Breaking my limited ties to Twitter

I rarely log into my Twitter account. I never liked tweeting. But this morning, before work, I decided to sign on. Much to my surprised, I was hacked, if that is even the right term.

Yup, someone was tweeting rants in my name. And before you start accusing me of going all Anthony Weiner on you, while the rants were not the kind of things I want said in my name, there were no inappropriate pictures or other personal material. Someone just apparently wanted to make a point about a topic that is not worth even mentioning here. And they made it over and over and over again by linking to related topics on the net. Needless to say, I did not share these views.

After deleting several of the rogue tweets, I just decided to leave the Twitter universe -- deleted my account. It's a useless venue for me. I wasn't following many people, nor did I have any interest in what they said 90 percent of time. Just seems like a lot of gloating and trivial content.

I doubt I will miss Twitter. This hacking episode reaffirms my position that while social media does some good, it's mostly a useless hazard that brings down everyone from politicians to regular folks just innocently trying to stay connected. Twitter in particular, even more than Facebook, seems particularly high on risk and low on value.

Facebook messages reaching for the heavens

A former colleague of mine at USA Today died the other day after a long illness. He wasn't a close buddy, but he was a "friend" on Facebook. Because I don't work at the newspaper anymore, I learned of his passing through the social networking site.

Since his death, people have been writing messages to him on his Facebook wall. The key phrase is "to him." There are dozens of short notes, many assuming he has already settled in behind a computer in heaven, reading his messages. Writing short blurbs on Facebook is now one of the ways we express our feelings for dead friends.

I am not going to write on his Facebook wall. However, as with the deaths of most friends or acquaintances, his passing gives me reason to pause and to reflect on my own life, career and interactions with former colleagues.

Don Collins was one of the nice guys in an otherwise hectic and often stressed-out newsroom. Sort of a gentle giant type of a man, with a competent, dignified approach to his work in the sports department. In a business that often gets muddied by impossible deadlines, unchecked egos and not-so-hidden insecurities, Don was simply a respectful, decent fellow. That may not sound like high praise, but in the pressure cooker of the newspaper business, lesser men and women often lose their humanity, even if it's just temporarily. To the best of my knowledge, Don never fell into that trap.

If there is a heaven, I pray that it doesn't have Wi-Fi. I hope all of my former colleagues who have passed on, including Don, can disconnect from the Internet and not worry about being accessible 24/7. They've earned the right to unplug, kick back and ignore their in-boxes.

Second thoughts about an online presence

Blogging has not landed me back on a payroll. Nor has social/professional networking, a YouTube page or a Twitter account helped me find a job. As the jobless months drag on, I wonder whether all of this online stuff has actually prevented me from being hired.

The drill for most laid-off journalists is this:

Day one: Join LinkedIn.com
Day two: Get on Facebook
Day three: Start blogging

Then let it all simmer a bit and wait for the phone to ring.

Actually, there is more to it than that, but you get my drift. We're becoming a cliche and the results are the same. The phone rarely rings. The e-mail replies from employers are scarce. The job sites, like LinkedIn.com or CareerBuilder.com, yield tons of spam but no job offers. Employers who want to hire me can't. Just not enough pennies in the pot. The new online-revenue streams aren't very deep and advertising remains flat. Hiring, particularly for newspaper companies, is spotty at best. I sense some editors and publishers wanting to capitalize on my experience by bringing me on board, but there just aren't any positions available.

There is some evidence, more so in my gut than in any scientific poll, that suggests that life on the Internet isn't a cure-all and can actually do more harm than good when searching for work. Yes, all the media and some career experts say modern-day journalists need to be tweeting up a storm and posting text, photos and video on their blogs regularly to show they are progressive and tech savvy. I can do all of that with relative ease, but it's never set well with me. I feel it's self indulgent. I think it reveals portions of myself that may not come across the way I intended. It's too easy to be misunderstood here.

For instance, I am politically independent. Yet, someone reading this blog, particularly lately, might think I am leaning towards the radical left. If that someone is in a hiring position, I am potentially screwed, depending on their political views. One edgy post in a blog of well over 200 could lead to a snap judgment. The only snap judgment I want to hear at this point is "you're hired."

Is it better to put yourself out there and run the risk of being misread? Or is it safer to remain relatively anonymous and not interact in cyberspace? These are questions job seekers wonder about.

There is no foul language or bikini-clad women in this blog. But there are opinions. As a native-New Yorker, I believe debating issues is a good and natural thing. As a one-time newspaper columnist and editorial writer, I guess this stuff is in my blood. I would think that would be a positive quality to project, especially to media companies, but I can also see how one's image could be skewed through a simple Google search.

After many months of being relatively well connected online, I've never felt so disconnected from the working world. Unemployed journalists need to find a delicate balance between being engaged online while not blogging or tweeting themselves right out of a job interview. My blog posts, LinkedIn.com and Facebook profiles, rock 'n' roll YouTube pages or anything else that comes up in a "Mick Calvacca" Google search are not the total summation of who I am. In fact, my professional personality and sensibilities are considerably different than my online persona might indicate.

There is a lot to mull over about the value of blogging and other online activities. I blog to keep my brain working and because that's what unemployed journalists do, I guess. It helps me keep up with the news and I have learned a few technical tricks along the way that might come in useful at some point. Those are good things. With that said, there is very little evidence that there are any job-finding benefits to having an online presence. What I need to figure out now is whether I am doing more harm than good by sharing some of my thoughts and interacting in such a public fashion.

Reconnecting more important than ever

I have spent a lot of time in the last 10 months reaching out to old friends and colleagues. And some have reached out to me, which is always nice.

One of the silver-lining results of the dismal unemployment situation is that folks are trying to stay connected or are reconnecting. These online reunions are bringing people together who haven't been in touch in a decade or longer. People are either out of work or fear they or someone they know will be jobless very soon, so they are networking online. Trying to stay in the game. As one columnist friend from The Washington Post wrote to me today, "We have to watch out for each other."

Surprisingly, some of the folks who are now in touch the most frequently are people I haven't worked with or seen in many years.

There are many ways to reconnect. Of course, there is always e-mail and phone calls. Receiving personal notes from old friends and colleagues improves my spirits much more than a one-line message on Facebook. But even the social-networking messages serve a purpose in this highly connected world, particularly for those of us who are out of the workplace loop.

Electronic reunions also take place on professional-networking sites like LinkedIn.com. Just today I wrote a recommendation of a fellow who I worked with 15 years ago. He returned the favor by posting some nice words about me, his former boss, on the LinkedIn.com site.

These reunions remind me of where I have been, who I have touched and help me continue to fight the good fight. It's not so much the practical benefits of these reunions that are important. After all, I am still looking for work. The reconnecting has not solved that major problem. But these reunions do provide a sense of what I have accomplished in the past, even if current circumstances aren't yielding positive results. It's important to feel something other than rejection and hopelessness in this recession.