Posted on Wordpress

Music is good for the soul

The following was originally posted on www.optioneerjm.com from hosted Wordpress blogging site.  I use IFFTTT to automate some of my own posting, eliminating the need to cut and paste.

By reposting, I also incorporated some images I've had saved to my desktop for some time, apologies if I can't credit image.

I discovered a bunch of old music that I’d gotten off of iTunes and spent hour making playlists.
Call it melancholy, I think of it as gratitude.
I played my “GrowingUP” playlist, and this song was in there!
So reminiscent of growing up as a kid in the 60s …. talk about romanticism in the 60s.
O-M-G [social media speak for “Oh my gosh”]!
Talk about Petulia Clarke – how come we never hear her music on the radio any more?
Petulia Clark is to me what the young kids heard their parents listening to Patsy Cline or Chubby Checker’s “Let’s do the twist”
I felt like Tweeting to Simon Cowell that he should create a new avenue of his known brand: picking talent in music.

How about: “America’s GOT Music” Simon Cowell?

I think up of so many ideas when I’m suppose to be shutting my brain down.
I will go to the moon and back to watch Simon’s opinions. Why? Because basically he’s spot on 85% of the time. Would have to analyze or fact check on this < praying for Layla.
I think I should reach out to another gal to snap up as a graphic designer in training.
She’s multi talented too.
I can’t promise a full time paid salary gig, but I’m open to sweat equity: slicing up a piece of the pie. Get the engines rev’ing for a new zine. Why not under the brand I started with when I ventured outside LinkedIn in 2010. Somewhere in the same year I began @optioneerjm on Twitter, soon to follow by Facebook, Pinterest all in a ball, then a blog on Blogspot by the big engine of mothership GOOGLE.

When I was a high performing sales whiz (I do have the stats aka numbers to prove it), I sat in a monthly sales call with colleagues across the United States, I may have been the only Canadian on the call.
There I go into brag mode. Typical female, imposter syndrome woman.
We have to continually feel the driving need to prove that we’re as smart as we think we are.

So bury myself with warm and fuzzy memories that shine brightly from my past.
I struggle to be optimistic but at the same time and filled with gratitude.
For the chance and ability to keep up writing. And creating whimsical characters to sprinkle amidst the words, appearing out of sketches then livened with paint.

PRIVACY pondering

By now, talking about data is passé and the cloud, simply yawn.

That made me realize, that besides the odd news story, there isn’t more noise and clucking about PRIVACY.

It wasn’t a television or radio ad either.

The race for our almighty dollars has started, without a start horn,  we are meekly falling into a deep trap door that narrowly funnels towards brand popularity and premium choice.

Who is their voice?

WHO’s Responsible for PRIVACY breaches?

As more privacy channels chain of command paths are broken, more and more incidents and varying degrees of alarm.

Definitely the United States lead the world with paranoias surrounding being under attack.  Deservedly so.  Simply because they’ve been attacked in many forms, for example:

On soil:  Pearl Harbour > World War II

World Trade Center 9/11

Russian Interference 2016 Election 

However, are they fulfilling their own profecy?

I personally can’t decide which is worse because they are equally horrible: greed and corruption.  It must be said, clarified, that I am a Canadian, representative of where Baby Boomers stop, a parent of Millennial children, all successfully employed and tumbling throug “adulting”, providing a safe landing when they veer off course, and championing & cheering them on to accomplish their own dreams in their own way.

Who owns your data? Your employer, your providers, or the government?

If you ask most people, I’m sure they would say they do.  It’s personal, thus it belongs to you.

YET, while you are at work, your everything belongs to your employer: calls are recorded for “coaching” purposes.  Nobody can notice a grumpy boss who tenaciously goes through all employee’s communications to find something, anything, that they can use to discipline or fire someone.  You’d think by now from the abundance of data, employers might track supervisors who have a lot of people quitting, transferring or being fired and a red flag would go up.

WHEN it’s your personal time: lunch, breaks, off time, your information is your own.  Not likely, before you can even have a cell phone, you have to share your private information: age, income, employment, education and credit score to the provider who may have a system that rates those things on a numerical score.

ONCE your smartphone is in hand, what you text, click on is registered in some way.  That’s long before you start adding apps.  If you subscribe to any media outlet, you release information, if you use a credit card, they can save for convenience or even pay for stuff.

If you click or swipe, you are sprinkling your data around.

DATA REALLY IS INFORMATION

About you, your likes, your weaknesses, your monetary strength or weakness.

WHAT ABOUT YOUR HEALTH?

When my husband was in the hospital, a friend of the kids knew about him before the ambulance had arrived to the neurological medical center, worked on his ward, even though it violated health center regulations.  Our medical charts seamlessly pop up between medical centres, physicians, specialists, etc.  That’s a lot of places where leaks can happen.

BODYGUARD on NETFLIX: a must see

Timely, yes.  There are many excellent examples of why you may want to watch this stunning cinematic TV drama.  However, if you happen to have PRIVACY as a hot button of late, you may register how much the main character’s privacy is disregarded in all forms by government, employers, clients, security sectors, and on and on.

I want to avoid spoilers but I hope someone does comment, to begin a real discussion of value.

I got more on a tangent about PRIVACY on my blog: YUPPYdom from @WordPress 

Oh shit, damn f***

: I said when upon stepping from the last step going into the basement to my studio

a sensation of immediate cold feet with a very emotive sounding:

 * S Q U I S H *

24 hours later things are falling into place.

I rolled a joint and actually figured out how to use the Xbox controller ... there goes that theory my (our) generation had based on the sphere of influence seemed to be really resilient.  Not surprising our Millennial children seem very strong with all the shit going on around everyone.

There appears to be incredible parallels going on here.

The how lucky you speech similarities: 

What we heard: I had to walk two miles to school everyday after I had gotten up at dawn to collect the eggs, feed the chickens and milked the cows before I left to school even though there was a blizzard going on as I walked in three feet of snow (pre metric times) without complaining and being thankful even if my lunch was an apple.

My variation: I was up by 5 most days of the week, on the ice by 6 for 2 hours, standing out side the high school door waiting for my friends to arrive long before the bell.  Then after school I was either coaching figure skating or working at the small town newspaper, which a lot was used for contribution towards skating coaching, etc.

What I like to think is that the same principle remains hidden unless you think about it.

1) you make a commitment and give as much as you can

2) you make sacrifices in order to improve

3) respect the money and honour your choices

4) always have your own backup plan for the bumpy times

5) you have to work hard because you’re only fooling yourself to have high aspirations with little sweat

6) if you don’t give’er, you may end up stuck

7) you don’t argue or complain to parents when it ends up harder than it looks

There’s always a few more wise words of wisdom from my mom:

1) In a marriage, you give 150% effort but never take more than 50 percent responsibility because there is two people where it is split equally in half

2) Be smart with money or else you will end up as a bag lady << the warning my grandmother imparted to my mom.

3). Family is everything, means everything and the most important thing ahead of money, education, or position"

LOYALTY is king or [QUEEN of Purchasing, Operations, Design, Communications, her own domaine....READ for MORE

Pure transparency is THE most critical criteria that builds TRUST; trust begets LOYALTY; loyalty creates ADVOCACY.  DO YOU understand the value based on demographics and speak to one, at a time ~ AKA [Also Known As] target marketing instead of mass mktg.

Why should you care?

As you do more things and look up more stuff online, you are creating a definable persona that is geared to your own personal data.

Think of it as your online DNA or footprints to your soul.

Not before long the two worlds could collide [ intellectual will challenge privacy and ownership - less likely copyrighted governance or protection] .... Intellectual Law would be fascinating to learn!

Oscar the Pug | #OscarThePug                          @optioneerJM

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