We all know that social networking is now must-do online business activity. Remember the days when Facebook was for reuniting with high school friends and MySpace was the ultimate site for socializing? Well, that social focus is still the draw of sites like Facebook for our kids, as it should be.

But it’s a scary world out there in the social media bubble. I, for one, am happy to have several more years before my kids get online. But if you have pre-teen kids in your family, they will likely be asking for their own Facebook, if they haven’t already. The issue then becomes protecting their interests while giving them some freedom. This is where FaceChipz comes in.

FaceChipz is an invitation-only social network that allows kids to communicate only with others they’ve personally invited. There are no strangers. No one can arbitrarily contact them. No one can search for them. This is awesome.

On FaceChipz.com, kids interact with their peers, only their peers. Kids connect by either emailing an invitation to a known friend, or printing up a coded invitation and physically handing it to a friend.

Features of the site include:

• Customizable profile pages
• Message boards
• Photo uploading
• Status updates
• Games

From the site:

FaceChipz was created by parents who were concerned about how, when and where their kids were spending time on the Internet. Our ‘tweenagers’ outgrew the traditional websites for children but weren’t yet ready for the full-fledged, open social networking experience. We created FaceChipz to address those needs. Our kids were the ‘Chief Creative Officers’ and ‘Alpha’ testers of this site. They told us what they liked, what they didn’t like, what worked and what didn’t work. We listened, and then we programmed.

I think this is pretty cool … definitely something I’ll explore further once my kids are ready to go online. What about you? How will you introduce your kids to social networking?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tweet This Post

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tweet This Post

Well, I promised an update months ago on our hiking adventure, at here it is, at the 11th hour, I might add.  We are heading out to the UK tomorrow and will spend 14 days hiking across three National Parks from the Cumbrian coast in the West to the Eastern Yorkshire Coast.  I am so psyched!  And from a philosophical perspective, it is so exciting to see a dream, and a plan turn to execution and reality.  For that I’m giving myself a pat on the back and probably a few band aids to the feet….

If anyone would like to join us virtually – we had to make it geeky, of course – we will be blogging from the fells and dales (cell phone connection permitting) to our hiking blog at:  http://wrightsolution.wordpress.com.   Please visit and sign up for updates on our journey.  (Lots of pictures of Carla and me dripping wet in raincoats, I’m sure!)  We’re also raising money for cancer research and would welcome a small donation to the cause via the donation button on the blog.  We’ve already raised over $1000!!

Here we go.  See you later!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tweet This Post

So, two years ago you ordered a box of 500 business cards, but as a virtual assistant, most of your work is done at home. You don’t have a lot of regular opportunities to hand them out, and you end up needing to update them before you’ve used them all. Of course, you can just recycle them, but first, consider these 15 creative ways to use those old business cards:

1. Use them as bookmarks
2. Leave short notes for family members
3. Create new ones
4. Use them for crafts
5. Build a card castle
6. Fold them in half and use as a money clip
7. Use them to level a wobbly desk
8. Shred them to make confetti
9. Wallpaper your office (maybe a stretch, but still…)
10. Make cubes (this is COOL!)
11. Use them as name labels for books
12. Tape them together to make a drawer liner
13. Use them to clean tiny cervices (like the space next to the oven, in between the keys of your keyboard, around the bathroom sink, in between tiles…you get the idea)
14. Use them to get organized
15. Give some to the kids (trust me, this provides at least 20 minutes of entertainment and gets rid of about 30 cards at a time…more if you have a kid that eats paper.)

What do you do with your old business cards?

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tweet This Post

Have you heard of the Faces of Millions project?

Faces of Millions is a project which aims to create the biggest photo mosaic yet, that will be about 30×30ft big (approx. 10×10m or 3 stories high).

If you want to be a part of it, just upload a picture of yourself.  I just uploaded mine.  We’ll be immortalized together! 

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tweet This Post