About Talia Whyte

Posts by Talia Whyte:

Do You Have Your Digital Citizenship?

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Four children at computer terminals (depth of field/high key)Last week I went to a dinner party with other families where the conversation naturally gravitated to getting kids ready to get back into school mode.  A couple of mothers were concerned about and asked me how their tween daughters can use the Internet safely and responsibly.

I usually teach something called “digital citizenship” to all my students in my basic computer literacy classes.  Some of these tips are based on my own experiences – both good and bad. Here are the citizen tips I gave to the concerned mothers:

Branding

Like I discussed a couple of weeks ago, online personal branding is very important today.  What you say and do today online give others a perception – both good and bad.  Most kids don’t realize that their actions on Facebook or Instagram permanently stay online, and can affect them later in life, like getting accepted into college or getting a job.  It is always better to side on your conscience.  I always say that if you are not sure you want to say or post something online because it might be seen as offensive, go with your gut feeling.

Password Security

Make sure your kids know how to create secure passwords for all their various social media profiles.  This is especially important for online banking and email accounts.  Having a hard time remembering all your passwords? Use LastPass or other apps that allow you to safely store your passwords.

Images

Kids (and everyone for that matter) love taking pictures on their mobiles, but it is not a good idea to post every type of image online. Images that reveal where you live can entice some really creepy people.  It’s a good idea to turn off the geotagging feature.   Also, don’t post provocative (sexual, violent etc.) images.  In many municipalities, sharing sexually explicit images online, especially of minors, can get you arrested and put on the sex offender registry!

Private Information

It’s a given to not share home addresses, private phone numbers and emails online.  But you also want to be careful about sharing information about your family members online as well.  There is a reason I don’t really talk about my private life online.  Also, be careful about revealing too much about routine behavior, like where you go for your coffee or morning jog.  If you go on vacation or leave your home for any extending period for any reason, it’s better to wait until you are home to share your vacation pictures.  Don’t inadvertently let potential burglars know when you are not home.

Friends

You might have thousands of “friends” or followers on Twitter or Facebook, but I am pretty sure most of them are not actually your friends.  Heck, you may not have actually met most of them in person.  If you don’t know someone who is seeking a friend request, carefully vet that person.  You are not obligated to be “friends” with everyone online.

Online Protection

Teach your kids about viruses, malware and how to protect themselves from identity theft.

 Intellectual Property

The Internet has made it easier to use someone else’s words or images without giving the author credit.  It’s a good idea to learn and understand basic copyright law at Creative Commons so you don’t run into a problem later.

Fact vs. Fiction

If you find something online that is too good to be true, it most likely isn’t.  Not everything you see online is true or a truthful source.  Wikipedia is a great resource, but because it is mostly an open source website, a lot of stuff there is false, erroneous and just plain wrong.  Vet and verify information you find online.  I like using a website called Snopes to get the truth.

General Netiquette

The lines between our professional and personal lives are blurring more and more every day.  How you talk to your boss in an email is not the same as how you text your buddies on a late night.  Also, the Internet is global; pretty much anyone in the world can see your social media or websites.  Be careful about using colloquialism and double entendre online.  What might be a silly joke among your American “friends” might be taken the wrong way by someone else living in another country.

I may have rained all over your digital parade, but this is the new normal of dealing in cyberspace, and the moms definitely took note.  Everyone should be a responsible digital citizen!

The Black Panthers: Diplomats for Revolution

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Black Panther Newspaper Panthers in Kasbah AlgiersLast weekend I saw the new documentary “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution.”  I have read a lot about the Panthers since I was in high school.  Much of what I know comes from the larger context of the Black Power Movement, which includes Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael and the Nation of Islam.  The film is really meant to be a primer for people who don’t know much about the Panthers to get a basic understanding of their most important milestones, like the breakfast program and the murder of Fred Hampton.  The two-hour movie is packed with a lot of information; so much information that many of the topics brought up could be their own documentaries.   

Following the film screening, director Stanley Nelson was present and took questions from the audience.  The most common questions were why was this or that not included in the film.  The reality here is that it was meant to be a two-hour movie, and only so much time to cover all the important topics.  A true movie that included every aspect of the Black Panther timeline would be a 10-hour mini-series!  

Some of the topics that were briefly discussed in the film that I would have liked to have learned more about include the misogyny within the Party, the alleged crimes committed by Ericka Huggins, Jamal Joseph and others, and the weird, criminal behavior of Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver.  But, again, maybe these subjects need their own dedicated movies.

What stood out to me was the international solidarity the Panthers attempted to create after Cleaver went into exile in Algeria via Cuba, following a police ambush in Oakland that killed young panther Bobby Hutton in 1968.  By this time, the Panthers had already gained a reputation as revolutionaries by other oppressed groups worldwide and connected with other liberation struggles.  

Algeria was already a hotbed of revolutionary acts, since its violent independence from France in 1962.  (To learn more about the Algerian struggle, read Frantz Fanon’s A Dying Colonialism and watch Gillo Pontecorvo’s powerful The Battle of Algiers. – both well worth your time!)  By the time Cleaver and company came to Algeria in 1972, President Houari Boumediene had turned his country into a haven for other revolutionaries seeing refuge.  The Panthers were granted an office space in the old North Vietnamese embassy, a small, monthly stipend from the Algerian government and were allowed to grant asylum to other Panthers coming from America.  Kathleen Cleaver once said that the BPP international chapter was the “embassy of the American Revolution, receiving revolutionary visitors from all over the world,” and sharing news about “revolutionary developments within the United States.”  

However, the Cleavers overstayed their welcome and were eventually kicked out of Algeria, after the fiasco behind the hijacking of Western Airlines Flight 701.

By the time the Cleavers left, Pete O’Neal, former chairman of the Kansas City BPP chapter, found refuge in Algeria and became the new leader of the international section.  O’Neal was a hardcore Marxist who felt that his prosecution by the US government on gun charges was politically motivated.

Eventually O’Neal and his wife Charlotte were also forced out of Algeria and moved to Tanzania, which was ruled at the time by socialist President Julius Nyerere.  O’Neal still lives in Tanzania on his farm where he advocates for community development and self-reliance.  PBS also produced this documentary about O’Neal a few years ago, which I highly recommend.

Why You Need a Personal Website

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Website Wireframe Sketch On Digital Tablet Screen

One of the most frequently asked questions by my clients is whether or not they should have a personal website.  Many of them are job seekers looking to better brand themselves to potential employers.  In my opinion, I think personal websites can only enhance your chances of finding your dream job.  And, no, I am not just saying this because I am a web designer trying to get new clients.  I say this coming from my own experience with this website.  

I am self-employed in journalism and digital marketing, so it is a must that I have a website that showcases who I am and my previous work.  In today’s competitive market, anyone in any field that is not self-employed also needs a website to get the next job.  

Let’s break down the reasons:

  1. You can control your brand – The first thing most recruiters do today is google the names of prospective job applicants.  As many of you know, both good and bad things about you can show up in a google search.  Having your own website can control your brand and help protect your reputation online.  Presenting information on your own website shows you in the way you want others to view you online.  Also, having your name as the website’s URL (yourname.com) also establishes your brand and will guarantee that your site will show up on the top of the first page in search engine results.
  2. Sell yourself – The whole point of your personal website is to sell yourself.  Why should someone hire you?  Your online portfolio should be a grand showroom of your best work for recruiters who want additional information about you that goes beyond a CV or resume.  You can show off what makes your skills and personality unique and marketable. Also, anyone in the world can see your website, and you never know where your next job will come from.  I have gotten really awesome job opportunities from people who happened to stumble upon this website!
  3. Show your investment – Having your own website shows others that you invest in yourself and career by branding yourself online.  Employers will take you more seriously.
  4. You are accessible – Having a website makes it easier to find and contact you about work.  Your website should have a clean, simple navigation design, where it is easy to find your biography, contact information and samples of your work.  Stick to the three-click rule, make sure your site supports web diversity and avoid busy-looking websites like the plague.
  5. Links to social media and networking tools – Your website can also be the one-stop to all of your social media accounts, which makes it easier for recruiters to find you online in other places.  You can also put links to other online spaces where recruiters can find your work like Behance.  A word on social media: a lot of people ask me why they should have a website, when they already have a Linkedin or Facebook page.  The reasons are already stated above.  Everyone’s social media accounts look the same.  Having your own website distinguishes yourself from others and showcasing your unique skills and personality.  Furthermore, there are always new social media tools coming onto and going away from the market.  Websites are more future-proof that can grow with your career.

Now that summer is over and everyone is back to regular work and school schedules, now is a great time to think about doing a personal website.  Global Wire Design is running a 10 percent discount on all of its services until 30 September 2015.  Contact us about your online marketing solutions!  

Two Gone, But Not Forgotten Musical Geniuses

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Nina SimoneNina Simone and Rahsaan Roland Kirk were two larger-than-life, musical geniuses who never received the commercial recognition they should have received during their respective lifetimes.   Recently, two documentaries about Simone and Kirk came out that give a new perspective on their lives and give them the highest praise due to them.  I loved both films and I hope you will see them too!

What Happened, Miss Simone

I didn’t know much about Nina Simone’s life before the documentary beyond listening to her records.  But after watching it, I had a greater understanding of where she was coming from both musically and politically.  Raised in the segregated South, Simone had to overcome many racial barriers in the music world.  She was denied a scholarship to Curtis Institute of Music because she was black, but ended up at Juilliard.  To pay for school, she played piano in Atlantic City, where she perfected her mix of jazz, gospel, blues and classical music.

She had a very messy private life.  I knew that she had bipolar disorder, but didn’t know about the domestic abuse she suffered under her husband, as well as being emotionally abusive to her daughter.  And, apparently, she fired a gun at a record company executive she thought was stealing royalty money from her.  Her volatile behavior was only known to a few people until after her death.

But she is best known for her powerful songs, which became some of the most important music of the civil rights movement.  “How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?” she once said.   Hit songs like Mississippi Goddam and Young, Gifted and Black became anthems for the era.  However, her career suffered commercially because of her radical politics.  She was denied appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show because she embraced black power.

Simone would be reduced to singing in small nightclubs in Paris for a few hundred dollars a performance.  Her mental illness also became more pronounced as the years progressed, and she eventually died from breast cancer.  But her musical legacy lives on.

One of her best performances, including Mississippi Goddam:

Rahsaan Roland KirkThe Case of the Three Sided Dream

Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an interesting character.  He was a jazz multi-instrumentalist who considered himself a “journey agent” and his band members “poets.”  He was blind, but he had vivid dreams that helped him see his music.  The movie title is named after his most famous album, which was also political in nature, with rants about the Watergate scandal and racism.

Kirk once proclaimed that jazz was black classical music.  In the early 1970s TV shows like the Ed Sullivan Show preferred to have pop stars come on to perform instead of jazz musicians because they were more commercially acceptable.  Kirk mounted a campaign to get “black classical music” on mainstream television by having fellow “jazz militants” disrupt live television programs like the Dick Cavett Show with whistles.  Kirk finally got Ed Sullivan’s attention and was invited to perform, but only under the condition that he performed a nice, non-threathening Stevie Wonder song.

Being a man that literally toots his own horn, he went against the establishment and played the powerful “Haitian Fight Song” with Charlie Mingus and other poets.

One of his most memorable performances:

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