Ragu... I mean Razoo!

In taking a peak at this article, PR Leap cites Razoo's stated mission as:

"To promote social good and to inspire others to get involved by making giving
and serving fun, easy, and meaningful."

Many people have seen the Ragu (yes, the pasta sauce) commercials. Didn't they try to promote the same type of thing? Inspiring people to get together to have fun with other meaningful people, and enjoy an easy meal by serving Ragu as an easy way to complete that meal. Sounds about right...

But, what's the real premise of Razoo (the social networking site this time)?

Razoo is trying to pioneer a new type of web 2.0 where visitors work together for a shared cause characterized as "good" in nature. It's the beginning of what Paul Lamb of CNET News calls, "Neighborhood social networking." Paul talks about these new sites as a way of learning about people in need, and then actually helping them, all on the go!

While initiatives like this always sound magnificent in theory, there are a few concerns I have:

1) Will enough people actually use it so that an older lady in an Idaho town who needs help, can actually receive the help from someone else located nearby?

2) People will abuse the system by either a) volunteering and never appearing, or b) subsequently stalking persons they help out.

From these concerns, word of mouth with thine friends sounds just a bit more promising, and safe. What's more, you're essentially soliciting anonymous helpers by inviting anyone who wants to help to contact you. Each site of this kind works differently, but I think an entire-address-book-mass-e-mail is a better idea.

I Don't Want to Show ME Off

This week's reading was about professional networking. I read a few articles that talk about networking, professionally, via online means. See, it's one thing for me to hand out a copy of my resume to prospective employers, or to e-mail a copy to someone with whom I'm trying to network. Posting it for everyone to see is entirely different. While it's less effort for me because I don't have to send my resume to individual people, it's also much more revealing of myself. It's trading laziness for security.

I'm very stingy with my facebook profile, for it does not reveal my address, phone number, or other personal information at any time. Even the little amount it does reveal, I am able to control who sees. The header of my resume contains my phone number and address. If I'm so stingy with my facebook profile, what are the chances that I'll be in a hurry to post my resume? Very small.

Do I want people to be able to google me? Realistically, no. It would be a little too invasive of my privacy. It's nice to be able to have an online persona that is recognizable and easily findable, but at what price? In my opinion, the price is too high. As a humungous fan of face-to-face interaction, I would rather use other peoples' online information to track them down, to have a face-to-face conversation with them. I have no problem connecting and interacting with people online, it's actually the people that I don't want to interact with, who I'll ultimately end up interacting with because they've tracked me down, that keep me from publishing a back-door to my life on the internet (sometimes literally).

Everything I see says that networking is the most important thing that you can do. I think that becoming the most dedicated, educated, and hard-working person will be enough to set you apart from everyone else. Having a niche that makes you so special will have employers either seeking you, or refusing to turn down employment to you. I plan to have a very specialized career track where I know exactly where I fit, and where there will always be room.