LinkedIn has many uses for businesses, from promotion and PR to targeting potential customers. One feature of LinkedIn that I find to be still under-used are Groups. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of people have joined Groups, but they are not using them to their full potential.
I attended the Atlanta Chix Tweet-up last night at the St. Regis Hotel in Buckhead. We were on the patio of Paces 88 Restaurant and I snapped a few photos which I am displaying here. It was a fantastic evening and I met so many amazing women who are doing great and interesting things in both their personal and professional lives. I am looking forward to many more events like this!!!
Paces 88 Restaurant Patio…beautiful spot!
Hosted By (R-L): Stephanie Lloyd, Stephanie Frost and Rachel Rose
The Atlanta Chix Tweet-up attendees!
Me and Rachel
Article in the NYTimes today about unannounced layoffs and the WARN act… Companies are laying white-collar workers off in smaller numbers so they can do say without giving them notice. We as workers have no rights left in this country anymore. I think all this is appalling. Companies are using this as an excuse to cut workers, reduce pay, benefits, retirement, etc. and they wont ever bring it back once the recession is over. And yes, I am SICK of helping companies that arent hiring Americans anymore.
The unemployment figure in this country is a JOKE. You mean to tell me that we were losing over 600,000 jobs per week in Feb, but somehow we only lost 690,000 for the whole month? Where did we create those other jobs? yeah right, those other people are probably no longer collecting unemployment. And what about the part time workers and the ultimate small businesses…the self-employed. they are never counted if they are out of work. Our unemployment rate has got to be at about 20% at least.
These companies are snakes…how do they think they are going to survive if Americans can no longer buy their stuff? you think those “middle class” workers in China and India will buy the cars, computers, ipods, etc? Hate to break it to you, but the media is stretching it a bit…the middle class in those countries is still insanely small (1 or 2%) and most arent able to buy the stuff.
Thats one of the reasons automakers pay their workers more (even the foreign ones that come here do this) so that their workers can actually buy the things they make. If this fails to be the case in this country, ie. we all work at Wal-Mart for $8 an hour, this country as we know it is finished and we are headed for third world status.
I’m ready for a worker revolution. How can we do it?
I support HR-676…a full extension of Medicare to cover ALL American citizens. Check out the details, as proposed by Rep. Conyers of Michigan, here:
I will be back to discuss more details on this soon.
I am all about people thinking creatively and outside-the-box, especially right now. We need all the creative ideas we can get about how to stimulate our economy.
I was delighted to read about such an idea in the New York Times today. Ruth Y. Goldway, a member of the United States Postal Regulatory Commission, laid out a way to use some of the stimulus money to fit all the postal vehicles to electric. Although this may not be a new idea, she expanded by saying that the customers could plug their own vehicles in at their community offices when they mail parcels, etc. Great idea!
Additionally, she correctly identified that “Green jobs — outfitting buildings, converting trucks — would be created in neighborhoods nationwide. Converting just its 142,000 standard delivery trucks would reduce gasoline consumption by up to 68 million gallons a year and save the Postal Service millions of dollars.” Saving the Postal Service money would be a wise move, since mail delivery has seen some decreases.
This is the kind of change I was thinking about. This is the kind of change I can believe in.
So the stimulus is in trouble. I’m not surprised in the least. There’s too much stuff in this bill in the first place. I attribute this to Democrats not being able to spend on anything for eight years, but this is not the time to cram everything in. So here are the 4 parts that I believe should be the TOTAL stimulus bill of right now.
Break the stimulus into the following parts:
1. Repairing bridges, roads, etc. throughout the country. Hire those laid-off autoworkers, hire engineers and project managers.
2. Give an enormous amount of money to green industry…solar panels, wind power and mass transportation. don’t just give enough for states to keep their existing transit systems…give them more to make the expansion they need due to increased ridership.
3. Restructure the electrical grid. Help fund and give contracts to companies like Better Place, which will send a message to Detroit that there WILL be an infrastructure in place to support the Chevy Volt and other cars when they come out. Oil will only go up.
4. Increase unemployment benefits and let the unemployed go onto Medicare for a time. Find a way to help those who are self-employed and independent contractors…many of whom are illegally paid in this fashion and suffer from extraordinarily high taxes.
This is ALL that should be in this bill. Of course, education reform and health care, etc. are important. My fear is that if we only do half of what is needed in these areas in this bill, when we try to do more, the Republicans will scream “We already spent money on these programs” and we’ll never get it done right.
Democrats, save some bargaining room. Health Care and Education should be addressed later (even in a few months, just to separate from this current bill) and if you dont spend anything on them now, you will have a better place to argue from when you need complete spending to do them right.
Also, let’s get this thing done without the Republicans. Obama needs to stand up to them more…they were not voted in. We wanted a bold, daring stimulus-and this is not it-this is a hodgepodge. It looks like a pot-luck dinner when we wanted and needed 5-star dining. We dont want more tax cuts or credits, either.
” John Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock
(MADE IN JAPAN ) for 6am .
While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA ) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG ).
He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA ),
designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE )
and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA )
After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA )
he sat down with his calculator
(MADE IN MEXICO ) to see how much he could spend today.
After setting his watch
(MADE IN TAIWAN )
filled it with GAS
(from Saudi Arabia )
to the radio
(MADE IN INDIA )
he got in his car
(MADE IN GERMANY )
and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.
At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his
Computer
(Made In Malaysia ),
Joe decided to relax for a while.
He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL )
poured himself a glass of wine
(MADE IN FRANCE )
and turned on his TV
(MADE IN INDONESIA ),
and then wondered why he can’t find a good paying job in AMERICA .”
I think we know what the point of this story is. Competition is good, but it needs to include American competition. Lets get our act together.
Wow, its finally here. Funny, I’m not as euphoric as I have imagined I’d be over the last four years. Probably because there is so much to do. As I’ve said before, no matter what we find out tonight, Bush is done on Jan 20th (although he’s trying to do as much damage in the next few weeks as possible, big surprise)
I voted about a week and a half ago, so i wont be standing in lines today but my experience voting this year has just been amazing. In March, I voted for a woman to be the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States, Hillary Clinton. It was an absolutely amazing feeling and I was a little teary-eyed. And now, I am in Georgia, not Ohio and I got to vote for an African-America as President of the United States, Barack Obama. I’ve spent alot of time in Europe and although I enjoy their democratic socialist policies, many of these fabulously liberal nations would not be able to elect a minority as a major party nominee. Good for us, it truly is an amazing thing and is definitely the reason I love this country. Because we are all Americans and now we are showing that to the rest of the world.
Let’s get back to doing what we do best: leading the way.