Thought-provoking Things Worth Sharing

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Thought-provoking Things Worth Sharing - Issue #79

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Thought-provoking Things Worth Sharing - Issue #79

The True Benefit of Social Media

Mike McBride
Feb 24
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Thought-provoking Things Worth Sharing - Issue #79

mikemcbride.substack.com

This past week was Mardi Gras, a big deal here in Louisiana. My wife and I spent much of the past couple of weeks taking in parades, music, food, etc. It’s just part of living here. On Tuesday, we avoid the large crowds of New Orleans in favor of traditional Cajun Mardi Gras celebrations. We usually spend part of the morning watching the Courir de Mardi Gras in Eunice, LA.

This Tuesday was no exception, and as a hobbyist photographer, these colorful and entertaining spectacles are a great chance to capture some interesting shots. I’ve now done this a few times and while the day is fun, the real reward for me comes later in the week. I make it a point to get an album of photos up on Facebook, tagging the event page and asking them to share with the folks who participated. It gives me great pleasure to see the folks of Eunice sharing those photos amongst themselves, tagging the people in the photos in the comments, laughing at each other, and generally enjoying Mardi Gras again online. I consider it my small way to give back to that community in exchange for letting us come up and enjoy the Cajun traditions with them.

To me, this is what social media should be. An opportunity to connect with people, have some fun, educate everyone about these traditions and share my hobby with people.

Sadly, that’s not what social media is now. With Twitter and Meta both going to subscription models where paying customers get more share of the attention, it might only be a matter of time before this is true:

Twitter avatar for @sarahfrier
Sarah Frier @sarahfrier
What does this mean for everyday people? Social media isn’t really for keeping up with your friends and family anymore. It’s for being entertained by professional content creators. Get your good friends a group chat if you haven’t already.
10:43 PM ∙ Feb 19, 2023
90Likes22Retweets

That will be a sad day, but we have plenty of technological tools even without the big social media platforms. It might just take a little more work. (And I’ll always be on my website and newsletter right here!)

With that said, what else is going on this week:


Careers and the Workplace

Want a more inclusive workplace? Embrace an async-first approach - If you require all of your employees to work in your office every day, between 8-5, sitting at a desk in an open office environment, you can only hire people who are available to do that and who work best in that environment. We’ve learned that it excludes many people who would be valuable members of your organization.

Similarly - Who Can Work for You? The Answer to that Question Might Say Everything About Diversity.

It’s common to think about young people who want to work remote so they can sit on a beach instead of going to an office. They exist, but so do a bunch of people who aren’t able to come to an office every day. Those people deserve an opportunity too.

If your company doesn’t want to take on DE&I to this level, who will?

This is the kind of information that could help with that goal:

  • Increasing supervisor savvy around culture, race, and identity

  • We Asked, They Answered: What Women Leaders Really Want at Work

Trust is Easily Broken

Sharlyn does an excellent job of describing how leadership can break employees’ trust and linking to more reading on the subjects. (Do an employee engagement survey and don’t act on the results? That’ll do it. Make it unsafe for people to express ideas and ask questions? That too.)

This might interest those recently laid off - Linked - Companies Can’t Ask You to Shut up to Receive Severance, NLRB Rules. as well as this:

The Introverted Networker
TIN #030 - What To Read To Be A Better Networker
Good Morning 👋 - Greg here. Happy Saturday to everyone who’s giving to their networks this week. There’s a lot of information in the world about networking. Most of it’s not very helpful, especially for introverts. This morning, I want to share books that have helped me become a better networker…
Read more
a month ago · 3 likes · Greg

Legal, Privacy and Security

Dennis Kennedy offers a Free PDF of Successful Innovation Outcomes in Law Book.

It’s 2023, and eDiscovery Tools still have conflicting ways in which they determine duplicate emails, so this seems like a good idea. - Introducing the EDRM E-Mail Duplicate Identification Specification and Message Identification Hash (MIH)

For the work from home crowd and everyone else - NSA Releases Best Practices For Securing Your Home Network Security Service


Mental Health in the Workplace

Culture Study
The Tyranny of Faux Self-Care
This is the free, mid-week edition of Culture Study. If you want access to the weekly threads (this week: a truly epic What You’re Reading) and the weekly recommendations/links, subscribe today. Even if you’re not a thread person, I can tell you from experience that it feels so good to pay people for content that makes you think more. Just click that bu…
Read more
a month ago · 184 likes · 53 comments · Anne Helen Petersen

You can’t meditate your way out of a 40-hour work week with no childcare. Buying a new planner and signing up for a meditation class won’t change the fact that +30 million Americans are uninsured and that 25% of American’s don’t have paid sick days off work.

Corporate Safari
When you want to help ease stress in the workplace: 3 main areas of focus
Over the last two weeks, I have shared my thoughts about managing stress for ourselves and our teams. Stress is not a monolith nor easily removed with just a few tricks. Alleviating stress can mean allowing yourself to feel what you feel (and eating ice cream while binge-watching bad TV), connecting with others, and even seeking professional help if you…
Read more
a month ago · Kacie Walters

Finally, we can talk about Sen. Fetterman being brave for publicly acknowledging and getting treatment for depression. We can also talk about the fact that not many other American’s can do the same thing.


Until next week, let’s find ways to share some joy.

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Thought-provoking Things Worth Sharing - Issue #79

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