Category: A Little Bit Geeky

Dos and Don’ts of Professional Headshots

Nobody likes pictures of themselves. While I’m sure there is some science behind that, a good professional headshot is crucial. Recently I was asked for a headshot. My current headshot was no longer current. My hair longer, and honestly, I have a few more wrinkles! 😉 So I hit up my ever-talented husband, Chris, for some help.

For my background, I chose the Busch Student Center. I love the activity of the BSC! There students and staff are constantly milling about and talking together. I love witnessing the people of SLU coming together to fulfill the mission of the institution.

Even if I’m not a fan of pics of myself, I’m pleased with the resulting picture:

Jackie-Koerner-Original-Web-1024

After I uploaded my headshot, I looked to see who else had uploaded theirs for the conference. I saw some great pictures, and one snapshot. Yikes! This person was the keynote speaker and had uploaded a picture of himself at a restaurant with low-lighting and holding a beer to boot! While I do partake in adult beverages myself from time-to-time, they have no place in headshots or profile pictures.

For professional headshot, go the extra mile and make it even more polished by following these tips:

Keep it evergreen
Many of us have lovely campuses, but avoid taking shots outside. Your picture will always look distinctly spring/summer/fall/winter.

Make it interesting
Don’t just stand in front of a blank wall, but stand somewhere meaningful to you. Are you always in the student center? Or maybe you love the library? Make your scene somewhere that makes you feel happy, but also be sure your photographer has you in focus and not too much of the surrounding area.  A good photographer will be able to do this.

Light on the makeup
People want to see the you they would see everyday at work. Making hair and makeup too intense will make you resemble those Glamour Shots from the 90s.

Go classic
Keep jewelry classic. What do I mean? Don’t go with a statement necklace or fashion earrings, but maybe some simple studs or pearls. This way you won’t look at the photo a year from now and say, “What was I thinking?!”

Wear what you love
Choose clothing that you feel good in and look good in. Wear clothes that fit you well. It will show in the picture and your energy in the photo.

Add movement
Speaking of energy, don’t freeze in an unnatural pose. Smile naturally by putting your tongue behind your teeth. Take a breath in as the photographer goes to snap the pic. The photographer can help with your body to make you look more natural.

Say no to snapshots
Bringing this back around, do not try to use a snapshot or crop someone out of the picture to make it usable. The failure here is it doesn’t look composed or professional.

On downloading a profile picture
Do not download a picture from another profile. Always keep your headshot in a folder on your computer where you can find it. Downloading a headshot or picture from another website runs the risk of looking grainy. This is because the picture might have been compressed. When displaying it larger than say, the thumbnail it came from, would cause the computer to fill in the missing information (pixels) on the picture and appear grainy.

Do you have more tips? Let me know! Are you proud of your professional headshot? Do share! Has this post helped you come to the conclusion you might need a new headshot? Great. I’m sure you’ll look amazing. Help others look great too and share this post with them!

The Great Wide Open

Last night I happened upon this gem in my site stats:

Screen Shot 2015-11-02 at 11.05.01 PM

Well. Hmmm. Sadly for the searcher, not on this site. But what does this say about the youth and how they’re using this great vast medium of the Internet.

Let’s take email for instance. No one ever has said this is the right way or the wrong way to use email. Some people are deleters. Some archivers. Some a mix of the 2. Others keep their inbox full. Then there is the communication protocol. Is it like a text? Better than a call? Formatted like a formal letter? A personal letter? We are all using technology in varied and increasingly creative ways.

The Internet is full of gems for us all. It’s a metaphorical horn of plenty. It might just be the great education and access equalizer in our educationally disjointed society. How wonderful to have this tool for educators and learners and the curious to use!

While I’m not sure this young person was fruitful in their search for nude girls from Mii Plaza, watching and learning about how people are using the media is not only fascinating, but very educational. It teaches us multitudes about society, thought processes, curiosity, creativity, and where we are headed ethnographically.

Next time you get the chance, ask someone how they use technology. You might learn some new ways to leverage the media. You might even learn something cool about how people are venturing into the great wide open.

Soul Crushing Content

This afternoon on the way in I was listening to St. Louis Public Radio, St. Louis’ local NPR station. There was a live broadcast titled “Early Childhood and Media”in concordance with Media Literacy Week. The conversation was wonderful about how we can teach children about this world.

I enjoyed the whole discussion, well, the twenty minutes I caught, which happened to be the final twenty minutes of the piece. I cannot wait for the whole to be posted online.

I liked where Dafna Lemish pointed out about behavior and the Internet. Online interactions are just as real as in person interactions – if you wouldn’t say that to someone in person, you shouldn’t say it online – and how online interactions have emotional and social impact. I also like how she noted augmented reality could be used to teach empathy as well (putting someone in someone else’s shoes), but often the only recollection is regarding first person shooters when people think of augmented reality.

The other major point I enjoyed came from Deborah (or perhaps Debra) in Jennings. She brought up the topic of media impacting our emotions and attitudes towards others, and is often overwhelmed with such toxic levels of negativity.

I absolutely loved this talking point!

There is already so much negative and unfortunate in the real world. We do not need producers fabricating reality shows and scenarios to poison the media many of us use to unwind after a stressful day.

So much more can be done with these powerful tools. Why not instead, producers, choose to educate, inform, entertain with positive methods? Train wrecks are low hanging fruit. You’ll always get gawkers. Challenge yourselves and create something positive and engaging.

For me, I love reality television shows that are upbeat. I do not watch the shows where there is backstabbing, betrayal, and hatred. I cannot recall which of the gents said it on the show, but, yes, it is soul crushing. There is just too much of that in the real world. Why fabricate more negativity for us to consume?

 

Sticks and Stones and the Internet

A couple weeks ago Chris and I went on a drive in our new car. The kids were with Grandma and we just enjoyed the journey. During our drive we discussed many things, including an upcoming project of mine that will make me more visible online.

Chris argued that by putting myself out there in any way and by simply being a woman, I am opening myself up to the unfortunate side of the Internet. He hates this side of the Internet, totally thinks I shouldn’t let this stop me, but just wanted to warn me. I told him I wasn’t worried because my focus isn’t anything, even seemingly, controversial. He replied, “It doesn’t matter. They don’t care. It’s just because you’re a woman. And smart. They hate that.”

I don’t get why people feel justified in harassing other people, on or off the Internet. It just doesn’t make sense.

Well, he’s right.

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By just having thoughts in my head, I’m controversial.

This underlying and sometimes blatant hatred of women just because they’re women and smart is…well, I just cannot put it into words. I honestly cannot comprehend any possible reason for such a stupid perspective. Why would someone hate anyone for being smart? Having opinions? Or even just existing?

You want to know what else bothers me? This thought that what happens online isn’t real. Last week I read an amazing article that expresses what is real and constant for many women in our society.

John Oliver breaks down the reality for women on the Internet with a little bit of humor.

For god’s sake, you’d think the way the people are lashing out at these women, they were axe murderers or even Hitler himself.

What happens online doesn’t stay online. This harassment affects our every day lives. By continuing to dismiss and accept these crimes against women, the oppressive power will persist on the Internet just as it has in society for thousands of years.

Conformity of Wearable Tech

Don’t get me wrong, I love a shiny new new Apple product just as much as the next person. I have even been smitten with the Apple Watch since it came out, even though I have absolutely no practical use for such a techy trinket.

My other half asked the other day if they did in fact come out with a Rose Gold version of the Watch just like they did with the iPhone and if it came with a pink band. I knew both the Rose Gold Watch and pink band existed, but I went on the website today to triple check.

For a company that has traditionally celebrated originality, you may only have the Rose Gold face in these 2 band options:

Snapped from Apple.com
Snapped from Apple.com

That is unless you wish to fork out additional Benjamins beyond the purchase price for another band. This isn’t exclusive to the Rose Gold face either. It is across the board with each face variation.

I know this slim selection offering is to simplify product processing, but why not then just sell the faces and the bands separately? For a brand that people have come to know for innovation and style, this bums me out. Let the people choose and show how they Think Different!

The Brains and the Bodies

This morning Chris sent me this article. I don’t know how to feel about this. No, I do. This saddens me.

I am busy. I work part time at Saint Louis University. I run a non-profit. I am working on my dissertation for my Ph.D. I have 2 kids: 1 being very young, and the other being heavily involved in dance and music, so I also play taxi 5 of the 7 days in a week. I do the brunt of the childcare, household management, and housework.

With as busy as I am, I could not imagine hiring someone to help lighten my load.

Some parts of this sharing economy are wonderful. For example, Chris and I enjoyed using AirBnB for our honeymoon and we’d totally use it again. Other services make me wonder if people are getting their fair share. This story from NPR provides a few examples and tidbits about the sharing economy. Most experiences are positive, but is this just from the users side? Again I wonder what the agents are getting.

Even now, when women outnumber men in the formal workplace, they continue to bear the brunt of that invisible domestic work, often for many, many hours a week. So women — those who can afford it, at least — have the most to win from passing that load on to somebody else…

75% of Alfreds are women

What does this say to the rest of society about domestic work? Women still have to get it done. Now we are ordering people through an app to take care of the boring, messy bits of life. Likely, the person fulfilling your needs will be a woman. Does she get paid what she should for such integral work?

How will this erode as time goes on? What sort of implications does the sharing economy mean for the future economy?

I am befuddled by ordering life through an app. While I do not enjoy doing some things in life, it is part of being human.

Another bicycle messenger showed me in his phone’s settings how the app could track him at all hours, which he found Orwellian. He talked for a few minutes about how he’s just doing this part-time between creative gigs, and hoped to get out soon. Before we finished talking, his app flashed a message: “Let’s move!” and he pushed off.

I have no desire to work more than 40 hours a week. I am an extremely productive employee. No one should regularly work more than 40 hours a week. Either the demands are too great, or the productivity too low. I love my career, but it is work to live, not live to work. I hope to never have an app tell me, “Let’s move!” I wish others didn’t as well.

The Cloak of Invisibility Allows Gender-Based Violence

You can be an asshole on the Internet, but why?

On Monday I began listening to Invisibilia’s most recent episode, Our Computers, Ourselves and finished it yesterday afternoon.

The second half of the show strongly resonated in my mind. As the story goes, this commuter train rider was tired of rude commuters so he started a Twitter account where he’d post pictures of the infractions in attempt to shame rude people on the train. His crowd shaming efforts soon turned shameful. Not only did he post pictures of rude behavior, but he began being rude himself – the worst was posting a picture of a woman with terrible acne scarring and making a snide remark. When word about this Twitter account got out, his followers skyrocketed.

I’m sure there are other situations like this. Person is a jerk. People are fascinated by the tragedy. Jerk gets an audience.

Why are we as society so fascinated with the negative?

Why is it ok to say these things on the Internet?

The Internet is full of trolls. (See: This American Life “If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say, SAY IT IN ALL CAPS”) I theorize the troll to person ratio is 4:1. They will troll on anyone for any unconceivable reason. Even worse than the trolls are completely heinous dungeon dwellers. These individuals find it completely acceptable to threaten women, often with vicious, violent acts.

Gender-based violence is nothing new. There are still people in society who will say such comments or threats to a woman’s face, but the cloak of invisibility people feel the Internet provides seems to turn down the volume on the super-ego and unleash the unbridled id.

Unfortunately it seems to take a rally cry, hash tagging and a bunch of blogging to hold social media venues accountable for reacting to gender-based violence. For now, most offenses still receive boiler plate responses that include phrases like:

Just like when we are interacting in a public space we may overhear conversations that are offensive…

This same platform chirped further about how users can find such content “frustrating”. Yes, being told to “go get raped” or “get raped with a broken bottle” is totally frustrating, just like this rush hour traffic.

It is never ok to suggest or threaten violence against anyone. This plague of gender-based violence is open for everyone to see and affect. The best cure for a bully is an ally. Stand up and be an ally against gender-based violence. Don’t give the assholes an audience, report their heinous behavior, and their soapbox will cave in.

Internet for All

The term net neutrality has been bouncing around for the past few years. While I’m sure many know what it is and the true impact of this on society, I’m also sure many get glassy-eyed when they hear the discussions. This is something that will affect us all. We should all pay attention for the hope of our society.

Perhaps I am being a bit bold when I say “hope for our society.” I think I’m spot on. We do not know yet the impact of the Internet on us as a people. We can clearly see that it has changed us, and I’d argue for the better.

Internet access is something most individuals have either in their home or at least in their community. Net neutrality levels the playing field by providing nearly limitless access to educational resources (MOOCs anyone?), professional connections and collaborations (how many of us got to collaborate and communicate with people around the world instantly before the Internet?), and so much more!

Net neutrality is important to our current success as a society. Not only do people pay bills online, shop for new clothes, but we do amazing things together. We collaborate. We communicate. We educate. We are empowered and all through this interconnected web.

President Obama spoke today about his thoughts on net neutrality. I do hope the FCC takes some of the hints so we can keep moving forward with such powerful intentions.

Read and Watch more:

Gizmodo

NPR on All Tech Considered