Who do you have on your team?  Who you like to work with?

I am sure this is all too familiar to us but why is it still happening?

This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job.

Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done

*Update: Thanks to good friend Eden Spodek for pointing out grammar error, it’s wonderful to have expert watch out for me

There, I said it.

For the longest time, we have been saying, or preaching, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, and others out there, these are different platforms for different communication purposes, so DO NOT cross post.  Quite often, I challenge the so-called “Social Media Consultant”, “Social Media Coach” for not doing their jobs right so their clients (or even themselves)  are still cross-posting, as I have seen far more home-made cupcakes pictures or kids winning hockey game photos on LinkedIn, various #hashtags during awards/popular TV shows on Facebook (which this recent change will only delight marketers), and have to hide most of the posts/status updates; but  I understand people want to cross-promote, people want to maximizing marketing efforts especially if it’s part of their business; I can live with it and will support it as much as I can… until this really got on my nerve –

Send massive event invites to people in your Google Plus Circles

Yes, sending event invites from G+, can you even imagine?  I am sure it’s another smart tactic that marketers come up with, it’s free after all; but the way I see this it’s much worse than Facebook.  Not only it’s just simply wrong, it’s wrong in a way that is intrusive, it’s wrong that the event got into my calendar without my permission; it’s so wrong that it messed up my calendar and I got confused and was like, am I going to this event or what?

See this yourself for what I mean by intrusive, on the left is Facebook ( I know I have 11 events invite and I get to decide whether to put into my calendar or not; on the right is that darn Google Plus invite automatically goes into calendar, yes you can argue (1) my calendar is  not that busy, (2) I can still decide whether to go or not; the point is — it is out of my free will to appear here.  You can be sure this person is uncircled.

Social Media is people business, run by people to deal with people; put a little heart in it and not annoying people please.

Have you encounter other social media moment that annoys you? Share here so we can all learn from it.

Boy A “Where is Simon?”

Boy B “He is out shopping with his mom; they have to go to like 7 or 8 stores for food and stuff.”

Boy A “7 or 8 stores? Lame. Doesn’t his mom know about Walmart?”

Boy B “I’ll text him.”

I am sure you have heard this radio commercial, the boys in it did sound, ahem, according to my tween girls “a bit lame and only teenage boys do that mono tone”, but it’s actually one of few commercial tells the truth.

You have many reasons to shop at Walmart, the famous “Everyday Low Price” “Rollback” and “Easy as $1 $2 $3”; you may also have many reasons not liking to shop there, can’t find parking space, too crowded inside, or what you want is/are out of stock.

So when Collective Bias presents me with the opportunity to check out Walmart again, I decided to experiment something differently.

This morning at 9:30 am, after dropping off my girls to Chinese school I went straight to my neighbour Walmart store, look at it, isn’t it beautifully amazing!

Walmart Mississauga on crispy Saturday morning

I have my short but essential shopping list, the items I quickly jolted down when I knew I was going to Walmart on short notice.  Apparently if you are an more organized, experienced shopper which I know many moms are, you can get flyers of your local Walmart store online, and depends on where you are, many items are qualified for free shipping.  I only learnt about this today!

When inside the store, usually the merchandises gathered at entrance are the ones on sale for various reason, I am not an impulse shopper per se (ok fine, I was but I’ve transformed) and normally pass by while quickly scan them and run the logic in my little brain — can I stock up for long period of time to really save money that’s worthwhile, oh and look!  Cashmere 30 Double Rolls Tissue is more than 50% off and they are flying off the shelf!!!

Cashmere Bathroom Tissue is more than 50% off!

This caught my attention when I was ready to retreat, “Build Your Basket”, what a brilliant idea! Perfect for parents preparing upcoming Easter holidays!! I love how the selections are displayed and organized in section by prices, you can be as creative as possible while stay within the budget.  I wished I had this when the girls were younger, then I wouldn’t have to stress out the night before Easter Monday, every single year. Sigh.

Build Your Basket for Easter is as Easy as $1 $2 $3

In the end I am proud that I did very well sticking to my list but just couldn’t resist the awesome Cashmere bathroom tissue deal, told ya I am not an impulsive shopper Here is the proof,

List & Checkout

Few takeaways from this trip and why I would shop at Walmart:

(1) Quality – For the same price range, rest assured they have better quality than Dollar Store.

(2) Quantity — It’s a place when I want to try new products (be it snacks for the girls, or new food) and no need to buy bulk.

(3) Price – Combine the above two, guaranteed you have the best price in town.

Walmart today is different than years ago, you can shop online and get this – their search function actually works really well, not like many other retailers J I’d say it’s truly an innovative e-commerce retailer that “Save money. Live better.” has changed our lives.

What do you think? What do you usually look for when shopping at Walmart?

To see more photos here

I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This content has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias®  #CBias #SocialFabric, all opinions are my own.

As if that’s not enough, now bring technology and internet and online activities, even social media, into the picture. 

My girls are 10 years old and 9 years old, as much as we try to keep them busy with outdoor activities, their screen time certainly is catching up with mine.  Just this past holidays there were  Twitter conversation about kids at younger age got Assassin’s Creed III as presents; now I don’t have boys but I did watch hubby played the game (yes he is a  big kid but we won’t go there ), I felt it’s quite violent and certainly not suitable for youngsters (even says on the cover for 17 years and older); meanwhile my girls have discovered a new website BOP and Tiger Beat and wanted to join!  The answer is no.

Here are the guidelines I do with them:

Location — Wherever they are with the devices has to be visible, I need to be able to see their screens or hear the sounds playing from it, so I know the content is appropriate, these days you can’t trust the websites and pop-ups.

Openness — Be very open and upfront with them for rules and expectation, my girls each has own email accounts and they know I hold the passwords, it doesn’t mean I am sneaky to read what they say to friends but I can and will if I need to; they know they have to ask my permission to (1) go on YouTube and search specific artists, and (2) download games and apps even it’s free.

Visit – Visit the websites with them together, I want to know what content they are interested in, be it educational program or fashion and pop culture, I want to see how the website layouts the information and whether there are “hidden gems” for them to click on.

Evaluation – Revisit websites periodically to exam whether new content and layouts have been added, also discuss with them to see if it  still appeals to their ages.

I am sure as my girls get older, we will update the royal treatment , but for now, this is what we stick with and has been working for us.  Try to learn the basics, even better (I really want to say it’s necessary), to know more than your kids do if possible, we are doing it for the LOVE, right?

What are some of your tips to keeping your kids safe online?

This Mother’s Day, I want my daughters growing up to have confidence in them, a trait I don’t always have and it’s more important than anything else for girls today who are our leaders tomorrow.

When you are confident, you are strong enough to

Stand out, not fit in;

Speak up and not being afraid;

Believe you can achieve even others criticize you.

When you are confident, you are comfortable enough to

Do what you believe to be right,

Make smart decision at the right time,

Own and fix the mistake it if it’s wrong.

When you are confident, you are beautiful enough to

Create your own style instead of following others,

Have boys come to you instead of chasing them, and no need to please the guys,

Attract and influence people to join your cause movement.

Confidence makes us strong and comfortable, confidence is beautiful in so many ways in our life.  I really enjoyed Adora Svitak’s inspiring Mashable Connect talk, an amazing youth role model for other girls to look up to, and she maybe the reason I’ll allow my girls to be on Facebook, you can watch the talk here.

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

Over the last 3 months or so, I have been called out at least handful times that, I unfollowed some people and they were not happy so they decided to unfollow me as well.  I have issue with it, not the unfollowing part but the calling out, especially when you and I had barely exchanged conversations, why would you even care?

We all know Twitter does its prank once in a while, like it or not; if you happen to notice that and care enough, why not just re-follow to start the conversation again?   There are several apps and websites out there to help you better manage followers and I absolutely agree them can be effective, again ONLY if you care; but not to tweet out  things like “in the last 7 days, I lost 28 followers and I caught them all with x” or “@InfoSara and some others unfollowed me [checked by fllwrs.com]“. Really? You CAUGHT THEM ALL, or @me just for that??

I have people unfollow me every day, and when I follow someone, I don’t ever expect them to follow me back (I admit it’ll be nice though !  Really what I care about is the time I spend on Twitter,

(1) whether I am able to help peeps with my own experience, professionally or personally;

(2) whether I learn something new and gain knowledge;

(3) whether I have fun talking to my friends or even win prizes from Twitter party

With all that, I just couldn’t understand why you would call someone out when s/he unfollows you?  What is your intention and what are you planning to do??  Oh and a side note, my favourite introduction at conference or networking event is– “Hi, I follow you but you are not following me back.” Yep, THAT.

So please, tell me again why you care?

These days, when you are online you probably spend big chunk of time on social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, et al; and you are chatting, engaging, sharing and tagging.  You don’t do this for yourself; you do this with others to help others, right? Are you with me??

Enter Buffer, a wonderful app that lets you schedule tweets and optimize the best time to send to the most followers possible for greatest potential reach.  There has been enough debates about whether it’s appropriate to schedule tweets, my thinking is “ it’s ok to schedule useful information you want to share to people you know will benefit from but never schedule a conversation”; I am sure my friends, Aaron Lee and Danny Brown will agree with me here, I’ve seen and enjoyed their automated tweets, plus they are honest to say so up front in their bios.

So much good information out that your blogging simply can’t keep up with, why not simply share where it’s originated and give credits to the author? I use Buffer when (1) I don’t want to annoy or overwhelmed my followers; (2) I don’t take part in buzz creating campaign.  After all, you are on social media to help others, aren’t you?
Now that’s “all for you” goodies, what about ME then? I link Buffer to both my Twitter account and Facebook business page; I also schedule tweets diligently (See charts below).  One thing to note is, Buffer gives different posting schedule for my Twitter and Facebook page, and you can change it anytime if you feel there are other schedule should be added.

This is how I use Buffer in an “all about me” kind of way
   Reading Maniac – I used to have the articles saved, links bookmarked, page forward to emailed, Google Reader archived for all information I want to read but for whatever reasons was unable to do so at that moment, and it ends up in different places I find it hard to keep up, now it’s all in my Buffer list and I can always go back and read it.

   RT Monster on steroid – I prefer to see RTs with comments so I know whether it’s worth clicking, and yes, Buffer do let you schedule tweets and it also has the option of “post now”, you can add comments to the RTing message before fire away.

   Aalytics smarty —  BufferApp presents a list of your tweets with number of clicks and people who retweeted, you will see which post gets the most clicks and what content people are interested, it’s kind of neat way to find out the “call to action” trigger.

(You can learn more from this TechCrunch post, http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/20/sharing-scheduler-app-buffer-raises-400000-gets-kicked-out-of-us/)

I have been using it for couple months now and absolutely enjoy it, I find it easy, handy and very useful!!

Now with the app hitting iPhone App store (check it out here http://blog.bufferapp.com/the-complete-guide-to-the-brand-new-buffer-iphone-app), I am sure all you iLovers will like it and please share your thoughts with me here.

My older daughter came home the other day and asked me “What’s the B-word? I am the only one in the class know nothing about it”, needless to say she got laughed at.  A little background here, she WILL turn 10 in March 2012 (Yay for two digits!  Big milestone!!) and is the second youngest in her class, everyone else is 10 years old at this point.  Sure there are quite a few things she needs to catch up with but definitely not this one, which also got me thinking.

Why not? You ask. 

Well, my girls do have a list of words – the ones they know not appropriate to say in public; and if you haven’t noticed, we speak Mandarin at home so there’s little chance we’ll use any of those words.  Also, we say shoot instead of the other word, and only once had I dropped F-bomb because this dangerous drivers almost got us killed,

What’s the harm? You argue.

Yes, I understand and fully accept kids today are much more exposed to the world than we were, and they are going to learn and talk those words anyway, sooner or later; this is one thing I am not in the rush for.  I do believe we parents are still the biggest influencers to kids at this age, it’s also a good reminder for us, or for me personally; that the more we say it the more likely it’ll become second nature without realizing it, what’s the plus side of that, really?

My response to this curious, confused 9-year-old is “If it’s a good word your friend will tell you about it, and if not then you probably don’t need to know”.

Sure, you have sympathy for my poor girls, and I may have not prepared them well for the real world; quite possibly I am blindfolded in this issue, or being a b*tch or a b*stard, but what could I have done differently or what would you do if the world they is full of these sh*t?

A little help here please ??

It’s my birthday today, and OMG! I am turning 45!! Normally I won’t make it a big deal nor we celebrate with big feast (is the husband reading??), but half way into my life journey — yes I plan to live to 90 years old so I can see and be entertained by my grandchildren, what do I want for this special day?

Funny enough that sometime last week I got call from a company interested in my background and experience, asked if I would consider to role that has potential to grow, and well, you know those rosy things they tell you before bringing you on board.  It would be great if this happened years ago when I was really looking for jobs, I wrote it here and here; unfortunately the commute plus long hours in the office (minimum required 7am~7pm) plus the “being told what to do” for about $75K turned me off.  There is no way I am willing to trade half of my time just to fit into other people’s schedule, not even for money.

So what do I want? A title may.  Look at friends my age, Managing Director, Partner, or Chief Strategist, all sorts make me feel good.  Well, come to think about it, I do have some of these glamorous titles;

CEO = Control Education Office

I am responsible for my girls’ education, both academically and socially.  I need to know what they learn in regular day school, in Chinese school, in various sports and activities, without over scheduling or write them off because they are not performing well, or not showing talents.  I need to know the causes lead to results to worry less.

CFO = Control Feedings Officer

I am responsible for everything my family eat, I may not go out of my way to buy all organic but I am definitely conscious and pay close attention to what I buy (and hubby cooks) to put on the table.  To keep on top of being healthy, I need to know the nutrients and nutrition well to worry less. 

CMO = Control Media Officer

I am responsible for my girls’ media encounter experiences, including TV shows, movies and internet.  They only watch the shows I approved and my ears are always up for what’s been said in the conversation, I absolutely go to movies with them so we can discuss afterwards, I setup Gmail accounts AND the passwords for them so I can lurk when I sensed odd situations.  When it comes to internet gaming/surfing, we are VERY clear that (1) don’t give out parents email addresses unless you have permissions, (2) no downloading unless one of parents agrees, (3) never ever chat with people you don’t know in real life online, unless ahem, you are on social media.  Some of these rules may seem stringent and certainly will change when the girls get older, but for now I need to get it in their heads early to worry less. 

Yes, I am a Control-Freak, and not ashamed to admit it; I don’t thing there’s anything wrong if all I want to have control is for my family’s well being and protect them in this society.  Without my family, I am nothing.

You think I have it?  Do I have it all?  While I am working on it, I am also buying some cool stuff from Roots Canada, because it’s 25% off + free shipping and the cyber-weekend sale ends on my birthday.

ps–I am not affiliated with Roots Canada (although I wish!), they simply have good stuff!!

Why I say this is a once-in-a-life-time experience is easy to understand with the video below, not only the amazing exhibition was in Taipei just so happened when we were there, we also were able to score some sought after tickets and actually went to see it with our own eyes!!

Well, ok, mom’s brag here too My girls got to be in this short version animated film and it adds another layer of precious experience !

If you want to learn more about the painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival, go here