Identity Fraud Lurks Your Every Move

By Debbie Elicksen.

A funny thing happened on the way back to Canada. At the same time I was getting my boarding pass and paying for my extra baggage at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, some fellow was gassing up his truck in New York. Both transactions came on my credit card. Fortunately, my transaction went through first or the card would have bounced. His gas cost more than my baggage fees, and I was counting quarters to get on that flight.

I was alerted to the out of state charge about a week later when I accessed my account online to make another transaction. The bank put me in touch with the fraud line. They recognized it was physically impossible for me to be in two states at the same time and they graciously reversed the charge with no extra fees.

How did this happen? It could have been a couple of ways.

In Sky Harbor Airport, there could have been someone near me with a scanner that sees through material and purses to gather credit card and banking information. It could have happened anywhere from the moment I came through the doors to when I was on the airplane. Unlikely, though, because the charge went through at the precise moment I was checking in. Or there could have been a scanner at any place at any time during my six-month stay in the city.

After having spent months in West Phoenix, frequenting a certain grocery store, there was an online source that said that some local establishments had their databases compromised. Everyone’s card information goes into the system with every store transaction. My card could have been in that unfortunate list.

When identity fraud happens, it isn’t always something you’ve done, but there are ways to lower the chances.

Enter Dianne Ojar-Ali and her book: Mrs. Fraud and You.

It’s a great little handbook that fits easily in your purse or pocket, chock full of tips on how to recognize and minimize your chances of becoming a victim of fraud: both online, telephone, and in-person fraud. It’s an easy and simple read. You can find issues that personally affect you just by flipping through the book, or the table of contents.

The list of frauds may be a little overwhelming and you may want to stay locked inside the comfort of your home. Regardless if you own a credit card or partake in any online actions via banking, social media sites, or just surfing the web, every corner of every part of your life has put you on a database. There is no escape. It is better to arm yourself with knowledge and take as many preventative measures as possible.

The show below aired September 6, 2013.

Transcription Services May Resemble a Drug-Induced State

Have you ever tried transcription software? It has to be one of the more entertaining texts you can read.

There are numerous programs available, and some people swear by them, but to rely on them completely, well, let’s just say, if you don’t re-read what “you” wrote and fix it, the message will undoubtedly come out like a fluent Italian person pretending to write in Chinese.

A couple years back, I had purchased one of the leading transcription software programs. I took the time to train it to my voice, so that when I recorded my keynotes and workshops, I could just plug the audio into the computer, click a button and the transcription would come out on the other end.

That’s all good in theory. In practice? Even Charlie Sheen and Seth McFarlane couldn’t make those words up. Maybe programs have improved since then, even so.

When you train the program to your voice, you are usually close to the microphone and enunciate the words into the program. But that’s not how you talk in real life.

If you spend much of your time interviewing people, the transcription software won’t recognize anyone else’s voice, especially when it doesn’t understand yours.

So after a couple of tries, I decided that transcribing is best done by personal hand-ear-keyboard. But don’t take my word for it.

The following is a snippet of a transcript of a Virtual Newsmakers hangout with Daniel Newman. See if you can get the gist of the conversation from the transcript by YouTube. It’s a fun read, actually, but I’ll stick to the video.

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The interview with Dan Newman below was streamed May 24, 2013.

Building a Music Career Without Leaving the House

At college age, Heather Fay considered herself a late bloomer to start a music career. She just picked up a guitar and strung with it.

Still, you could have called her a closet musician. She really didn’t put any music out there until much later. Why? It’s personal.

Many authors can relate. An artist feels naked and vulnerable at the thought of releasing their work. It’s terrifying.

Heather tried the traditional audience, but it comes to the point where you have to tour in order to reach a larger audience. With a two-year-old at home, leaving home, in her mind, was not an option.

Enter Google Hangouts on Air, where you can broadcast to the world without leaving the house — without sacrificing motherhood. Here, she met other musicians, developed a following and loyal fan base, and even used one of her Google peeps to help create her latest CD cover.

Heather Fay successfully took her music career from traditional to digital. Plus, like any other creator, she has used crowdfunding to raise money to produce her CD.

She is so grateful for the people who supported her, she created a series of heart-felt thank you videos, that other creatives and business people could mirror.

One may think that a YouTube musician wouldn’t have the opportunity to network or catch the eye of the A-list music community.

Think again.

She received communication from Bono’s ONE.org to participate in the Agit8 campaign — a movement to bring back the spirit of the protest song. She performs the Bruce Hornsby song: The Way It Is. She will also be a part of ONE.org’s Ultimate Protest Song Spotify album, appearing with the likes of U2, Bruce Springsteen, Muse, Elvis Costello, Green Day and more.

Learn more about Heather and her career from a Virtual Newsmakers Hangout. It streamed live on October 18, 2013.

Ebooks On Steroids

What happens when two creative minds get together: one with an art and television background, the other who works in FX and builds robots? The answer: machinima.

Netdreamer Publications is a digital storyteller that is very much a combination of the creative minds of publisher, producer, and editor Chantal Harvey and the late film director and writer Tony Dyson. Together they saw machinima as the future of book publishing.

Machinima is real-time animation that takes books to a whole new level. With an entire generation growing up with ebooks and apps, it makes sense that kids would want more from their books. Machinima is a city they can enter virtually and experience gaming elements. Clouds, sun, cities, and other backgrounds can be manipulated to suit the creator. It’s the perfect platform for film.

Second Life is the platform to which Netdreamer develops its products, such as the Bobbekins, 25 snippets of film that you watch on an iPad, with narration, basic text, music, and graphics.

Chantal and Tony discovered they could put the interactive in books into a virtual world and create ebooks on steroids. They've already launched Bobbekins in a physical book and plan much more for other platforms.

The interactive book brings an exciting flavor to publishing and opens the doors to unlimited creative opportunities. The following interview provides much more detail about this exciting adventure and how it began. It was streamed live on December 6, 2013.

What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube by Erik Qualman

What do you want your legacy to be? Erik Qualman’s goal is to be a digital Dale Carnegie, by helping others lead their best life, leadership, and legacy, God and family first.

Once you can answer the legacy question for yourself, that becomes your digital compass. Then you can move forward and decide which of the tools will work best for you to make it happen.

Not participating on the web isn’t an option for businesses today. Even if you ignore the Internet, your customer is there, and so is your enemy. You need to jump into the platform and control your own message, rather than let the Internet dictate what your digital legacy will be.

There are rules. Operating outside of them will not get you what you want.

Qualman’s latest book: What Happens in Vegas, Stays on YouTube is the guidebook for your Internet journey.

But if you want to be connected and relevant, you can’t have privacy. If you listen, interact, act, and share — what you can have are tools that work for you rather than against you or have you working for the tools.

For more tips and insight, watch this interview from Virtual Newsmakers.