socialADDICT

For those of my readers who don’t know, this week I quit my work at dt. I’m moving on to some new adventures and proud of the past two years at dt. What I’m not proud of is the way things turned out and the way I was treated (which didn’t completely surprise me since past employees went through the same experience) the day I put in my notice.

Not only was I not personally congratulated but was called unprofessional. Ohhk since when was putting in 2 weeks notice unprofessional? I was then told to leave that same day with or without a smooth transition to the rest of the team. I know that was done out of spite because I said I’d be in sales (cough cough) and many wise employees are jumping ship… but that’s the point. Don’t take your mismanagement and personal problems out on me or any other employees; past or present. All you’re doing is burning bridges and causing a mighty uproar within the tightly knit community. Remember one of the word of mouth rules we all learned in business school: when you’re happy about an experience you may tell 1 or 2 people, but when you’re pissed you tell 30. In some cases 100.

Just to clarify I left for three main reasons:

1. I didn’t want to be in sales. If I wanted to be in sales I would go talk to Merck in Sorrento Valley and make 6 figures selling pharmaceuticals, not web design. Btw I was told a few months ago to either do sales or find another job, so that’s how I got into sales in the first place.

2. I need job security. Enough said.

3. We all need to feel appreciated. Feeling appreciated at a job is not a privilege, it’s a requirement. When I was told to leave the same day I put in my 2 weeks I felt crushed. It just really hurt to be treated like a piece of shit after putting almost two years of hard work into a company that can’t show a little bit of gratitude. After all, I don’t care about how I feel but I care about every single person in that company who will take on the brunt of my unclosed deals and additional work because we weren’t allowed an easy transition.

Oh well at least I wasn’t the only one treated that way who has left. Not sure if that’s something to brag about though…

So I will keep you all posted as to the news of my next venture. In the meantime just remember to follow your heart, your gut feeling and NEVER let anybody tell you otherwise. And remember - Word of Mouth is KING.

We’ve all had them - whether with our sibling, coworker or neighbor - everybody’s experienced a little disagreement with somebody. Competition is not always a bad thing and JealousBrother.com definitely brings some good ole rivalry back into the web. JealousBrother.com is a place where people can submit issues to the digital space and allow the community to vote sides on the issue, comment their beliefs, passions, understandings and opinions. The concept is extremely simple but the passion behind the issues is powerful, which is what makes a site like this so compelling. Everybody has an opinion so this is a centralized place for people to come together, learn more about an issues and share their opinions…civilized or not.
I was corresponding with the CEO and Founder, Ryan Kazinec, and here’s his story behind JealousBrother.com:

“So here’s how the idea came about - I grew up the youngest of three with a brother and sister. My brother and I have always competed and have always tried to outdo one another. It is this sibling rivalry in a very strange way that inspired the idea behind the website. As we grew older we didn’t necessarily act older, so the brotherly competitions continued. We both became home owners and had to find something else to compete over, so naturally it was lawn mowers. He had a better push mower so I got a used riding mower. Mine had 12 horsepower so he got one with 18. Not to be outdone I purchased a mower with 20 horse power. It was that lawn mower that provoked the message I left on his cell phone. I said, “I posted new pictures of my lawnmower on JealousBrother.com you can check out.” It wasn’t until my brother’s wife and other family members asked if it was a real website that I actually thought; maybe it could be. During the holidays of 2005 I created a JealousBrother family newsletter for comedic relief. It was in early 2006 when I registered the domain and began trying to make it a reality.

The logo was designed loosely based off of a picture of my brother and I when we were younger. It went through many stages until we got what we were looking for; a personal touch that embodied the premise of the website, the jealousy and competitive nature between siblings. The reality is that most people can relate to our friendly feuds whether it’s with a family member, fellow employee, or neighbor down the street.”

After countless hours of discussion, Ryan and his developer Dennis, decided the rivalry concept would be the most effective way of sticking to the background of the project while making it user friendly and fun to use. I think they did a great job of holding those pieces together.

Ryan says that he just wants people to have fun on the site and always see two sides of every issue. He wants to create a space where like-minded individuals can truly come together to support an issue to create change. It’s a unique space where people can share what they are truly passionate about and rally behind it. Not only is it a place to bring like-minded people together but also take into consideration the other side and understand (whether if you accept it or not) where others are coming from. That is what is truly amazing about JealousBrother.com. That and the face I can see how many people prefer Mac to PC.

Some additional info about JealousBrother.com:

CEO/Sole Proprietor: Ryan Kazinec

Trademarks Registered: Ryan Kazinec

Founders: Ryan and Crystal Kazinec

Project Financed: Boot-strapped

Features Planned:
1.) Flash Video Support (server side video processing)
2.) More advanced user photo system
3.) We are looking into integrating WordPress MU
4.) Increased customization for user profiles.
Much more…

If you have any suggestions or feedback for JealousBrother, please send all inquiries to Ryan Kazinec at bigkazzyry (at) bellsouth (dot) net. Tomorrow, August 18th is their official 1-year anniversary since they first started development! Congrats Ryan and good luck with your future initiatives.

Now go get a little competition going, people! I feel a rivalry brewing…

There are so many times when I receive an email and I think to myself “Dude - I wish I could snooze this email until later.” Sometimes I have way too much on my plate for the day and can’t get to a request (but I still care! Really!), my emails are never-ending or the email isn’t relevant for the time being. Introducing HitMeLater (announced on Techcrunch today) - literally a snooze button for your email. Awesome!

Here’s how it works: You can forward any email to @HitMeLater.com and have it snooze for any length of time and have it return back to your email (unread) at that specified time. For example if you want to revisit an email from your crazy boss in a day you can forward that email to 24@HitMeLater.com (24 being the number of hours for the snooze) and you’ll receive the email back the next day, same time. Super simple! You can also use days of the week - so I want to answer an email on Friday (it doesn’t matter what time) - so I can forward the email to Friday@HitMeLater.com and get it to the top of my inbox that day. Dude - my life just got 10x easier! I <3 snooze buttons!

Arrington made a good point in his blog post - that a lot of people rely on stars, flags, categories, or just leaving unread emails in your inbox. But how many times have you forgotten to go back to a starred email? I think I have more starred than total emails in my account.

Looks like there’s no installation or sign-up required. Just start forwarding to @hitmelater.com - schweet. Enjoy!

I chatted with CEO and Co-Founder, Ben Finkel of Fluther.com, this afternoon and because he was SUCH a cool guy to talk to I wanted to give a shout out to Fluther and his team and tell you all to go check it out. Not only are the people behind Fluther really cool but the app itself is nicely designed and a great concept overall. Fluther let’s you ask it a question - whatever you want - and it directs it to the community of people with shared interests and who would be able to best answer it. Live community driven Q&A. Sweet!

“Tapping into our collective is like extending your entire networkof knowledge. And Fluther lets you share your massive brainpower with others.”

Pretty cool, huh?

So I created an account today to dig a little bit deeper into what this community is like and has to offer. One of the most recent questions was “Two great tastes that go great together?” - Ok not the most intriguing of questions but it’s amazing the answers people submitted. Anything from cigarettes and chocolate milk to french fries and ice cream, the answers were beyond my imagination at times and I just couldn’t stop reading them. And ALL of the questions were like this. Man - this community is totally rockin’. You can see the passion that this community has for Fluther - the way people moderate, participate and genuinely care about what’s going on is extremely unique.

Fluther has also gotten some nice publicity from KillerStartups, Scobleizer, CNET and more. With an iPhone app out, feeds for everything to the site, participating in a voting competition for SXSW (go vote for them to be at SXSW next year!) and more - this team has really done and thought of a lot.

Keep an eye out for these guys - I foresee some great things a-happening! Oh! And go sign up already and ask a few questions.

Techcrunch shared this video today called “The Rise and Fall of Twitter” - pretty funny parody. Took me a minute to get over the fact that it’s taken from a WWII movie but pretty good nonetheless. Thanks Techcrunch & Nicholas Deleon (the creator).

I am super stoked about this site - WebVet (recently launched and covered on Techcrunch earlier this week) an online resource and help-center for pets. It’s similar to WebMD in that it provides a platform to research physical and emotional symptoms but now it’s specifically for your beloved pets. YAY! Not only does it provide a portal for medical conditions & research but it also provides breaking news coverage, lifestyle and human interest stories, and a way for you to connect with similar pet parents. It’s a very comprehensive resource for pet owners and I know I’ll definitely use it when I’m curious or in need to learn more about a symptom or condition Malibu may be experiencing. Like why is my dog so hyper? Can somebody explain that to me, please?!

No but in all honesty I’ve personally tried to search for insights on food/skin allergies, flea meds, etc. for Malibu and I can never find a reliable resource - I’m sorry but Yahoo! groups is not exactly my first choice for pet medical advice … WebVet provides me that one-stop place for my research. Thank GAWD!

Of course if your pet is experiencing severe symptoms go to your vet immediately - “WebVet does not diagnose, suggest treatment or editorialize but rather provides news, information and fact-based education to pet owners. WebVet strongly encourages all pet owners to consult with their veterinarians on the best course of action for their individual pet.”