All posts by Mitch Mitchell

I'm an independent consultant in many fields, so I have a lot to share.
Black Web Friday

Black Web Friday – 2/24/12

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Yup, it’s Black Web Friday again, and we have some good sites for you today. Before I begin, I want to address the fact that I used “we” instead of “I”, when all of you know what I’m the only one writing on this blog.

Black Web Friday

In 2010, I was at my consultant’s group meeting and brought up the subject of whether sole proprietorships could legitimate use the term “we” when talking about their businesses. We all discussed it and the general consensus around the room was that all of us have the opportunity from time to time to work with someone else and thus using the term “we” is a legitimate thing.

I like that and it applies to this topic mainly because I’m thinking I’ve probably said “we” in discussing these Friday posts at some other time, and the fact of the matter is that I see myself working with the sites I mention every week to help bring black social media to the forefront and bring others into knowing that they exist. It truly does become a “we” scenario, doesn’t it? By the way, as a sidebar, “we” were included as a Blog of the Month entry on LogAllot by Sonia Winland; thanks! 😉

With that said “we” move on. 🙂 I’m starting today with a guy who actually gets a lot of love, but probably deserves more. Wayne Sutton writes Social Wayne, and this month he’s actually running what he’s calling #29 Days of Diversity, where he’s naming people of color he believes are impacting social media. He tells you up front that not everyone he mentions will necessarily be black, which is cool, but of course I’m going a different way. Whenever you hear of black tech in America his name comes up often, and he was included in a CNN story on the subject last year, which was really neat to see. He has a Disqus comment system, just so you know.

Next on the list is a blog called Happy Black Woman, written by Rosetta Thurman, someone I featured last year, but didn’t really talk about. Her goal is to bring about positive aspects of black women to counter the belief that all black women are angry, something I addressed in a previous Black Web Friday post. She talks a lot about lifestyles and behavior, and has a traditional WordPress blog commenting system. I was really impressed with her post about compassion, something I’m not sure enough people think about, let alone talk about these days, and if you’re looking for entry into what makes her tick check it out.

The final blog I’m highlighting today is a Blogpost blog, but the content is so good I just have to share. It’s called NewBlackMan and it’s written by Anthony Neal. Basically he talks about black issues, and calls out anyone who writes things that are either negative about blacks or put black people in a bad light in some fashion. I thought a post he wrote basically telling a rapper named Too Short that he was sending the wrong message to kids about objectifying women was great and it showed that he had guts and courage to do so, reminding me about a post I wrote on the courage it sometimes takes if one is going to participate in social media.

The final Black Web Friday of Black History Month; have y’all been out there learning something you didn’t already know? Remember, black history isn’t only about slaves and Martin Luther King. Have a great weekend.
 

Social Media

Trolls And Mean People

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I hate bullies, and I hate trolls. I hate self righteous people that don’t have a true leg to stand on, yet believe their self importance is so prominent that they have to put others down to make themselves look good.


Kate Upton,
Sports Illustrated

Who thinks the young lady in the picture to the left isn’t attractive? She’s a 19-year old model named Kate Upton that’s just landed the cover model spot on the 2012 Sports IllustratedSwimsuit issue. She’s been ranked as the #2 favorite lady for Maxim magazine. And yet you’d think by some people’s standards that she’s not only one of the ugliest woman in the world, but that she’s a tramp, slutty, and almost anything else you can think of to demean her. Remember me saying how it takes courage to be on social media?

Who’s saying these things? At the bottom of this article I’m going to post a video of her at a basketball game doing her version of some little dance called The Dougie. I’ll admit this, I don’t fully get it but it seems popular with the younger set, and she’s absolutely adorable in it. The video has been seen almost 4 million times on YouTube, and it’s what helped launch her into the position she’s in today.

However, if you look at many of the comments on the website, you’d think she slept with Osama bin Laden. Just horrible stuff being said about her and the young lady with her in the video. What the heck is this stuff? Come on now, is this the best the world has to offer for a young lady at a basketball game doing a little dance? I took a look at a few other videos of her doing some of the Sports Illustrated layout and the same types of comments keep coming up; wow. Is this the best America has to offer someone who basically seems like a nice young lady just having a lot of fun?

Then there’s this broad (yeah, I’m going there) to the left, Sophia Neophitou, the editor of something I’ve never heard of called bible 10, and the woman who supposedly helps put together Victoria Secret live model shows. She had this to say, which I felt was unnecessary:

“We would never use Ms. Upton for a Victoria’s Secret show. Her look is ‘too obvious’ to be featured in what has become the most widely viewed runway show in the world. She’s like a Page 3 girl. She’s like a footballer’s wife, with the too-blond hair and that kind of face that anyone with enough money can go out and buy.”

Let’s see, Upton is good looking enough to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated but isn’t good looking enough to be on the catwalk of a Victoria Secret modeling show? This bag (yeah, I said it) has the audacity to say this woman wouldn’t look good in Victoria Secret gear? Is she blind? Did she just demean most of the women in the world with this elitist miasma of perfidy? Obviously she’s not that smart, since these pictures here are of Miss Kate in a Victoria Secret’s catalog, wearing said lingerie. Too good for Kate, eh?

What’s happened in our culture when we can’t acknowledge that someone is good or good looking or even just cute? When did our culture get to the point where we have to go out of our way to be this mean?

I’ve been trying to think of whether I’ve been this kind of mean to anyone or about anything in the 4 years of this blog based on what someone looks like. No, I don’t think so. Have I been this mean in general? Yes, I have called out stupidity when it applies to racism, and I’m calling it out in this blog as it pertains to this Neophitou woman, but she in essence started it.

In the last week both CNN and the New York Times have decided to try to dismiss her as not being “model pretty”. Uhhh, anyone remember Anna Nicole Smith, Marilyn Monroe, Vanessa Williams and a host of other very pretty women whom someone determined weren’t “model pretty”? What the heck?

To her credit Upton seems to be handling it all pretty well. In one of the news stories she said that even Giselle, the multi-millionaire Brazilian model was once told she wasn’t pretty enough to be a model either. Morons; they’re everywhere (almost as bad as stupid clowns!

What’s your thought on this topic and this model? And yes, I promised you a video, so here’s the video; someone contact Sire because he might not want to miss this one lol:



http://youtu.be/tMpQgDbqz6U

 

Blogging

What Could You Do In 36 Hours?

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There’s a show that comes on the Food Network that has captured my attention and, strangely enough, motivated me to a point where my production overall has increased in the two weeks since I discovered it.

The show is called Restaurant Impossible, and what happens is this guy named Robert Irvine, a master chef, goes into a restaurant with a $10,000 budget and 36 hours and transforms restaurants so that they look good, the food tastes better, and hopefully the restaurant will start to turn a profit. He has help in re-designing the restaurant but everything else is on him, including changing the perceptions of the people who work in the restaurant, including the owners, which sometimes means bringing family members together to get things done and move forward in a positive direction.

As I said, it all has to be done in 36 hours, which includes teaching the cooks how to prepare both new meals and improve on what they’re already creating, training the waitstaff on new menus and proper customer service, teaching owners how to assess their expenses and revenue, and many other things. It’s never easy but always amazing, and Irvine has such great energy that it makes you feel like you’ve been slacking your entire life.

Something I come across often is hearing people tell me they don’t have any time to blog, or to write, or to market, or to do… well, you name it. True, all of us have to give something up every once in awhile because we only have so many hours in the day and we need to eat and sleep. But what do we do with our time when we’re awake and ready to go?

I’ve been pretty productive over the last couple of weeks. I’ve written tons of articles, and I’ve been working on editing my second book and moving along nicely, though part of me thinks I should be moving faster. The thing is that I have produced more in the time I have, and that’s important to me. I’m not someone that believes necessarily in having a blogging schedule, but I do believe that having a schedule helps us all get things done, and that I’ve also been doing. It’s my bet that Irvine follows a set schedule for how he turns around these restaurants.

How productive can you be in the next 36 hours? How about the next 100 hours? What does the little clip below do for you?


 

Black Web Friday

Black Web Friday – 2/17/12

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Welcome to the next edition of Black Web Friday. I start out this week with an interesting development from this week that I think comes across as ridiculous, yet something that I’m going to address anyway.

Black Web Friday

In a community group on Empire Avenue, I decided to mention that I was writing these series of Firday posts on black people that are in social media and that blog. I only got one response, and it was kind of strange. The person who wrote it stated that maybe writing this series helps my blog, but it could hurt those I’m linking to by being associated with being known as a black “whatever”, since the web is supposed to be for everybody.

Of course my immediate reaction was if the web was truly for everyone I wouldn’t have started the series to begin with. As I looked at another list this week of 100 important blogs people we should know that had at least 2 black people on the list (both have been featured here in some fashion) and thus comes to a whopping 2%, I’m thinking that at this juncture any positive publicity is good publicity. Still, it’s possible that some of the people I’ve named and others I haven’t named yet but are thinking about might not want to be identified as a black blogger. Just because I think I’m doing a good thing doesn’t mean that someone might not disagree if it’s applied to them.

Therefore, if you’re a black blogger that wants to make sure you’re not mentioned on this blog ever, please check out my contact page and send me an email and I won’t mention you, and you can stay anonymous by not having to “out” yourself in a comment. Your removal frees up a spot for someone else and makes a part of my life easier; and there won’t be any hard feelings because, trust me, I actually would understand.

With that out of the way let’s get to our listing for today. The first site I’m going to introduce today is called Black Business Space, which is kind of a black blogging/networking site that reminds me of the now defunct BloggerLuv site. People can sign up and network with other black business owners, create their own blogs on the site, advertise, join communities, and the like. The site looks popular but I’m not going to lie; it has some formatting issues if you ask me and I’m not crazy about the fact that it doesn’t have an About page. But I’ve talked to the guy that created it in the past, Lee Green, and he’s a good guy with vision, so I hope the site is doing everything he’s hoped it would.

The next site I’m highlighting today is called Traffic Coleman, written by a guy named Antonio Coleman. What’s really strange is that I’ve seen him all over the blogosphere and he’s had to have seen me, yet we’ve never talked and this is really the first time I’d ever visited his blog. Of course it’s possible I’ve visited and not stayed because he has a Disqus comment system, which I won’t comment on, but that doesn’t detract from the rest of his site. He calls himself the “Black SEO Guy”, so that pretty much tells you what he writes about often enough, although I found a lot of articles on writing, marketing, and things that have to do with being online. Knowing that he’s been all over the internet and lots of blogs, why he doesn’t show up on anyone’s lists outside of this one escapes me.

The final site I’m mentioning today is called That Tech Chick, written by Jessica Benton. She not only talks tech but fashion and social media, and I like the clean design of her site. She uses the WordPress commenting system and her writing style is really engaging. I found her most recent post about Pinterest interesting because I’ve been wondering whether it’s a fad or something that will stick around for awhile, especially since there’s already been a new release that’s geared towards men called Gentlemint. The stuff people come up with!

There you go, 3 more black social media sites and blogs worth your attention. Check them out, and be sure to tell them how you found them if you decide to comment on those sites; well, at least the last two, since you can’t really comment on the first. Enjoy your weekend. 😉
 

Blogging, Social Media

Participating In Social Media Takes Courage

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A few days ago, I had a post that also had a video where I ranted about MLM schemes. I can’t remember if I mentioned in the video that what prompted the rant was something that happened on LinkedIn or not, but that was the genesis for everything.


by Scott Feldstein via Flickr

One of the strangest things that came out of all of that mess, which continued until late yesterday afternoon when I finally decided my participation in the “conversation” had to end, is that the overwhelming majority of people who agreed with me wrote me privately rather than put their disgust out in the public like I did. As Sheriff Bart said in Blazing Saddles, “I’m quickly becoming an underground success in this town”. I got as many supporting messages in private as the guy who started the post got on the post itself; it did and didn’t help me, as you can imagine.

I’ve stated on this blog before that one of the gutsiest things a person can do online is court controversy, whether you started it or got yourself in the middle of it. Social media can be dangerous as much as it can be fun. This weekend another friend of mine posted something on his Facebook page that I kind of took exception to, so I commented on it. He said he had a right to express his beliefs, and I agreed with that while also saying if you have the guts to put out a belief like that in public you have to have the guts to take criticism for it from people who don’t agree with your position. I never heard back on that one.

How many reminders do people need before they realize that free speech really isn’t free? If people want to rant about things without giving others the opportunity to comment, set up a blog, don’t accept comments, and get on with your bad selves. 🙂

Unless you’re a big name once people realize they can’t leave comments they probably won’t come back, but you probably don’t care at that point. As Seth Godin seems to feel, sometimes getting your point out is more important to you than getting feedback. I find that sort of thing incredibly useless and selfish (I refuse to visit his blog or read links people share on Twitter), but to each his own.

Here’s my overall point. If you’re always afraid you’re going to create controversy, you’ll never be a good blogger. Controversy can pop up in the strangest places on the strangest topics. There is no safe topic, from babies to puppies to chocolate cake to the Muppets to weather. There’s always the possibility someone might not like what you said or how you said it. I once wrote a positive post where I mentioned my dad’s history and suddenly I was being attacked for talking about my dad being in the military. Didn’t see it coming, but I didn’t back down either, though eventually I had to block the guy because he became a major league troll; strange indeed.

Blogging isn’t for the faint of heart. If you’re skittish your blog will be unreadable. Being flexible enough to see someone else’s point of view, even to the point where you sometimes might change your mind, doesn’t mean you don’t get to express yourself in your own way. Deciding not to change your mind and sticking up for your point of view, while trying to do it in a nice way, doesn’t mean you’re not flexible. Sometimes you have to adopt the position that my wife learned from Jack Canfieldone night: “What other people think of you is their problem.”

So, who’s ready to start blogging?