Changes....

October has been a time for change. First, the whole EA mess. Well, they claim that once I changed my facebook rights that I gave them permission to delete my whole account cause I first set it up via FB. That is a definite bug. But, the loss of that account and my decision not to start over has been so freeing... while I was definitely re-energized by several of the people I "met" there, it was becoming a drag trying to keep my share value up. So, I am taking the lessons learned and applying them in new ways.

At UB my office moved. I am now located in Talbert. Parking is better, temperature is better, food might be more tempting (trying to resist) and it will be easier to participate in meetings across the spine. I do miss my own office (now in a cubicle) and the quiet (well, it was quiet when the music majors were not singing in the stairwell) and the privacy (never sure if someone is looking for me when they wander around our space) but it is a much bigger space than I anticipated and I have more storage than before. I think it will be OK once we all settle down.

At home we are setting into the routine of not having my oldest at home. It took much longer than I expected to get used to it and I think I probably never will be used to it. I begin to understand the "empty nest" syndrome even though I still have two at home. There is a hole in the fabric of our lives and while I can patch it, the fabric will change. I'm OK with having a quilt represent my life, but the emotions have been stronger than I could ever have planned. And the other two are finally getting used to the new normal of making sure I can pick them up (their brother used to be able to help) and that the schedules have shifted. We'll probably just figure it all out and he'll come home for Christmas :)

Empire Avenue

OK, I am annoyed right now. Earlier today I logged into EA, checked my social graph and went about my business. Just tried to go back on my lunch and found my account has been deleted. I'm not sure what I did or what I clicked, but unless someone decided to hack into my account, I must have hit something. I did modify some privacy settings in facebook this AM, but, I was under the impression that EA was a separate entity. Now I am not so sure.

It would appear that my whole account is now gone. And I'm not going to spend the time bringing it back. So, if we connected on EA along the way, I'm sorry for this error. If Empire Avenue can figure out how to salvage my account, then I'll continue, but since my primary peer groups never connected there, this might actually end up being a blessing in disguise.

Oh what a tangled web we are weaving.... this is certainly a wake-up call for what is connected where.

Facebook

So, yesterday facebook changed everything again. Annoying. Most of my friends reacted negatively too. Couldn't find things I normally scanned in the morning, lost the train of the feed on several occasions etc.

Interestingly my college aged son wondered what the big deal was. He has the updated feed but didn't care about it. My high school daughter didn't even notice, but then again she only uses FB on a mobile device.

Which got me to thinking. Why was I so annoyed and they so unaffected? My guess would be that they share everything with their friends. I don't.

I started sorting into two main groups over a year ago, people I actually know and acquaintances. The acquaintances got sorted into a group that locked them out of the details of my life. We could message one another, we can play games together, they can invite me to their events, but they couldn't see the pictures of my kids. I also used the lists option to sort my feed, my preferred method was to view status updates and I hid the feeds of many of the games, groups I was asked to like etc. When it was time to play Cafe World or Mafia Wars (yes, I got sucked into those games by my kids and I still play) I could sort the feed for game updates and send gifts etc. I was very happy.

Now, facebook has sorted all my friends for me and the feed lists option appears to be gone. If I click the FB games list, I don't see my friends there who play games with me, only the acquaintances. I have to click several places now to see the info that used to be at my fingertips. From a work perspective, I am concerned that the pages I promote will get buried... that we won't be "top news" cause we publish in waves of info and our fans might not see the info we do share.

This afternoon there was a press conference explaining why all of this is so great. Honestly, it just feels like a targeted advertising demographic grab. If I am forced to sort all of my friends into all the categories in which I hold them, Facebook learns a little bit more about my likes. And someday the ads will be more personalized. Honestly, if I wanted to sort everyone into groups I could use google plus :)

So, if you are as fed up with facebook as I am, come find me on google plus. I've already got the circles started over there. I won't leave facebook, too many friends and family there, but I don't think I'll spend the time curating my peeps the way FB wants. I'll just figure out how to view the basics and play the games. And continue to try to keep my private life private.