This American Life tackles break ups. Act One, Dr. Phil is my favorite story they’ve covered. It includes “Against All Odds” by Phil Collins and really gets into the heart of the writer’s break-up.

Spouses play a key role in any startup.

The role of spouses isn’t often discussed as it relates to startups and that’s a shame. Not all companies are started by single kids in their twenties. I’ve been married my entire professional life. My wife is the single most important cofounder I’ve ever had. She’s talked me off of ledges no one has seen me on. Stood up for me when I couldn’t defend myself. Called me out when no one else would. Believed in me even when no one else did.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I communicate and how (in)effective I am. I interrupt, don’t always think before I speak and often appear not to be listening. This article on social etiquette really got me thinking about how etiquette in communication is often ignored and how we need to focus on our manners when we’re interacting with others.

These thoughts illustrate how important it is to be aware of what we are saying with the advice to even think about what we will say before blurting it out. What this process will effect is putting the importance of other people ahead of our own. Having respect for ourselves in our social interactions and exhibiting good manners ourselves is very important, but making sure that those around us are not embarrassed, belittled or made to feel inadequate or inferior in any way is the most important.

Here’s a pretty interesting perspective on what happened to a man’s relationship when he took a chance to make a (high-earning) career. I’d love to know what you think after reading it.

I fall somewhere between what Umair Haque says and what Bud Caddell says. Mostly I don’t care if social media is a bubble; I love thinking, playing and working with the media, technology and information that have sprouted up from it.

I see both sides of the argument. And, my overriding theme through all of this is that it’s great if we can figure out a few things. The largest being how to identify the trusted network of users in our social networking lives.

Craig Newmark has identified and clearly stated what I believe the problem with all this to be (article via Everyday UX),

what he thinks is the next big problem the web has to solve. And what is that? The question of who to trust online, according to Newmark. To solve it, he believes that what the web needs is a “distributed trust network” that allows us to manage our online relationships and reputations.

This article was very entertaining, but my favorite sentence of the whole things is as follows. Sounds like a keeper!

It was a recipe I’d been hanging onto for a real man, one who wouldn’t see a problem with eating baby cows.

I love the headline over here, F*ck Social Networks, Make Friendships.  It’s a sentiment I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. What are the benefits of the social networks I’m a part of? I’m not sure, frankly. And that doesn’t sit well with me. Why participate if I can’t get a benefit out of them?

The two main sites I think about are LinkedIn and Facebook (Twitter has been valuable to me, but that’s because I’ve found how responsive people are and how it’s easy to “meet” someone). I’m a member and have friends at each of them, but want more than just friends. I want friendships.

So, in an effort to get more out of these sites, I’m putting a public call out there for all of us to put the work into cultivating more friendships versus friends. Let’s work at these friendships.

Look, in my opinion the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what-have-you. The right person is still going to think the sun shines out of your ass. That’s the kind of person that’s worth sticking with.

- Mac Macguff, Juno

I’ve been thinking a lot about Facebook lately. There’s definitely an aspect of it I like – knowing what everyone is up to without having to put too much effort in emailing or (worse) picking up the phone. Having said that, there is an aspect I am really finding to be disturbing – and, unfortunately I’m having a hard time putting to words what it is I despise. The best way I can put it is that I don’t like knowing what some people are up to, but I don’t have any reason not to be their “friend”.

This research piece is the closest thing I’ve read to capturing some of what I’ve been thinking (er, I should say it spurred my thoughts versus capturing, anyway). Basically, I believe that there is a tremendous amount of influence within certain aspects of all these friends we have. However, I think there is a negative aspect that people aren’t considering. A couple of thoughts I lifted from the article follow.

“How we feel, what we know, whom we marry, whether we fall ill, how much money we make, and whether we vote all depend on the ties that bind us.”

…

Controlling for environmental factors and the tendency of birds of a feather to flock together—happy people prefer hanging out with other happy people—Christakis and Fowler found that we really do emulate those we care about, whether we mean to or not. Being connected to a happy person, for instance, makes you 15 percent more likely to be happy yourself.

I’ve really been considering deleting my facebook account. I’ve got a number of other online personas (www.joshpremuda.com/about has most of them, but my internet handle is usually ‘joshpremuda’, so start there) where you can see what I’m up to, so the need for another outlet is minimal unless facebook is the only place people track me.

For a bit of an experiment, I only checked facebook once this past week (gasp!) and frankly, I didn’t miss it. I get my information from elsewhere. So, now I’m really wondering what value I’m getting from it. Do I keep it because I’m providing value to others?

Facebook seems to be on a slippery slope. I feel like it could be very unhealthy to check up on ex’s, stalk someone you just met, or just get obsessed with seeing what everyone is up to.

Thoughts?

Not to take away from this amazing (and long) article about improving a marriage, I found this blurb that I loved. It’s true and kinda like Puffy, Mase and Biggie, “Mo Money, Mo Problems“, but with knowledge.

Henderson has Parkinson’s but told Dan he stopped reading about the disease, because in his experience “the more I know, the more symptoms I have.”

Like I said, the article is about one couple’s journey to improve their marriage. Tons of great information in the article and interesting reasoning and affects from the different counselings and books they read. Please read this and report back to me on what you think. Fascinating stuff.