A Muse with a View

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

I thought we had a deal. When I joined Facebook a few years ago you promised me privacy.  When I first arrived on the scene I could keep my entire profile private, create my own little Facebook world if you will. I liked the fact that every status I ever posted didn’t show up on Google when I searched on my name. I appreciated the fact that I had control over my audience. Now you’ve changed the rules without consulting me and I’m not happy about it.

When I originally clicked Accept on your privacy policy when I joined Facebook, it said nothing about sharing my personal information on Facebook pages and partner websites outside of Facebook. You call this new feature “Instant Personalization.” I call it a complete violation of my privacy.

You falsely give the impression that I actually have the ability to opt out of this program, yet you continue to force me into the program even though I’ve opted out. As you can see by my Privacy settings I have unchecked the box that allows you to take my private wall postings and publicly display them on your partner websites:

When I try to opt out of your Instant Personalization program you threaten to share my information via my friends anyway!

I have opted out of this Instant Personalization program yet you continue to threaten me if I don’t opt in. When you pop up a dialog that asks me if I’d like to link to 37 other pages on Facebook, and I refuse, you threaten to wipe out the personal information from my profile.

So, unless I bow to your wishes you will basically empty my profile of all of the information that I originally chose to post. If I link to the 37 pages you suggest, you will replace all of the personal information I have posted in my profile with garbage that you think I should have on my profile, based on your data mining of my status updates and current profile information.

This is not what I signed up for Mr. Zuckerberg. I am a public persona, and even I am appalled by your lack of respect for my privacy. If you Google my name you will find 20 pages worth of links to information on me. This is the information I want you to find. There’s a difference.

I hope your pilot program crashes and burns.

Sincerely,

Kelly Jo Horton

Social Networker

Originally posted on April 23, 2008 on MySpace.

10 Funky Things about Me

This is one of those tag games that I actually like, because it gives me an opportunity to let you all get to know me a little better. I was tagged by Pink Sapphire for this one.

I can’t really think of 10 “Funky” things, so I’ll go for random odd things, and try not to repeat myself from the last two times I did this.

1. I refused to cut my finger nails in order to play on the soccer team in high school, so the referees required me to wear first-aid tape over my long finger nails!



2. I twirl one foot in circles whenever I’m sitting still. Been doing it all of my life. they tell me it’s an ADD thing.
3. I can tie a maraschino cherry stem into a knot with just my tongue (a highly envied bar skill in college).
4. When I was seven years old a doctor told my mother I had Yellow Fever, and that I was going to die. Turns out it was just a bacterial infection from some dried seaweed I ate at a Japanese friend’s house.
5. I got Botox in the sweat glands under my arms so I could wear a borrowed $3000 dress to the HBO After Emmy’s Party a few years back and not ruin the dress! I still do it so I don’t sweat onscreen.
6. I once stopped eating all sugar for six months. My streak was broken when my friend Kim showed up with a bag of frosted animal cookies. It was downhill from there.



7. When I was 24 I bought a 1-way ticket around the world and traveled for six months by myself. I told everyone I was a freelance journalist.
8. I have eaten from roadside stands, and drank from wells all over India and never gotten sick, but I get sick every time I go to Mexico, no matter how careful I am.
9. I was on a technical support call with a customer during the 1989 Loma Prieta quake in the Bay Area. I decided to move to Oregon after that quake (of course now I know we have a huge fault that runs right under the downtown area).
10. The only reason I ran for the office of Pledge Trainer at my sorority in college was so I could get a private room in the house and not go to the weekly meetings.

This blog was originally posted on MySpace on May 9, 2008. I am re-posting at the request of Chris M. This is also one of my favorites as well.

Weeding My Garden, a Metaphor for Life

I woke up before dawn yesterday and realized I hadn’t yet planted my vegetable garden. Here it is May, and for some reason I hadn’t even started.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and walked out to survey my raised beds as the sun started lighting the morning sky, and realized I hadn’t been paying attention. My main garden bed was overrun with weeds. How did this happen? Where had I been for the last few months? Why didn’t I notice?

Weeds. Everywhere.

I grabbed my gardening gloves and started pulling, grabbing at the root to make sure I could be rid of them forever. At first I pulled at them aggressively, but as I pulled the seeds popped out and tried to replant themselves. I realized that the more angry I was with the weeds, the more they wanted to stay firmly planted in my garden.

I took a breath, slowed down and gently grabbed a weed by the root so as not to disturb the seed pods that would pop at the slightest hint of aggression. One by one I gently removed the weeds, until I came upon what looked like a patch of flowers. I was confused, because I wasn’t sure if they were really flowers or just very clever weeds disguising themselves as flowers.

How could I tell? How could I know for sure that I wasn’t trying to remove flowers when I meant to remove weeds?

Intuition.

I pulled back the flowered vines and noticed how invasive the root system was. A true flower would never do this to my garden.

I said, “I’m sorry to see you go, because you do look like a flower on the outside. But I can see that if I let you stay in my garden you will soon suffocate everything I try to grow, so you must go.”

With that, I gently grabbed at the root and pulled out that last weed, promising myself that I would be more vigilant in the future and never let weeds invade my garden again.

A new start…

© 2008 Kelly Jo Horton
The Muse

As I was sitting around the table at Starbucks this morning with my running buddies of 15 years, there was a common theme in the conversation. We were all more than happy to kiss the last decade goodbye.

When I look back at the last 10 years I realize that I have been through every major life crisis imaginable. I went through a divorce. I lost my mom. I had cancer not once but twice (I’m five years clear now, knock wood).  I had to short sale a house I owned in L.A. I had to take a business partner to court. I was underemployed, and then unemployed. I ended the decade with a very destructive relationship.

We all watched our 401k plans shrink by half.

But even with all of that adversity I still saw the glass as half full. Every time I wanted to have a pity party I thought about the people who were worse off than me. I had a roof over my head. I wasn’t sleeping in my car or under a bridge. I survived cancer.  In 2008 I won my court battle. And in 2009 I sold that house in L.A. and landed an awesome job. And in the Spring of this year I vowed to never again accept anything less than integrity, honesty and mutual respect in a relationship.

We all change over time, but I feel like I had a major life makeover. I truly believe that if you never know adversity and sorrow you can’t really appreciate joy.

May this decade bring us all an abundance of friends, family, love and joy. Happy new year everyone.

My History of Blogging

1976 Snail Mail

My friend Kevin moved away and we wrote funny letters to each other constantly. This was my first attempt at “blogging.” Readership: 1.

1978-1978 Letters from Finland

In August of 1978 I left home to spend a year in Finland. There was no email or Internet back then, so again, I relied on my snail mail connection to my friends back home, and my new found exchange student friends all over Finland. I received over 500 letters during my stay, and I probably wrote 600. Readership: 25 family and friends

1986 to 1994 The Desktop Publishing Years

In 1986 I went to work for a company called Frame Technology. Their main product was a desktop publishing tool called FrameMaker. It was the first WYSIWYG desktop publishing tool I had ever used. It could do column layout, rotated headings (if you knew PostScript), and could import graphics! I was in heaven. I immediately started using the product to create my own newsletter and send it out to family and friends. Readership: 45 family and friends.

1994 I See the Light

In 1994 my friend Chuck sent me a link to a website called “Alex the Girl.” I clicked on the link and found a very simple website where a woman named Alex would post her photographs and her musings about life.

“Chuck,” I said. “This is what I’ve been looking for! This is what I want. How do I make a website like this?”

At the time there were no websites like Blogger, MySpace, or anything of the sort. If you wanted to blog you had to create your own website from scratch. I didn’t have the expertise to create my own “Kelly the Girl” website, so I continued to send my family and friends quarterly newsletters through the snail mail.

2003 Blogging Goes Mainstream

In 2003 a friend of mine sent me a Beta invitation to one of the first blogging websites called Yahoo! 360°. It was kind of crude, and didn’t have many users, but I started posting anyway. My first blogs were posted from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Readership: Probably 15 people

2005 Kelly Discovers MySpace

In 2005 my friend Brandon told me about this cool new website called MySpace. He was using it to promote his films and music, and said I should create a page so I could network too. I created my first blog on MySpace on August 1, 2005. It was entitled “Sunday filming.” Readership: 0. My second blog was called “Asses and Crotches,” and was posted on August 2, 2005. Readership: 1 (a guy named JL).

My readership did not really take off until six months later when Margie Boulé, a columnist for the Oregonian, published a story about my blog.

MySpace was the perfect platform for me. There were about 20 million users when I started, and has now flattened out at about 125 million users. That’s a lot of bloggers and blog readers! But with growth come growing pains, and MySpace has certainly had them.

Stay tuned for my “Dear MySpace” letter…

This blog was originally published on MySpace on May 21, 2009

I went for my bi-annual checkup with my dermatologist today, and when I left she handed me a piece of paper with the information on it about my most recent malignant melanoma and said, “You had a malignant melanoma in 2004. Just want to remind you of all the things you need to continue to do.”

Was she really saying what I thought she was saying? I quickly did the math in my head.

I have been cancer-free for five years.

At first I had no reaction whatsoever. It was like someone
had just said, “Have a nice day.” Then I walked to my car, took a deep breath
and cried. I didn’t feel it coming. I cried all the way to work.

I had no idea how buried my fear was until someone gave me permission to let it go.

The truth is you never completely let go of that fear once you have had cancer, because you know it’s always lurking. My cells already know how to mutate into deadly malignant melanoma. That much I know. So I have to respect that. They could choose to go rogue again at any moment.

We are mortal. Don’t forget that. Live and love while you can.\

Cheers!

My cancer story: I am a Cancer Suvivor

Originally published on MySpace on April 21, 2009

This is a list of some of the places I’ve been that evoke strong memories. Some places are more exotic that others!

Originally published on MySpace on March 27, 2009

Being unemployed alters your world. I was constantly chasing the next
contract job when I was a consultant, and there were many times over
the past two years when I didn’t know where my next job was going to
come from. This was all fine and good when the economy was booming,
because I knew there would always be someone who needed a contract
writer. However, life changed when the economy crashed and the world
did a total reset.

All of a sudden I was fighting 125 other people for a single job, and
everyone was underbidding me because they were hungrier than I was. My
hourly rate was cut in half in a matter of months, and I started to
wonder how I was going to live on half of what I was making before.

Survival Skills 101

Reduce your Expenses

Eating Out
Stop eating out. Period. When I was looking for expenses to cut, eating
out was the first to go. I literally cut my Visa bill in half when I
stopped eating out.

Coffee
Brew your own! Just think about how many cups of coffee you can get
from a 1-pound bag of beans. If you must have a latte from a coffee
shop, cut it down to once a week as a treat.

Utilities
Get your utility company to average your gas and/or electric bills.
That way you know exactly what you have to pay every month. I got a
$358 gas bill after the winter storm we had in December, and that’s
when I decided to average my bill.

Avoid the Mall
If you’re a person who can’t walk out of Nordstrom or Macy’s without
being tempted to buy something, don’t go to the mall! I spent so much
less money by just staying away from the temptation.

Use the Library
Did you know that you can get DVDs and CDs at the library? If you are
cutting expenses, cut the rental fees and the late fees completely by
using the library.

Cut the Cable
When I was cutting expenses I cut my TV cable down to the basic
channels, which was about $10 a month. The unexpected bonus was we
didn’t get the Disney Channel anymore. The overacting and laugh tracks
on those kid shows is enough to drive a mom to drink. However, my kids
quickly discovered that they could watch most of their favorite TV
shows on the Internet whenever they wanted to anyway, so Hannah Montana
didn’t disappear completely. Sigh.

Find Free (or cheap) Fun
I am one of those people who is really good at being frugal. My
expenses are really low, and I can live on almost nothing. However, I
will not deprive myself of fun. Even when I was being really frugal I
would take my kids to the movies once a month (always to the cheaper
matinee of course). We always brought our own snacks, and asked for
cups for water at the concession stand.

Geocaching is free and fun for kids. We did it without the aid of a GPS
and still found caches. Good for an entire day of adventure.

Have Happy Hour at Home
Remember when you were in college, or even just living out on your own
for the first time, and you used to know where all of the best happy
hours were? You knew which bars had cheap drinks and free food, right?
Well, my girlfriends and I have organized happy hours in our homes.
Wine, cheese, crackers. Cheap, easy and fun. There are also plenty of
free wine tastings around town if you want to get out.

Needs Vs. Wants
Do you really need another pair of shoes, or do you just want them? Don’t buy anything that’s not an absolute necessity.

Clothes
I have three children. They grow out of clothes constantly. There is no
way I’m going to spend $40 on a pair of jeans for an 8-year old who
will grow out of them in three months. I have plenty of friends with
kids, and I asked them for hand-me-downs. I would get the clothes from
my friends and then just hang them up in my kids’ closets as if I had
bought them new. They never knew the difference, and they got some
really cool clothes!

Emotional Stability
You don’t realize how much of your emotional stability is tied to money
until you don’t have it anymore. There are many things that money can’t
buy, but it certainly buys you stability. I remember being consumed by
fear on a daily basis when I was between jobs. Fear, panic,
helplessness, hopelessness, depression, anxiety, are all emotions that
come to mind.

Which leads me to…

Emotional Reset
I would allow myself the freedom to have a complete emotional meltdown
(when my kids weren’t around) a few times a month. It was cathartic for
me to just cry and shout out loud whatever came to mind. Once I
released all of my fear and anxiety I knew I could find the strength to
pick myself up and keep rowing forward. It was my way of doing an
emotional reset.

Pity Party
If you’re going to wallow in self pity you might as well go all out and
throw yourself a party. Allow yourself to have the occasional pity
party, but put a time limit on it. Say, “Okay, I’m going to pity myself
for the next 30 minutes, and then I’m going to pick myself back up and
be done with that.” I even made myself a pity party cake once, because
it made me laugh, and humor really helps in these hard times.

Phone a Friend
I can’t tell you how many times I called friends just to ask for some
emotional support. Sometimes I just needed someone to tell me it was
going to be okay.

This economy is going to suck for a while. Just wrap your head around
that and accept it. Once you accept that you can be the river instead
of the rock.

Originally published on MySpace on March 23, 2009

As most of you know I was a contract technical writer for the past two
years. However, what most of you don’t know is that I was doing it out
of necessity not by choice. Like a lot of you, I too was unemployed.

However, I recently found a great job in a dream company during the
worst economic times since the Great Depression. How did I do it? I
spent at least an hour every day for two years doing all of the things
I have listed below. These are my Cliff Notes for landing your dream
job, or at least a job that is a stepping stone to your dream job. This
is a really long blog, and I’m sure most of you won’t read it all. But
you at least have to scroll down and read the last section about first
impressions!

There is so much more to say, but I think I’ll just put it in a book and let you download it if you want it.

Find a Business Networking Group
A business networking group is a place where you can
go and meet people from all kinds of industries who may or may not be
able to connect you to someone who can help you get a job. I attended a
networking group called “The Breakfast Club” every other Tuesday
morning for a year, and made some fantastic connections.

Update Your Resume
Customize Your Resume Every Time
I know it sounds like overkill, but the only way you’re going to get a
job in this economy is if your skill set is an exact match to what the
hiring manager is looking for. If the job description says they’re
looking for a one-legged pirate who can knit, by God you’d better be a
one-legged pirate with lots of hand-knitted sweaters in your portfolio!

Have Someone Review Your Resume
Give your resume to someone in your industry and have them give you
constructive criticism. I probably have 10 different versions of my
resume thanks to all of the suggestions I got.

Know Which Industries are Hiring
I come from the land of high tech, but high tech isn’t doing so well
these days, so I had to broaden my search scope into other industries.
Let’s brainstorm here for a minute and come up with a few companies and
industries that are thriving in this economic downturn:

• NetFlix. People are staying home more, going out less. NetFlix is hiring.
• Certain media companies. The company I work for creates, supports and manages
  interactive TV applications that allow you to interact with applications on your TV.
  In the UK you can even buy stuff from QVC with your remote.
• Be willing to change industries.

Join an Industry Group
I am a member of OEN (Oregon Entrepreneurs Network) and SAO (Software
Association of Oregon). These groups hold business and social functions
where you can meet all kinds of people, and get introduced to companies
you’ve never heard of. Find an organization in your area and join!

Subscribe to the Online Business Journals
I subscribe to the headlines for three business journals: Portland,
Puget Sound and Silicon Valley. Every day I get little snippets in my
Inbox telling me which companies are laying people off, which new
companies just got more funding, etc. This is the way you track where
the jobs are.

Create a Profile on LinkedIn
Become a Master Networker on LinkedIn
I have been online since the word was coined. Seriously. If there is a
new business or social networking site in town I check it out. LinkedIn
is a business networking site that allows you to keep in touch with
current co-workers, ex co-workers, friends and recruiters.

• If you’re not on LinkedIn, sign up. It’s free.
• Create a profile that showcases your job experience.
• Start looking for people you know to connect to.

Ask for Recommendations
Ask anyone you’ve ever worked with to write a recommendation for
you on LinkedIn. These are public references that potential employers can view. The more recommendations you have on LinkedIn the better.

Update Your Status

• Change your status on LinkedIn at least once a week. Why? Because it keeps your
  name showing up at the top of everyone’s update list. It keeps you visible.
• Put industry keywords in your status, because that’s how recruiters will find you.
  I swear if my status said, “Kelly is slaying SQL Server dragons and writing complex queries,”
  my profile would get views from all kinds of people in the database industry, and I would get
  contacted by recruiters.
• Say you are interviewing for jobs even if you have no interviews lined up.

Which brings me to…

LinkedIn Keywords
I’m not exactly sure how the LinkedIn search engine works, or how the
paid part of the site works, but I will tell you that keywords are
everything. If you are looking for work in the IT industry you better
have buzzwords in your profile and in your status. Use hot words like
“whitelisting” and “positive IT tools.”

LinkedIn Jobs Page
Linked in has a jobs page, and there were probably 25-45 jobs listed
within 15 miles of my house at any given time. Not just job jobs, but
great jobs. Many of the jobs actually give you the recruiter’s name, so
you can apply directly. Many of the jobs say “recommendations
preferred,” which is why I say get as many people to write
recommendations for you as possible. It really pays off.

Other Places to Find Work
Create a Profile on Monster.com
Create a profile on Monster.com, and sign up for the job alerts. Update
your profile on a weekly basis, even if you only change one word,
because it pops you to the top of the stack when employers are
searching for people. You land in the “recently updated profiles”
bucket.

Which leads me to…

Hang out a Shingle
Start a business on your own. My fallback skill has always been
writing, so I hung out my shingle and started my own contract writing
business. How did I get that first job? A friend on MySpace. Gary
(Garibaldi) hired me to help him with an RFP. How did I get the second
job? LinkedIn jobs board. I interviewed for a sales engineer position,
and I didn’t get the job, but they did hire me as a contract writer for
almost a year, which was much more lucrative.

Craigslist.com
Yes, craigslist! Not only are there many jobs posted there, it’s also a great place to post your resume.

I posted a mini resume on craigslist and got three
contract jobs in less than a week. There are hundreds of people
looking for jobs on craigslist so the key is to differentiate yourself.
My headline was this:

>>> Not Your Typical Tech Writer <<<

The first line of my posting was something like, “Highly technical
perfectionist with a Journalism degree, social skills and a sense of
humor.” Then I had 10 bullet points that listed what my skills were.
You have to differentiate yourself or you will get lost in the rubble.

Register on Company Websites
Go directly to the companies you want to work for and use their online
registration to post your resume. And sign up for their job alerts!

Get to Know Some Recruiters
Some companies still have inside recruiters, but more often than not
companies will hire outside recruiters to fill positions. I had
recruiters coming out of the woodwork when I posted on craigslist, and
I called every one of them, and then chose ONE to work with. Not all
recruiters are created equal. Choose one who will go to bat for you.

Get Someone to Hand-Walk Your Resume
Many jobs on company websites are in the final stages of interviewing
before you even see them posted. The only way you’re going to get an
interview is to have an inside source who can tell you what jobs are
going to be posted BEFORE they get posted. Have your insider walk your
resume to the inside recruiter or the hiring manager’s desk.

First Impressions Are Everything
When I had been doing all of the above for two years and I still hadn’t
been able to land a full-time job I had to ask myself why. Why did I
always get down to the top two candidates and come in second? I finally
decided to try something that even I didn’t believe would work: I
changed the color of my hair. Why? Because most people, whether they
will admit it or not, have preconceived notions about blondes. They are
perceived to be flaky, fun and dumb.

BEFORE AFTER

I found myself having to work harder in interviews to
overcome this misconception, so I said f*ck it, I’m coloring my hair!
And guess what? I interviewed for a job at my current company once as a
blonde and once as a brunette, and guess who got the job? The brunette.

I know plenty of guys in their 50’s who colored their hair when they
were interviewing so they would be perceived as being younger.

The moral of the story is this: keep rowing even if it feels like you’re getting nowhere, think outside the box, and be willing to color your hair.

And never ever give up!

Originally published on MySpace on February 27, 2009.
My friend Jack recently posted a line from the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song as his Facebook status:

I couldn’t get the song out of my head this morning as I got ready for work. I then realized that my life had become the theme song!

So, today as I walk across the big crosswalk to my office in the tallest building in Portland, perhaps I’ll toss a beret into the air and remember that Mary and I have a lot in common. We’re going to make it after all.

The song is called “Love is All Around,” by Paul Williams.

Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it’s you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it.

Love is all around, no need to waste it.
You can have a town, why don’t you take it.
You’re gonna make it after all.
You’re gonna make it after all.

How will you make it on your own?
This world is awfully big, girl this time you’re all alone.
But it’s time you started living.
It’s time you let someone else do some giving.

Love is all around, no need to waste it.
You can have a town, why don’t you take it.
You’re gonna make it after all.
You’re gonna make it after all.