Originally posted on JewPoint0

Consider the following tale:

Gloria works for a large and respected nonprofit organization.  She tweets occasionally for the organization, but also has a personal account.  One day, in an innocent slip of the fingers, she tweets about drinking at a party from her work account instead of her personal one.  Not registering the error, she finishes her day as usual.  June’s colleague suddenly starts fielding messages from the organization’s constituents about the, ahem, unexpected tweet.  How should he react?

Or perhaps this little story will capture your fancy:

Tom recently Googled his organization and found that there were several blogs discussing a project his team was implementing.  He was pleasantly surprised to find such an enthusiastic group advocating on behalf of his organization, but the blog was hosting by an organization with explicit political leanings, and Tom’s organization is specifically non-partisan.   Should Tom take advantage of building the organization’s network and strengthening relationships with individuals who could contribute a lot to their work, or should he steer clear of anything that could be interpreted as political?  How should Tom respond?

Both June’s colleague and Tom could really use somewhere to turn for guidance.

The way many organizations are facing these and other questions is by developing a social media policy (we recently blogged about the excellent policy developed by the Avi Chai Foundation here: “Avi Chai Foundation Gets Social”).  A social media policy is essentially a document that helps define how different groups associated with an organization should conduct themselves online.  It is a valuable and powerful tool.  A social media policy helps outline both expectations and possibilities for social media interactions.  It acts as a go-to document for any questions or conflicts that may arise.  A social media policy can provide a sense of security, knowing your team is approaching social media from the same set of assumptions.  It can also, somewhat counter-intuitively, foster a sense of freedom in the use of social media – you can jump into the game with more confidence when you know the rules.

Perhaps even more valuable than the document itself is the process of developing a social media policy.  It encourages a big conversation, an honest discussion of the values and character of your organization and how they should be reflected online.  As Beth Kanter explains on her blog, “…if you want the policy to truly work, you need a process, especially if your organization is still grappling with fears and concerns.”  The process can present an amazing opportunity for listening, sharing, and reflection among the people who make your good work possible.

Darim is here to help you have this conversation and implement your own social media policy.  That way, Gloria’s accidental tweet (a true story which you can find out more about here) and Tom’s political blog posts won’t seem so daunting – with the right approach, they can become opportunities for learning and increased connection with the people who care most about what you do.

To dig deeper into this topic and start the conversation, Darim is offering a webinar on social media policies (and because it’s our tenth anniversary, you’re welcome to join us for free).  Here is all the information:

Social Media Staffing and Policies

Tuesday, May 17, 1-2pm

Register here: http://bit.ly/lZTGph

And we want to hear from you!  Does your organization have a social media policy?  If so, what did you learn, or how did you grow through the process of creating your guidelines or policy?

 
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When I was five, my mom, in a concerted effort to drag me away from Saturday morning cartoons which were clearly eating away at my brain, signed me up for roller skating lessons.  After 12 years of countless competitions and an estimated $30k later, I'm a dedicated skater and I know nothing about cartoons.

It's absolutely essential that I roller skate now, for a couple reasons.
  1. Because I love it, it's in my blood, and when I don't skate I dream about skating.
  2. Because if I don't skate, I will sit on my bum and never, ever exercise.


So I have been hunting madly for a rink somewhere in New York, with limited success.  Rink skating is far superior to outdoor skating (no twigs, no wind, no hills, no cars...need I go on?), but rinks are not in vogue.  They struggle, like any other business in a crappy economy, and have struggled for a while.  My home rink, Skatetown, was the site of some disturbing gang activity in the nineties and had (for a while, at least) cut almost all public skate sessions from its schedule, relying more on church groups, school skates, and birthday parties to keep it going.  Whether there's a functioning rink in Brooklyn that I would go to without feeling I was risking life and limb remains to be seen.  

In the meantime, we skate outside.  It's fun and kinda charming.  Alan and  I spent this afternoon rolling through Prospect Park.  We passed bicyclists, tiny humans with their parental units, and a drum circle pounding away in the shade.  I did tricks and flippy things and twirls, and Alan didn't fall.  It's no rink, but it'll do.

 
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Alan is kind of a Dave Barry freak.  Seriously, we've got a full shelf devoted solely to the Barry and his words of wit and wisdom.  Besides Bill Cosby, Dave Barry is the only person on earth who can get Alan laughing until he stops breathing and I legitimately fear for his well-being.

Over the last two days of our clearly very spiritual Passover, while Alan and I were both fighting off nasty colds (his came complete with a mind-blowingly painful earache), we read through "Dave Barry in Cyberspace."  Written in 1996, its observations on the internet are antiquated to say the least (I don't know if "internet" and "America Online" were ever interchangeable terms, but they're definitely not now).  Nonetheless, it's pretty funny stuff.
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While reading, we somehow got to talking about email addresses, and ranking the domains by relative coolness.  It seems to be deeply ingrained in both our heads that an email address @aol.com is lame, while @gmail.com is cool.  We both agreed that having a vanity domain, like say @stereosinai.com, is by far the coolest (unless it's a family domain - @smithfamily.net is pretty blah).  Where then fell into a heated argument about the relative merits of @yahoo.com, @hotmail.com, and some of the lesser-used domains.  Like I said, out Passover was way spiritual.

Where did this come from?  Do others feel this way?  What makes one email address cool, and the other worthy of hipster snubbing?

How would YOU rank the email addresses?

 

So, in short, New York is amazing, I love my job and my colleagues, Brooklyn is treating us well, and Alan and I are really excited to get back and see our families for what is sure to be a pretty emotional couple of seders.  
But more on that later.
Below is a Passover greeting sent out by my new colleague at the Jewish Education Project, Rabbi Arnie Samlan.  You can see the original post on his blog.  It's clever and thoughtful in that I-have-to-share-this kind of way.

Happy Passover, y'all!

*****
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When Mia, the famous Bronx Zoo Cobra, slithered her way to temporary freedom in a corner of the reptile house, the irony was simply amazing. After all, a cobra adorned the headdress of the ancient Pharaoh’s, including, in all likelihood, the Pharaoh of the exodus story we will tell in a few days.

Snakes show up in yet another way in the story of the exodus: When Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh, they demonstrated a sign of their Godly mission: Aaron threw his staff to the ground and it became a snake. Not to be outclassed, Pharaoh had his magicians create snakes. But the snake of Aaron and Moses was on top of the game, and swallowed the snakes of the magicians.

So, the snake was first a symbol of slavery, appearing on Pharaoh’s head. But then became a powerful symbol of freedom -- exhibit A in the demonstration of the power that would become fully manifested in the exodus of the Israelites.

Our contemporary Cobra too, became a symbol of freedom. Within hours of the her escape, Mia had a fan base rivaling any rock star. People began using social media to represent her and her (mostly fictional) exploits. The Bronx Zoo Cobra captured our imagination in her dash for freedom. We cheered her on, hoping she would find fulfillment (just not in our home).

The drive towards freedom and fulfillment is powerful. Yet, in our world, there are those who are not fully free. Our world has human slavery, totalitarian rulers, and prejudicial laws and systems that prevent people from living full lives. And Pesach, along with the snakes, both ancient and modern, reminds us that we need to use our power to work for freedom in our world.

 
In case you hadn't heard, my husband Alan and I are moving to New York.  Like, next week.  Breathe, Miriam, breathe...

For all you Chicago folks, this means an extremely low-maintenance going-away shindig at Friar Tuck's this Thursday night starting at about 8pm.  Shmooze and drinks and good times to be had by all.  Talk to me if you need details.

For everyone who didn't know, here's a little snippet to help clear things up:
And here, for good measure, is Stereo Sinai's latest tune featuring the truly incomparable, brilliant, and all-around mensch-ette Alicia Jo Rabins of Girls in Trouble on sumptuous violin.  I think you'll enjoy it.
 
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My band, Stereo Sinai, is dropping an album this summer, and it's gonna be amazing.  Seriously, it's gonna rock your face off. 

But that aside, up until now Stereo Sinai has functioned as a downloads-only outfit.  The only way we've sold our songs is through our website.  When we first decided to go this route, I wrote a whole manifesto about it, but really all I needed to say was:

It is better for the environment.
It's cheaper for us (Stereo Sinai).
It's cheaper for you, when you're only buying the songs you want.
It's consumer empowerment-y.

The problem is, though, people kept asking us for CD's.  And we want to do album art.  And we need to have something to hand to people when they ask what cool band we're in.  And, to be honest, hardly anybody goes to www.stereosinai.com to download music.  D'oh.

But then there are these goofballs, Pomplamoose, all single-handedly changing the music industry and whatnot.  I encourage you to read the article, but basically these two are a self-made band that never tours and never sells CDs and bought their house from mp3 sales.  Sheesh...these kids and their music. 

So what's a young indie band to do?  To disc, and shell out the money and apologize to the planet and hand our beautifullyover to that slick promoter, or not to disc, and risk wallowing in anonymity or, apparently, becoming indie-rock heroes?
 
Alan made this really amazing video to announce our move, and you should totally watch it.
 
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Alan and I are beginning to feel a little overwhelmed about our impending move to New York.  On Sunday I sat down with a friend of my mom (a man whom she has described as one of the oddest people on the planet, but brilliant and kind) who gave me, among other things, a mortifying lecture about the horrors or American cockroaches and bedbug infestations in New York apartments.  But we have to get to New York and get an apartment before we can meet whatever six-legged tenants we may be sharing space with...

We have to move our books.  We have to move lots of things, but the books in particular are tough.  They have sentimental value - this one came from Bubbe, this one we found at that cute store in Austin, this is the one the cat peed on, etc.  They add warmth and a sense of home.  They also weigh a shit-ton and are going to kill us on moving expenses if we don't get rid of some.

As it turns out, I am far more willing to brutally ax my library than Alan is.  His philosophy is that a "maybe" should default to "yes."  Mostly I disagree and think that's a pretty good way to become a hoarder and cry on Oprah.  

But it's more complicated when it comes to Jewish books.  The "Jewish bookshelf," as my Scottish friend Martin loves to call it, is the centerpiece of a Jewish life.  It contains the wisdom of our people.  It's the source of questions and answers and more questions.  There's something special about just having them, whether or not they get read.

I think they should be used.  I think it would be better to donate the books to a synagogue, or a friend, make sure they're not lying waste and collecting dust, than to bring them for the sake of having them.  Alan is less amenable to this idea.  Ultimately, he is the one who delves into them, and we agreed he would have final say where Jewish books are concerned.  

But that doesn't make them any lighter.  

 
Take a moment to watch the video below.
Now consider this.

Think about the amount of technology that went into bringing this video to your screen.  The sheer accumulation of human innovation is mind-boggling.

Humans can shoot themselves into space in metal cans.  Humans in other metal cans can watch the other, while sitting comfortably and being offered free drinks. They can take out a mobile device, which works half-way up into the stratosphere, and record through the window.  They can take that video and upload it to a worldwide network.  I can access that network, watch the video (along with almost two million others, as of this writing), grab a couple of letters and place the video into my own space on this worldwide network, and comment on it.  Then you can comment on my comments, and so on.  

It's pretty freaking cool, I think.
 
I grew up in a small, blue-collar town in Southeastern Wisconsin called Racine.  As I am wont to point out to any total stranger, Racine is "famous" for a few things:

  1. Remember that movie "A League of Their Own" about the women's baseball team where Tom Hanks spends most of his role swearing and peeing?  The team called the Racine Belles (this really happened...at least according to the film) won the big game at the end.  Woot woot.
  2. Johnson's (a family company) has its corporate headquarters in Racine.  They make such critical products as Windex, Pledge, and Off.  Ironically, the windows and wooden counter-tops in Racine are typically neither shiny nor bug-free.
  3. The lovely Danish people who settled in Racine hundreds of years ago brought with them a tasty pastry made from the scraps of other pastries called "kringle."  It's good, and even certified kosher from the local bakery.

I went home today because for the past week my mom has been protesting the Wisconsin's governor's massive, really egregious, cuts to the public sector.  Without going too much into the politics of it all, these cuts threaten not only my mom's job and both my parents' benefits, but any future prospect of collective bargaining - in other words, any hope of worker ever determining the quality of their environment or standing up for their rights.  It's pretty despicable, and pretty scary for my entire family.

In just about a month Alan and I will be moving to New York for me to start a new job.  We're leaving a stressful, but overall happy, situation to set out on a new adventure and start a new life.  My mom, meanwhile, is struggling day in and day out to secure the grueling, thankless job she already has teaching art in an impoverished school.  The juxtaposition is painful.  It's hard to go home.