me per article or blog, usually around $10 or less. I had to do the math and figure out if the amount of effort per article required would greatly exceed the compensation being offered. In most cases it wasn’t worth it.
  3. The market is full of companies and sites that contract out freelance work and sell it off for much more than they paid you. There are many sites out there where you can “apply” to be a freelancer, choose projects, and then get paid a flat fee or sometimes a revenue-shared fee for each one. In theory, this is great.
    Again, you have to take into account the effort per project and the pay you receive. For me, there were some projects that were good and some that were not. It took a fair amount of investigation to figure out which was which. Beware of sites like this that ask you to pay to join. You should not have to “buy in” to a Web site or company to get freelance projects. Most companies that ask this are a scam or just not worth it.
  4. There are a lot of good Web resources to help you. For most professions, you should be able to find a helpful blogger or two who list open jobs and opportunities across the country. I found freelancepulse.com and freelancewritinggigs.com to be incredibly helpful with job leads. I subscribed to their RSS and set up RSS for postings on Craigslist. This kept me abreast of new opportunities so I could get my application in ASAP.
  5. Write your cover letter/email carefully and target your resume. You’re definitely not the only one applying for these positions. That means you need to stand out. Make sure to address the requirements listed in the ad and illustrate how you fit the bill. Provide all of the information required, and for Pete’s sake PLEASE check your documents for spelling and grammar.
  6. Think about how much you need to make. Effort vs. pay will be different for all of us. In my case, a lot of effort for little pay isn’t worth it. I could spend that time being productive on another job, doing my full-time job better, or searching for new jobs. For some of you it may not matter, a dollar is a dollar.
  7. Watch that non-compete. I signed a non-compete agreement when I started my current job. That means I have to be careful about the freelance projects I take on.

I’m currently working for a company that pays freelancers to write SEO articles. It’s boring and repetitive. The pay isn’t great, but it IS pay. The longer I’m with the company, my pay increases as does the opportunity for me to write about more interesting things. It’s steady work and for right now, it’s the best option for me. I’m also doing Web design contracts as I happen upon them. I get to work from wherever I’d like whenever I like. That gives me the flexibility I need.

Good hunting.

Kristi McKinney, Geek

Kristi McKinney currently works at Forte, LLC, writing and managing MyWayForward.com. She recently received her MA in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota where she studied Russian journalism.  Kristi has had many geeky odd jobs over the years, including helping to write content and build web pages for the University of Minnesota Cancer Center. Kristi received her BA in Communication and English with a minor in Russian from the University of North Dakota.

Geek Chic of the Week: The Dinner Edition

Posted on April 20, 2009

I like cooking just about as much as I love shopping. Which is to say, I don’t like it much at all. Once in a while, I’ll get inspired and cook something amazing (like a monkey cake or a fabulous meal for my family) but for the most part cooking just isn’t my bag, baby. It’s just not my bag.

What’s even more not my bag is cooking on a weeknight after a long day at work with a three-year-old hanging off my calf and a six-month-old fussing in a bouncy seat on the floor. Luckily, I have a husband that shares a lot of the cooking burden. But, we still have to figure out what to make, ensure that our fridge is stocked, and then actually cook it.

Wondering how technology could possibly help with this? Never fear, I’m about to tell you.

I’ve recently discovered three things to help get me through what my aunt (a working mother of three) refers to as “suicide hour.”

Tastebook

A friend of mine, who is also personal chef, recently turned me on to TasteBook. (I know, awful name. Way too much like Facebook. But, let’s forgive them for that because the idea is really great.) It’s a web site that does four things that I think are cool:

1. Aggregates an insane number of recipes from multiple sources.

2. Allows you to input and store your own recipes.
This is really only useful if you’re planning to print your TasteBook, or you want to share your recipes with others. But, a handy feature in my opinion.

3. Allows you to connect with other people to view their recipes.
Now I don’t have to keep asking my friend for her awsome Chicken in Pear-Leek Sauce recipe because I have access to ALL of her recipes on TasteBook. Holler! I can even put her recipes into my TasteBook so I can access them quickly or print them for my own book.

4. Allows you to print a super-swank looking cookbook (er, I mean, TasteBook) with whatever recipes you want.
Perhaps yours might be titled something like “Recipes I Can Make in Under 30 Minutes with a three-year-old hanging off my calf and a six-month-old fussing in a bouncy seat on the floor.” Or perhaps you’ll choose a shorter title. Whatever.

NOTE: They’re running a Mother’s Day special right now: free shipping if you order by April 21. Use the code MOMSDAY at checkout. I do think a Tastebook full of family favorites would be a great gift for someone who likes to cook.

The Six O’Clock Scramble

I’ve been dying to try The Six O’Clock Scramble, which sends you a list of fast, healthy meals AND the shopping list to make all of it. What was stopping me was the fact that my husband is gastronomically high-maintenance (no red meat, no dairy), but the more I dig around the site the more I notice all the ways you can customize your meal plan for the week. This woman is obviously in tune with what’s going on in the allergy-laden American kitchen right now, because you can filter by dairy-free, nut-free, and gluten-free. I may have to break down and buy a membership. Because, honestly, the other thing that’s stopping me is that I’m cheap.

Google

In a pinch, you can type in a list of ingredients to Google and see what recipe matches come back. A search for tomato yogurt chicken yields this.

My husband has done this in the past and, on a night when I was sure we’d have to eat crackers and peanut butter, he Googled a list of stuff we had in the fridge and whipped up an awesome jambalaya that we still make to this day.

My pal Jackie and her husband use Google docs to collaborate on their grocery list and weekly menu. There’s a guest post on that coming soon.

So, there it is. A handful of ideas to help us frazzled non-foodies feed our tired faces before we hit the sack. Is there anything the Internet can’t do?

How Backpack Made Me Like Gmail More, by Nate Burgos

Posted on April 7, 2009

I guess we’re on a little bit of a 37signals kick over here at the Geek Girls Guide. Last week, our pal Julie outlined how she and her husband use Basecamp to manage their home remodeling. This week, our newfound friend Nate Burgos of Design Feast shares how 37Signals’ Backpack has helped him keep his inbox cleaner by streamlining his writing and editing process. This article is a great example of how one technology tool (Backpack) can help simplify another (email). I don’t think Nate is alone in wanting to keep the amount of “noise” in his inbox down.

We’ll be posting some more articles around here soon about how to keep your Inbox(es) under control. Let us know if Nate’s post gives you any bright ideas!

Since starting my blog last year, I had been using Gmail to send files to my editor Silvia. The system was simple: State the blog posting number in the email’s subject header, insert pleasant greeting and notification, and attach Word document. Writing is naturally iterative. There were a number of times that I would email another, and sometimes still another, revised version of the same posting. In these instances, the subject header would read USE THIS.

At times I needed to make sure that the latest version was indeed the latest, so I used Gmail’s fast search to track it. This way of sharing and commenting on versions was my workflow for making content to post. But repeating this workflow, with each compounded and buried email in my Sent folder, proved that the system wasn’t the right solution.

Last January, my writing-and-approval system was not only refreshed but also reengineered when I began using Backpack, 37signal’s tool for sharing and organizing information. I thought my immediate choice would be Basecamp, but decided that Backpack was appropriate for my purpose. Backpack allows you to create a Page, however many needed, dedicated to a topic. Each Page serves as a central place to store the stuff pertaining to the topic of that Page, like this for a past topic for a blog entry: