Globcal is making Social Networking Worthwhile

Globcal International is a non-profit cooperative made up of individual social network experts, platform developers, event organizers, motivational speakers, foreign-affairs students, qualified as citizen diplomats located in countries all over the world that are all connected via social media platforms. The cooperative charter they developed is recognized in 87 countries. Each program cooperator is an independent agent trained in social network ethics, public diplomacy 2.0 (sometimes called Facebook diplomacy or Twitter diplomacy) as ambassadors or social network protagonists their presence is seen on networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, ecademy, InterNations, XING where they effect public policy by stimulating social reform and change by maximizing social networking potential through promoting particular themes, ideals, and genres to create and assimilate an understood global world-view.

The organization bases some of its idealism in Buddhist teaching by generating non-possession wealth and social capital through systematic regular posting of general interest information of feeds and other new media forms as would a news agency about meritorious individual people, celebrities, notable public figures and organizations dedicated to doing deeds for the common good through public awareness campaigns, peace activism, educational events, causes, and the development of humanitarian and environmental agendas of with others that they recognize.

Globcal's ambassadors and the members of their diplomatic corps identify social media items like articles, digital videos, live feeds, blogs, and news items to moderate discussions from their geographical regions or within particular organizational groups and further identify others that have performed meritorious deeds for others without any other motive than goodwill or kindness toward their fellow man. It is a secular organization open to all persons regardless of race, color, creed, country of origin, or political affiliation.

Globcal Mission

The stated purpose of the organization is to bring together business and professional leaders on-line within social network platforms to distribute and/or share social capital, promote social enterprises, provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in on-line communication, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. Members meet on-line to organize work on their public service goals and discuss the distribution of social capital by the Ambassadors and cooperative program members.

Globcal International is an umbrella group and task force promoting the use of diplomatic protocol in public diplomacy to develop goodwill and social well-being. Their goals involve following an established standard for professional presentation and etiquette on-line in social networking communities using the individual ambassadors that promote their public diplomacy ideals and serve as personal examples for good use of social network profiles for effective and professional communication to accomplish shared goals through special pages set-up through Facebook and at their websites. The organization allows individual organizations to present one or more ambassadors to represent their causes in the further presentation within their organization, network, blog, and/or news service.

Cooperative and Consortium

The organization is different from many others because it operates as an international cooperative, is all volunteer, and it has little or no operational expenses centrally. Each individual ambassador is a licensed on-line agent (co-operator), is responsible for their own time and expenses relative to promotion of their causes and for their operation and presentation within the network. The organization collects no funds except through grants that are directed toward administration of ambassador causes and which benefit the cooperative consortium structure on-line.

The cooperative structure was selected to create an open opportunity to many organizations, countries, states, cities, that share the mission of promoting goodwill and cooperation and permit any qualified individuals to raise funds on the behalf of their favorite causes, promote cooperative interaction, and their individual organizations transparently. Each ambassador is generally registered with their individual organization and is normally authorized by the founder, executive director, president or the board chair to serve their own group in the Globcal Diplomatic Corps Program.

Ambassadors

Globcal International currently (October 2009) engages 210 trained citizen diplomats known as cultural ambassadors, goodwill ambassadors, good neighbor ambassadors, peace ambassadors, missionary ambassadors, and has over 5,000 members world-wide connected through groups, pages and applications on Facebook. The members of the ambassador groups are individual people that are working with a particular ambassador on their projects or causes. The colloquial term of Facebook ambassador has become a popular idiom and neologism that has been has been identified with Globcal's program development of Facebook diplomacy (open public and citizen diplomacy).

Each independent social network ambassador maintains an individual constituency, promotes selected causes, interacts cooperatively with the public based on direct democracy to tell others in general about what others are doing to make the world a better place.

See also

• Scientific humanism
• Goodwill ambassador
• People to People International

References

1. ^ Evgeny Morozov (2009-03-02). "Facebook Diplomacy". Newsweek. 
2. ^ Scott Simon (2009-10-17). "State Department Guru talks Twitter Diplomacy". NPR. 
3. ^ Hanifan, L. J. (1916) "The rural school community center", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 67: 130-138. Also see Hanifan, L. J. (1920)The Community Center, Boston: Silver Burdett.
4. ^ Kaw, Eugenia (2009-01-29). Course on the Foundations of Buddhist Culture. Wikibooks. pp. 32
   
5. ^ "Globcal Homepage". http://www.globcal.org/. 
   
6. ^ "Facebook diplomacy: Peace may be just a click away". Kioskea. Associated Press. 2008-12-08. 
   

External links

• Globcal International Website
• Globcal International on Facebook
• Globcal: Goodwill and Diplomacy Online

About this article and photo collage:  The article above is from Wikipedia written by a third party we cannot guarantee its accuracy and perhaps it falls short of completely describing our entire program and maybe only deeds done may be mentioned there, but nonetheless it is well written, explains the current accomplishment of our program, and we appreciate the sincere journalistic efforts of the author. We re-published the article from the Globcal International article space at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globcal because as you may know Wikipedia is subject to change and frequent vandalism.

The photograph (image) was developed by myself, David Wright in an effort to portray and recognize the social networking ambassadors from Facebook that have helped us reach this point. It does not include all the ambassadors they simply will not fit in a single image so I selected pictures that would render as thumbnails and those who have been most instrumental up to this point.

For more information contact Col. David Jeffrey Wright, problemsmith@gmail.com

To read an article written by us about Globcal International and the Facebook Ambassadors see the Facebook Developer's Wiki Article "Facebook Ambassador"
http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Facebook_Ambassador

New Internet TLD for Environmental Causes and Organizations

Six Leading Environmental Companies, Associations, and Organizations Announce Their Support for Dot Eco LLC's Application for the .eco Top Level Domain

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Oct. 1, 2009 - PRNewswire -- A number of leading environmental companies, associations, and organizations today announced their official support for Dot Eco LLC's application for the .eco top level domain. Dot Eco LLC is an organization dedicated to promoting the acceptance and implementation of the .eco top level domain, and is backed by leading ecological and philanthropic groups, environmentally conscious high-profile individuals, and leading scientific voices.

"We are thrilled to join forces with these organizations to help further the Dot Eco initiative and raise awareness about the growing threats to our environment. These partnerships represent an important step towards the implementation of the .eco top level domain," said group co-founder Clark Landry.

Websites ending in .eco will enable individuals to express their support for environmental causes, companies to promote their environmental initiatives and environmental organizations to maintain their websites in a namespace that is more relevant to their core missions. By charter and mission, over 50% of the profits of the .eco initiative will be distributed to support environmental causes.

The .eco top level domain application of Dot Eco LLC is officially endorsed by Al Gore, the Sierra Club, the Alliance for Climate Protection, and Surfrider. The advisory board of Dot Eco LLC includes Davis Guggenheim (director of An Inconvenient Truth), Roger Moore (renowned actor and Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF), Richard Muller (Author of Physics for Future Presidents and contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and Jim Dufour of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The following organizations announced their support of the ".eco" top level domain as proposed by Dot Eco LLC:

Green Aviation International is comprised of aviation professionals, visionary leaders and partners in the aviation industry, environmental experts, carbon experts, government agencies, and NGOs working to produce a number of practical, low-cost solutions to help airlines reduce their impact upon the environment. Green Aviation International plans to set up green and sustainable aviation subsidiaries as well as develop new aviation products and services for travel businesses and the flying public.

Green Works Environmental Services addresses the growing needs of the business community by providing a range of environmental services and solutions. These services allow California businesses to become environmentally-aligned and compliant with federal, state, county, and city requirements.

Carbon Smart provides their clients with regular insights into carbon-saving tactics, green technology and expert views from their academic panel of carbon specialists. Carbon Smart provides practical, intelligent solutions to help businesses reduce costs, win business, manage risk and engage stakeholders in the low carbon economy.

The Renewable Energy Co-operative team (R-ECO) offers renewable energy implementation and renewable energy education. They provide solar photo-voltaic (PV) and solar thermal installations, ground source heat pumps, biomass boilers and micro-wind technologies. R-ECO has provided educational talks on topics such as off-grid renewable energy, climate change, environmental management systems and environmental impact assessment.

Lighter Footstep has been a leader in practical green living. This popular green lifestyle website has appeared on NPR's All Things Considered, has been voted one of Read/Write Web's Top 35 Environmental Websites, and has been cited by Wikipedia, Lifehacker, Treehugger, and dozens of the Web's most popular destinations.

GreenovationTV is the world's first internet TV channel for healthy, energy & water saving, green home improvements with a mission to help green the 130 million inefficient and sometimes unhealthy homes in the U.S., through practical advice and real solutions. Greenovation.TV delivers free 24/7 on-demand access to fast-paced and entertaining how-to videos that show all the ways to green a home and reduce energy consumption.

Dot Eco LLC also recently announced that renowned activist, Mark Massara, joined the initiative as its Chief Policy Officer to oversee policy development and legal concerns for the new top-level domain. This came shortly after Jim Dufour, Associate Director at Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Instrument Development Group, joined the initiative as the group's Chief Environmental Officer.

About Dot Eco LLC

Dot Eco LLC was founded by Fred Krueger, Clark Landry, and Minor Childers to secure, operate and promote the .eco top level domain in order to promote environmental initiatives and awareness. Dot Eco LLC will be applying for the .eco top level domain through the ICANN gTLD application process in early 2010. For more information visit www.supportdoteco.com.

SOURCE: Dot Eco LLC

Support and follow Dot Eco on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SupportDotEco

International Peace Day: FoxNews ignores the Most Successful Social Networking Awarenss Campaign

It is not spam if it is International Peace Day. The entire Internet has been fired up by Peace and Goodwill from everyone. There is nothing more important or nothing more popular ever discussed within social network platforms globally and probably nothing more important in our world today.

The 'People's Democratic Public Diplomacy Movement' has won over the attention of the entire globe, it is democracy pure and simple, people want peace and they will have it this day. Thinking about it a little more, it is very clear to see that diplomacy and progress cannot occur with dis-accord, war, famine and injustice, we need to find common ground to establish equality and harmony on the planet, what a great start to unite all people and start a global conversation. Peace it is so simple and so pure and a common need of mankind.

At 06:09 this morning I 'Googled' International Peace Day and they returned 53,000,000 unique hits; then from their news search and found 26,458 news stories, 38,527 blog posts posted in the past 24 hours.

Fox News Abstains from Promoting Peace on International Peace Day

It is obvious to me though that not everyone wants peace on earth; not even on this special day or even recognizes this day as necessary for the people or their readers, viewers or listeners. A few moments ago at 10:04 AM, I searched "International Peace Day" and "Fox News" and learned that they have not even mentioned this day. It all boils down to being a good citizen and is unnerving to see a supposedly prestigious network like FoxNews defy the will of the public and abstain from spending a single minute for an international awareness event that has captured the attention of so many people, world leaders and other news agencies. They say they are part of the mainstream media, but their abstinence and failure to recognize such an important event and observance worries me that they are the instigators of war and hatred.

They have on the other hand managed to mention, attack, and question the motives and work of US President Barack Obama 739 times in the last 24 hours. It is absolutely beyond me how a news network that serves millions to have such hatred and venom in their heart. Perhaps it is not a conspiracy, but I am positive it is not a coincidence, especially knowing that they have received over 100 news releases from all sorts of organizations relative to this day including the United Nations, Buckingham Palace, and the White House. Simply abominable, if a civil war or racial riots break out in the United States anytime soon, they will surely be responsible. As a strategist, I constantly watch them just to be informed as to where they stand and to know what the so called conservatives are doing. Which side are they on? Can they continue to be considered the right wingers if they are so far to the left of democracy and the will of the people?

Here are two screen captures to illustrate my point. Question everything said and reported on by Fox News. As an international strategist I watch them everyday, just to be aware of what is going on from all perspectives. I must say I enjoy watching them from here in Caracas, Venezuela as well, they have very good segments and informative stories; I know now though more than ever that they cannot be trusted to report on good news and that they are part of some higher agenda that is not very nice toward the people I help and work with everyday.

International Peace Day

International Peace Day, September 21, 2009: The International Day of Peace occurs annually on September 21. It is dedicated to peace, or specifically the absence of war, such as might be occasioned by a temporary ceasefire in a combat zone. It is observed by many nations, political groups, military groups, and peoples.

To inaugurate the day, the "Peace Bell" is rung at UN Headquarters in New York City. The bell is cast from coins donated by children from all continents. It was given as a gift by the Diet of Japan, and is referred to as "a reminder of the human cost of war." The inscription on its side reads: "Long live absolute world peace. Source: Wikipedia

If you are on Facebook or involved in social network platforms find the time to do a mini-post, write a story or form an opinion about International Peace Day today.

Also see the special message from the United Nations site by Ban Ki-Moon

I created two special links to help you find information and general content faster using TinyURL.

http://tinyurl.com/PeaceDay2009

http://tinyurl.com/PeaceDayNews

There is no other agenda more important today than International Peace Day. So far it has become the most successful social network observance event ever in history.

To follow us on Facebook and enjoy some of our programs that strive for a better world use these links below to our awareness campaigns. Here are three of many public awareness initiatives.


International Observances | Goodwill Ambassadors of the World | World Leaders Coalition

Editor's note: Just to make sure and give FoxNews the benefit of the doubt I made an additional search at 10:30 AM EST under a number of different parameters, I am sorry to report that I found 0 (zero) stories, written, televised or on any radio network they have or are affiliated with anywhere in the United States. FoxNews is owned by NewsCorp a powerful and influential news network watched by tens of millions of people worldwide.

Lets see if FoxNews changes their poor reporting and abstentionism toward world peace by day's end.

Here is the exact search parameter I created to follow Fox News: http://tinyurl.com/FoxNewsPeace

http://news.google.com/news/search?um=1&ned=us&hl=en&num=50&q=International+Peace+Day+site%3Afoxnews.com&cf=all&as_qdr=d&as_drrb=q

All fellow Ambassadors, Fans, other Bloggers, Governments and International Agencies are welcome to post this article and make quotes without requesting permission. 

Written by: Ambassador Col. David J. Wright, Globcal International (58) 212-516-0361

World Leaders Coalition to be Launched on Facebook by Globcal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

International Online Newsfeeds, Thursday, June 18, 2009 -- The World Leaders Coalition is scheduled to initiate its activities on Facebook through Globcal and its groups; the "Facebook People's Embassy" and "Facebook Diplomatic Corps" this Fall. The coalition group consists 32 world leaders and up to 450 other global role models that include movers and shakers like; Nobel prize winners, former presidents, current heads of state, and many well known celebrities currently serving as goodwill ambassadors for the United Nations, the European Union, and other noteworthy organizations and efforts.

The world leaders featured in the program include US President Barack Obama, Brazilian President Lula Da Silva, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Argentina President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, and other European, African, Latin American, Caribbean, and Asian Leaders, including the Presidents of China and India. There are also religious and political leaders involved based on the non-conflict peace based coalition message campaign they will support together. Some of the goodwill ambassadors include Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, Elton John, Sting, and many more.

These leaders and motivated personalities are united through their base public alignment, common beliefs, causes, and similar idealism on certain matters including human rights, organized labor, peace, anti-corruption, cooperation, fair-trade and more. The program is an interactive cross-platform communications sub-network that allows transparency between the extremes using agents (ambassadors) as intermediaries.

It is from the Facebook People's Embassy that anyone on Facebook can communicate with ambassadors from its diplomatic corps whom will be representing the World Leaders Coalition.

The Facebook People's Embassy program ambassadors are assigned for each geopolitical and cultural niche to include most social circles, groups of people, and geo-regions, these Ambassadors are given the privilege to directly post a weekly dispatch and communicate directly with these all of the world leaders collectively. Ambassadors post their weekly dispatch based on their communications in the Embassy and from the special Ambassador pages assigned and authorized by Globcal on local and global matters presented by their constituencies. Dispatches are presented under strict protocols and ambassadors are trained to be familiar with presentation rules and writing style.

The Facebook People's Embassy and the World Leader's Coalition will become fully operational on Facebook beginning in September or October. Their programs and development will be done through the Globcal Cooperative which is developing the contacts and interface for the cross-platform application that permits this facilitated communication that results in "power to the people."

Globcal is working with the Facebook People's Embassy to find, qualify, and train many more ambassadors from many countries, groups, and organizations to feed the World Leader's Coalition communications Dispatch. Since much of the development work is done on a spare time and volunteer basis much additional assistance is also still needed to accrue content for the base website as well.

To follow the news and stay informed join the Embassy and become a Fan of the Globcal page on Facebook. Outside of Facebook you can keep up with new developments by bookmarking Globcal.Org or subscribing to the Globcal blog at Blogger.

For more information contact: Col. David Jeffrey Wright, Founder and Project Developer, Facebook People's Embassy (formerly MUNSNE) in Caracas, Monday through Friday at +58(212)516.03.61 or write to embassy@globcal.org

-30-

The final list of participant leaders will be amended to this article no later that June 19, 2009.

Knowledge: Facebook Public Diplomacy or Democratic Diplomacy

These are some of the articles that were forwarded for further consideration and incorporating in our Globcal Social Public Diplomacy program study course for those seeking confirmation as Ambassadors.

The Power of Grassroots Leaders

Effective Solutions to End Extreme Poverty can be Found among the Unsung Grassroots Leaders in the World's Poorest Countries.

Over the last 50 years, countries around the world have tried to reduce the number of people living in extreme poverty. Collaborative efforts of nations have also tried to resolve the associated problems, including the lack of access to basic survival tools, education, health and the degradation of the natural environment.

Egyptian Activists Challenge Facebook-Enabled Diplomacy 2.0

The anonymous Egyptian youth activist with the Shabab 6 April movement at today's Alliance of Youth Movements Summit at Columbia University law school had a bone to pick with Facebook, but reserved his ire for the American government. It's bad enough that Facebook's group restrictions -- limits on how active members can be, restrictions on booting troublemakers out -- make organizing tricky. But he had far harsher words for the United States government's support of the reign of Hosni Mubarak. Why, he asked, was the U.S. so committed to perpetuating a repressive government against the wishes of that country's citizenry?

State Department videos embarrass the U.S.

State Department videos embarrass the U.S. among audiences abroad while the Department’s top promoter of Public Diplomacy 2.0 pushes to eliminate Voice of America radio journalism in favor of TV and Internet propaganda advertising and broadcasting based on Cold War models.

James Glassman on Public Diplomacy 2.0

The first features Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy James K. Glassman who will be speaking on the subject, "Public Diplomacy 2.0."

Glassman will be sharing his thoughts on how new technology, including social networking, is changing the face of public diplomacy - specifically, how new technology fits Glassman's new approach to engaging with foreign audiences by convening and facilitating rather than preaching and directing.

Beyond Good Intentions - New Blog Good to Follow

After years of working with aid projects around the world, Tori Hogan came to the unfortunate realization that the vast majority weren’t drastically improving lives. She seeks answers in Beyond Good Intentions.

Join the Model United Nations, Social Network Embassy at Facebook

We have more clearly defined our goals and work at the MUNSNE. Join us at Facebook.

Submit articles that you find as a hyperlink to blogs@globcal.org

Facebook, Internet, and Public Diplomacy

Source: Council on Foreign Relations | Lee Hudson Teslik, Associate Editor, CFR.org

Interviewed by the Council on Foreign Relations, Facebook’s vice president of global communications Elliott Schrage outlines a strategy for governments seeking to incorporate online social networking into their public diplomacy efforts.

Here is an extract from the interview:

If we’re looking at public diplomacy efforts, how should governments structure the way they are thinking about Facebook and other sites like it?

It’s much too narrow to view this through the prism of advertising. This is really about communications and outreach. So the question is, how do you build an audience? How do you establish a community of interests? That’s as true for the maker of laundry detergent as it is for someone who has a stimulus package for economic growth.

The question is: How do you create a community, and how do you build and nurture a community? To some extent, Facebook and the tools associated with it are incredibly valuable, perhaps even more valuable for people who have clear messages or clear issues that they want to address. Sure, advertising is one mechanism, but really what it’s about is communicating a message, finding a community, and building that community, engaging that community. So, do I see Facebook as being an incredibly valuable tool for public diplomacy? Absolutely.

Some of the most interesting uses of Facebook have been for the purpose of social action, which is essentially political action, whether it’s an extraordinary rallying of support by the Colombian community around the world to protest the terrorist activities of FARC–the Colombian militants–or whether it’s students protesting bank fees and bank charges in Great Britain, or whether it’s the Obama presidential campaign generating almost six million supporters on Facebook as a means of communicating his policies, his positions, and his campaign activities.

The State Department is now Twittering. From an outreach perspective, it seems like there’s a problem, or at least a limitation, for governments wanting to use these sorts of social networking technologies, because the people signing up for their feeds or their fan pages are going to be the people who want to be hearing that government’s message anyway.

The question is, what are the public diplomacy messages? If the messages are “we care about the rights of women,” and there are actions being taken either in a particular country or around the world, there are people who care about that who will want to learn that information. And if that information feeds into their stream, or their “news feed,” that information will be shared with their friends. And some of their friends will find that information interesting and they’ll want to sign up. The viral nature of communication through Facebook is, if anything, enhanced by thoughtful public diplomacy–if it’s thoughtful and if it really connects with an audience.

The challenge is, how do we move the dialogue away from a government-to-government dialogue, and more toward engaging citizens on the ground. I don’t think the United States has a particularly strong track record of doing that successfully. But I would say, based on my conversations with people in the new administration, they have a sensitivity to these issues and to [social media] as a priority like no other administration has had certainly since the dawn of the Internet era. So you’re going to see much more innovation, much more creativity. We have not yet designed the Internet equivalent, or the social networking equivalent, of Voice of America [the official radio and television broadcasting service of the U.S. government]. Voice of America was, for its time, an incredibly powerful tool. Incredibly powerful. But we have not yet come up with the tools and techniques for the social networking era that engage people in a way that the Voice of America really couldn’t, because it was constrained by being a one-way media.

Official Google Blog: Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave.

Official Google Blog: Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave.

Model United Nations, Social Network Embassy

The Model United Nations, Social Network Embassy (MUNSNE) is an international goodwill program of the Globcal Cooperative Coalition which is a cooperative non-profit organization formed to advocate and promote social networking through nonviolent communication and active involvement in social network platforms. Heads of state, cabinet ministers, chancellors or secretaries, their representative assigned ambassadors, professional networkers from selected networks, and others are recruited and licensed as Globcal|MUNSNE ambassadors, diplomats, or cooperators in the coalition effort. This is a very unique project that enables better communication in social platforms online.

In the Model UN Social Network Embassy (Diplomatic Corps), persons are selected from various networks that are familiar with their benefits and others who are competent in social networking where they operate the Social Network Policy Institute. Ambassadors are issued letters of credence with a clear diplomatic assignments to promote information communications technology in their respective territories through actively using techniques and methods that are considered as best practices by the institute. Ambassadors fulfill their roles by learning about diplomacy, adapting its application, and demonstrating its practicality on Facebook and other networks.


The diplomatic corps is a training ground and content resource group on Facebook that permits those learning about diplomacy and best practices that want to become ambassadors to contact other ambassadors and learn about what we do. We also have auditors, mentors, and observers that have the opportunity to consult with our members.

The ambassadors promote a baseline of new media | social media content relative to issues which has been recognized as non-regional matters in benefit of all of humanity such as; peace, environment, human rights, anti-corruption, and other matters that have evolved in the public view as politically correct.

The MUNSNE program was developed to work together cooperatively with many social networks that have proven to be valuable in the development of their own social networks and the new media forms that have evolved therein. Our collective effort focuses on etiquette, protocol standards, rules of engagement, and the establishment of social networks as a professional tool for internet users as a verifiable, safe, and secure mode for completing governmental, diplomatic and international work. To accomplish this work the program has adopted a number of topics and agendas that indifferently and positively promote non-controversial and non-violent communications among these networks.

The program engages cooperative owner agents who serve as secretaries, ambassadors, consulates, delegate members, and individual citizen members that are active within and interact throughout the Internet in an array of social networks and forums on a daily basis. Ambassadors have all had their identities confirmed and sign special agreements to interact as our officials within the Embassy and throughout the world independently within other networks under our rules of engagement with others. Together collectively, the diplomats provide and share information in the embassy to help one and the other extend and promote ethical social networking practices, present worthwhile projects, and introduce developing protocol standards from the core group.

The Social Network Embassy program has several primary activities that it performs online in other networks:

1. Liaison with other social networks through their individual members and by means of groups to study, evaluate, and review network methodology relevant to communication and privacy.
2. Promote social networks that we have evaluated, tested, and endorsed as conformable to our international standards applicable to be recognized as a cross-platform integral network.
3. Establish an ISO/ANSI specification for social networks that establishes a standard of good practice across multiple networks for professional network use, presentation, and style.
4. Collaborate with major social networks and permit them to have input through their own independent liaisons, ambassadors, or from within their company and agents.
5. Promote kindness and reciprocity to social networkers by demonstrating a goodwill agenda, networks that we endorse by using them, and a baseline message by selecting good value neutral content that has been adopted or ratified by most nations.
   

Ambassadors are selected based on their ability and willingness to participate and learn to interact below standards they consider acceptable and appropriate for effective global international communications with important organizations and world leaders on a specific range of problems facing our world using the new media technologies and existing open social networking platforms.

A basic website goes online this week to watch it develop you can visit the temporary site Globcal.

One of my favorite sayings is, "If you can't say something nice... don't say nothing at all. ..." Bambi 1942

Manage your Online Obligations by Creating a Personal Dashboard

Once you have started out on the Internet to establish social, personal, and professional profiles to market yourself, disseminate information, publish articles, sell services, communicate with your friends, or do anything else at all; you need to have a way to keep track of your profiles, email accounts, bookmarks, shared links, online résumés, advertisements, traffic, classifieds, auctions, search agents and other registered accounts.

I said in my article yesterday, "There are approximately 10 sites that I visit daily and depend on them to be able to serve my clients" well I was off a bit there are actually 14. I manage these fourteen sites through bookmarks using Mozilla Firefox because the browser lets you create a tabbed bookmark bar within the browser that is always visible; but for the sites I browse and market products on, maintain profiles within, and receive offers that I signed up for I created a visual interface. Bookmarks just don't cut it, my bookmark file always seems to get out of hand, it was then then I created an interface or 'weekly dashboard' of sites on which I am registered on and placed it online and created password access, sure it takes a little html knowledge but it works really well and I am always able to keep up with correspondence and everyone contacting me.

I found that it is really embarrassing if someone tries to reach you and they send you repeated messages or emails and you tell them months later when they finally contact you that you never got the email or message. What is even worse is if you have email and fail to respond when sincere people who admire your work try to come in contact with you and you throw them in the category of spammers or trash their message without ever having read it. They could be students, potential business associates, or well wishers that really need your acknowledgment. Perhaps the only solution is to hire an email screener, so that's what I did.

I frequently have tried to contact top executives and CEO's with sincere requests to communicate and have almost always had to resort to picking up the telephone finding out who their secretary was and then contacting the secretary in order to contact the particular person. Let's face it, many of today's CEO's, corporate board members, and chairs of corporations, foundations and start-ups are just too important and too busy to communicate with their peers online, it's obvious from my experience that those who do have email accounts don't read their messages, or don't have time to share with regular people or mid-level executives that are trying to make their way up the professional ladder.

In my opinion having a published email account or profile online for people to contact you that you have no intent of responding to or maintaining is unethical, lacks professionalism, it's a fault of respect, and it is improper according to protocol standards. There must be a solution, sure you can filter emails and profile information to find what is important and filter out what is unimportant as spam; but it is most important to all professionals to be respected and demonstrate integrity and to do that you MUST be responsive to your peers and constituents. Failing to be responsive to clients and constituents is a disgrace.

I noticed on Facebook there are some groups of top Web 2.0 founders who together are trying to create a solution for social network management by getting all the social networks in one place, Power.com created a solution for a few, but they are pushing offers and prizes too much, I always suspect spam and stupidity from those who offer their members money and prizes. I use Digsby too, but their little green guy upsets me for some reason, I use it anyway though for a certain amount of time each day. Someone really needs to develop an integral solution.

My personal 'Conexion Globcal' solution involves a combination of email filters, employing a person as an email screener in addition to my secretary, frequent visits to 14 bookmarks, and using the personal online interface I created once a week; the result is I never miss an important email or contact, I am able to maintain my professional integrity, and never violate good practice protocol, it's more than I can say for some of my peers. I am considering now whether or not I should further develop my personal dashboard as a product for development like a piece of software or a browser extension, and often wonder also if a management solution already exists that may have escaped my notice. Perhaps nothing can replace good training, ethics, hard work, dedication, and an integral business model.

Now that I work as an Ambassador at XING for the country of Venezuela and as a moderator for XING Caracas it is more important now than ever to be a good communicator and to be highly responsive to a large group of people.

Those reading this article that wish to contact me should do so on XING: a network for professionals and business or on Facebook. Just to let you know I do not communicate with people that do not have an online profile, photograph, or those who use photographs of other people to represent themselves.

Four Essential Network Types for Good Communication

There are four essential types of networks that internet users should be on to communicate well when they are online. If you do not have at least one account on each type of network you are hiding from something, not a very good Internet user, close to becoming a hermit, or just starting out.

People who are competing in this fierce world need to communicate with their peers, they need to be responsive to their constituents, and they need to share their abilities with others as a matter of goodwill in order to; in turn be good netizens.

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of social network sites online today, some are better than others, some are necessary, some are specialty networks, and others are just emerging. I am on most of them and really have not found a use for some of them yet, but I am trudging on and trying to complete my profiles to strengthen my social media brand. There are approximately 10 sites that I visit daily and depend on them to be able to serve my clients, all of my 32 clients I currently maintain are online except one and even he is trying to learn enough about the internet to be able to use it well.

To be a good communicator you have to participate in the communication that is taking place. For the purpose of this article we are talking about being visible to others who are participating in the communication that is taking place on the Internet. We must be present in order to communicate and we have to be responsive to communicate.

Herein I define four basic social networking types as presence networking, professional networking, share networking, and passive display networking. Some networks have more than you need or want and can divert your attention from your online purpose, so be careful. Many networks can serve multiple purposes now because they have evolved from their original purpose into something more.

To have an online presence today you need to participate in presence networking with friends. The networks that promote this type of networking include Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Hi5 and several others. Facebook seems to be the best and I have not found much use for the others, but I maintain minor or incomplete profiles on them just so users can contact me I hope someday to be able to complete those profiles but that may not happen unless Obama adds a few hours to the clock. My daughter who is in high school prefers MySpace, as do many under the age of 18, my son who is in college prefers Facebook.

Just about everyone I am doing business with also uses a professional network for business networking purposes. Here in Venezuela, I became the number one social networker using this type of network and in December shortly thereafter I was appointed the Ambassador for one of them. These types of networks let you post and display your professional credentials, your CV, seek employment, and network with others in your professional field. They are excellent networks for creating your professional identity as well; they include XING formerly known as OpenBC, ecademy, LinkedIn and several others. I became the number one networker in Venezuela on ecademy in August of 2008, and became the Ambassador in Venezuela for XING in late December. I became especially fond of XING because they purchased econozco and neurona which were dominant professional networks in Latin America, being in Caracas it makes sense; also with the economy going into a dive I further thought it would be good to be connected in Germany where XING is based. XING is also attractive because they merged with Social|Median in December which has a large US market share and very innovative technologies which will be incorporated soon by the Social|Median founder Jason Goldberg who became known as one of the brightest social network developers in the world in 2008 and now he is also vice-president at XING. LinkedIn was always a little harder to use in my opinion and some of the groups there spam a lot by posting ads like "connect with me I accept contacts," but I maintain a profile there as well to be more connective with US networkers and potential clients.

I consider share networking a good way to connect with people that have similar interests and likes some of these networks include Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, and quite a few others like Social|Median who have taken this type of social media to another level by associating and incorporating "twitter".

Passive display networking has been around since the emergence of the Internet, it is simply the posting of a profile with contact information online using a personal home page. If you use your old website well and integrate it with the other social media sites you can get a pretty good rank on Google and with other search engines. Use of a personal home page should be well written using the latest html or xhtml language. If you need help with this consult one of the many resources on the Internet, I personally use several editors depending on my mood but I am especially partial to HTML-Kit.

I included two links to Wikipedia and another new site below for further reference and your personal exploration. I hope this article gives my clients and group members for March a good start with establishing their social network presence. I'll be back with my formal article on ethics and good practices in the next few days and perhaps another article tomorrow. Until then, Ciao from Caracas!

Information that may help you.

Wikipedia: What is a Social Network?
Wikipedia: List of Social Network Websites
New Website Social Network List