Just as a pearl faces many irritants to become beautiful, God uses uncomfortable situations to mold and shape us. Isaiah 64:8 says God is the potter and we are the clay. One of the ways God shapes us is by allowing us to be in situations where we’re uncomfortable. This pressure brings to light impurities in our character – pride, selfishness, being critical and easily offended – that need to leave our lives so we can move forward into His blessings.

I am runner.  I often run from adversity, pray away hard situations or difficult people.  I often say nothing happens per chance and God has a purpose behind every situation to shape me. Therefore, I must work with God through this situation.

“After you have passed the test, you will receive the victor’s crown of life.”  James 1:12

God knows my value.  I’m a work in progress.  God has me on the wheel; I must not fight against it.  These present sufferings are nothing compared to the blessing he has in store for me. I must trust and believe that he knows best and knows his plans for me.

As Always,

Allison

Early Childhood
Marka Bennett, Agape Child and Family Services

Youth & Delinquency
Martha Beard,  President and senior branch executive of the Memphis Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Race Relations
Aurelia Kyles

Women’s Rights
Dr. Rosie Bingham, University of Memphis

Business
Kelly Dobbins,  Owner Mid-South Testing 

Politics/ Community
Yvonne Acey,  Africa in April  

Community Service
Charlie Nelson, MIFA

Child Advocacy 
Tran Bui Smith

 Established in 2005, The Ruby R. Wharton Award recognizes women who have unselfishly worked to improve the quality of life for others and made significant strides in the areas of:

•  Early Childhood
• Youth & Delinquency
• Race Relations
• Women’s Rights
• Business/Politics/Government

Nomination forms for the Ruby R. Wharton Award may be received by contacting

Allison Fouche’ at 576-6006 or by email at allisonjfouche@gmail.com or Catherine Green at 486-4198 or by email at Cat73green@yahoo.com

Deadline for nominations is 4 pm, Friday, January 29, 2010.

Click here for details: RUBY WHARTON COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARDS

Ruby R. Wharton Outstanding Woman Award
Past Recipients  

2009 Recipients

Brenda Taylor, PhD, Director of Compliance, Shelby County Head Start
Nettie Rogers, Evangelist/Founder, Memphis Inter-Denominational Fellowship, Inc
Johnnie Turner, Executive Director, NAACP
Louise Patterson, President, Bountiful Blessings, Inc.
Jefferie Bruton, CPA, Executive Director, Shelby Residential and Vocational Services, Inc.
Dorothy “Happy” Jones, Founder,  Memphis Area Women’s Council and Network

 2008 Recipients
Kenya Bradshaw, Community Planning & Development,  The Urban Child Institute
Michelle Fowlkes, Associate Director, Partnerships Southeast FO USP, Save the Children
Brenda Harper, Vice President of Mortgage Lending for Enterprise Corp, Delta HOPE
Jean Saulsberry, Development of Student Development, LeMoyne-Owen
Marion Levy, Associate Professor and Director of the Master of Public Health Program, University of Memphis

2007 Recipients

Nancy Bogatin, Community Activist
Dr. Shirley Hilliard, Counselor, Whitney Elementary
Espi Ralston, Healthcare Interpreter
Anita Vaughn, CEO, Administrator Baptist Women’s Hospital
Pat Morgan, Executive Director, Partners for the Homeless
Rita Stotts, Judge

 2006 Recipients

Derna Abreu Greenberg, Bilingual Homebuyer Education Coordinator of United Housing, Inc.
Barbara Sax Jacobs, Program Officer & Director of the Plough Foundation
Barbara King, Executive Director of the Exchange Club Family Center
Linda Moses, MD., OB/GYN Physician with Hollywood Health Loop
Beverly Robertson, President of the National Civil Rights Museum

 2005 Recipients

Dr. Carolyn Bibbs, President & CEO, Creative Life Preparatory School
Ruby Bright, Executive Director & CEO, Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis
Patricia Chandler, Founder and President, Impact Marketing
Barbara Holden, Director, Institute for Early Childhood
Antionette Holman, Regional Administrator, TN Department of Children Services
Barbara Motley, Director, Goodwill homes Community Services, Inc.
Lyda Parker, Retired Educator
Nisha Powers, Owner, Powers Hill Design, LLC
Ester Shaw, Educator
Nancy Williams, Director, Memphis Child Advocacy Center

So Wikipedia is run by a foundation?
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, the fourth most visited website in the world. The Foundation plans to spend the money on the day to day operation. They are even looking for a Chief Development Officer for continued fundraising efforts. The Foundation list more than enough financial history, annual reports and vision/mission information that would allow any serious giver a chance to explore why their gift matters.

Why do some people hate Wikipedia?
Conversely, academia and serious researchers, including my very own graduate program at West Virginia, sneer at using Wikipedia as a reliable source of information. The reason quite simply – Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, at anytime. This leads to numerous problems, including some pages that are changed to suit a particular bias. Apart from this, Wikipedia has served the internet community, since 2000. A decade later, Wikipedia is still a place where information seekers can discover information. For example, if a person wants to know or verify something, then they can visit Wikipedia and find out more on their own. They can add information on a page, create a new page if the information doesn’t exist, and comment on the nature of the writing or structure. For informal purposes, Wikipedia seems to have its place. What I use it for, on occasion, is as a secondary source to find primary resources and verifiable information that can be used in my research. So, is this still direct use of Wikipedia? I also allow my son to use it when looking for basic information for class projects. Then we verify it in the 20 year old encyclopedia that I had as a teen. So what source is better?

Wikipedia suffers from other problems, such as edit wars. It also suffers from the problem that pages are not routinely monitored, so that someone could create false information and never have it cross-referenced. This leads to what drives academia crazy – Wikipedia is largely information without citations. This means that many statements do not have proper sources to back up claims and therefore rely on a writer’s memory, opinion, judgment or other misinformation.

So how can an unreliable source raise over $6 million? The world may never know why. But I think the money should be used to hire better researchers and editors to validate this online tool, so that academia as well as other serious researchers can use it for what it was designed for –a true online encyclopedia.

Although the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 exists it does not serve as a catch all for phishing emails i.e. your Bank has compromised your online login information so give it to me or those from other countries that send you emails like U.K. Lottery Winning or falsify themselves like they are one of your friends that needs help and only asking you to Western Union them some money or you have been given a job as a director of development but the only caveat is to send the money to us by Western Union.  All of these email seem fraudulent to me but what about those not so Internet savvy folks that fall for these hook line and sinker. The grandma that has an email address and uses the Internet primarily for online casino games, who gets the phishing scam email and inadvertently gives  over her personal information to only have her bank account cleared.

You can’t just walk up to or call someone with such craziness and for most of us our email address has become just as personal as the mail that we receive at home so there should be rules to protect us. So it’s good to see that First Amendment protection does not extend to spam or deceptive advertising. However, tighter guidelines as well as better monitoring should exist to lasso in these thieves of our Internet temples.

When I tried to search for the story for the sake of discussion, I could not find any information and some of the pages mentioned that items had been removed from the search. Oh well.  Therefore, is it legal for companies to use this type of technology?  Is this an acceptable way to advertise or are there privacy issues that marketers should concern themselves with when you feel the need to hijack someone’s personal device?

So what is bluejacking? Bluejacking is the sending of unsolicited messages over Bluetooth to Bluetooth-enabled devices such as mobile phones, PDAs or laptop computers, sending a vCard which typically contains a message in the name field to another bluetooth enabled device via the OBEX protoc.  Most people use technology that is comparable to a small computer and security is a common concern wih any wireless technology. Although it seems to be a good idea in theory to send a unsolicated message via Bluetooth, I equate  it as spam and see it almost as an invasion of privacy.

I have linked a site that includes more information on bluejacking and a video about how bluejacking works. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/bluejacking.htm

Satellite TV providers Directv and Dish Network are aiming to deliver more targeted spots to individual subscribers based on demographic data. This will provide viewers targeted advertisements using ad-insertion technology from Invidi Technologies that will let the satellite-TV operator, for the first time, deliver different ads to individual subscriber households. The two satellite companies together represent some 31 million consumers This new innovation should help marketers use TV more effectively by allowing specific ads to successfully reach regional target markets as well as lend to cost efficiency.  Some ads just don’t apply to everyone and mass media is often not the way to reach all consumers.  This technology allows even the TiVo user a way to receive ads that better cater to their interests and not be so hit or miss.  It also helps small businesses in certain areas the latitude to market to just their region or city, similarly to what cable service providers have been doing for years.

I look forward to this new innovation.  God knows I hate to be placed in a massive group  and marketed to in “one” voice.  I have my own interests, personality  and tastes and a lot of it has to do with both demographics as well as geography.   This technology should help remedy one of a marketer’s problems- being able to market and target various zip codes and effectively reach a group not just based on culture.