From the time my two boys were able to walk, I’ve been taking them to our local public library in an attempt to engage them at an early age with the wonderful world of books and reading.  We used to go to the public library every weekend, and literally check out at least 10 picture and early reading books on each visit.  We got membership cards for each child and they loved using the electronic scanner to checkout their own books and use the computer to look up book subjects.

Now that my boys are older and less dependent on me to supervise them in the children’s section, I’ve been able to wander around the library and for the first time in many years, actually see the rest of our public library.  It suddenly dawned on me that for the past eight years, my entire public library experience was shaped solely by the children’s section.  I knew about Dr. Seuss, the rich illustrations by Graeme Base, the Horrible Harry and The Adventures of Tintin series, but I never fathomed to imagine that I could also have access to New York Times’ best sellers.

Ok, I certainly knew the books were there, but only a mother would understand how laser-focused you are when you are caring for a child – you think only of your child’s needs.  Books for yourself, when would you have the audacity to read for your own enjoyment when you have to read to your child at every opportunity to ensure they grow up to pass their SATs with flying colors!

On a recent visit this past weekend, I realized that I never really have to purchase a book again (or that Kindle Fire that Amazon keeps telling me I need)  because I was able to easily access practically every new book that I’ve wanted to read (albeit on a 7 day check-out policy for the latest top sellers).  Not there? Locate the book online and have it sent to your public library – all for a whopping 50 cents per request.  I was giddy just being able to walk out with quality hard-cover books such as Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, State of Wonder by Ann Pachettt and Rules of Civility by Amor Towles.

But before you take my advice and re-acquaint yourself with your local public library take note that this privilege is currently at high-risk.  Due to state budget cutbacks, California state funding for public libraries are being cut (in addition to public school funding), which will have a direct impact on staffing, hours of operation and the ability to provide free services to the public.  Something we all take for granted as being available whenever we want it.

Get involved by educating yourself on the issue through resources like the Save California Public Libraries and Literacy Funding Facebook page, the California Library Association and become a donor friend to your local public library.  Our public libraries are more than just a place to get free books, they are an integral part of our communities in building literacy, enabling access to all and empowering minds through knowledge.

This morning I attended the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco.  New York Times Science Writer John Markoff facilitated an intriguing panel discussion on The Politics of Internet Freedom featuring YouTube VP of Communications & Public Policy Victoria Grand,  Broadcasting Board of Governors Chair Michael Meehan, Union Square Ventures’ Brad Burnham, Demand Progress Activist Aaron Swartz and Middle-Eastern Blogger & Cyber Activist Imad Bazzi.

A central theme of the panel discussion was the role of social technology platforms such as Google and YouTube as both enabler and also filterer/editor.  YouTube’s Victoria Grand noted that with more than 3 billion views per day, YouTube has become in many ways the new Guttenberg press.  As such, it’s no wonder that in addition to postings of cute animals and funny videos, YouTube is a critical distribution outlet for human rights groups and everyday citizens around the world who need to get the message out about their cause with visual proof of what is actually going on in highly censored countries.  With more than 600 videos tweeted per minutes and more than 300 hours of video posted to Facebook every minute, getting coverage today can no longer be confined to the limited reach of traditional media.

YouTube’s Grand elaborated on the complexity and weight of responsibility on the company’s shoulders for being the primary channel for so many social issues around the world.  While the company generally believes it is important to allow as much freedom as possible, on a daily basis they grapple with content that may be sexual, religious, political in nature and the impact that exposure may have on a massive level.  There’s no easy fix and each of these situations need to be carefully evaluated and considered for legal, business and political ramifications.

What is comforting to know, however, is that for many of the companies represented here today such as Google, Facebook, Skype and Mozilla there is a conscious desire and intent to have their technology platforms used to better the world.  As Mozilla Chair Mitchell Barker stated in a follow-up presentation “business as usual is not enough and companies need to continue to find new ways of providing access and empowering users.”

New York Times best-selling author of The Thank You Economy Gary Vaynerchuk sent a video message to more than 150 Washington, DC non-profit leaders convening today for an online fundraising training conference Give to the Max Day: Greater Washington.  In the short video, Vaynerchuk provides some valuable advice on how to be truly effective in using social media to engage influencers. 

Great lessons and reminders for us all on the critical importance of effective engagement:

1. Relationships First

Vaynerchuk points out that in the majority of tweets he receives on any given day, he is directly asked for something from Twitter acquaintances who he does not even have an established relationship.  "Don't pitch me, bro," says Vaynerchuk before we even have a relationship and I know what you're about.  Influencer dashboards and providers like TRAACKR and Klout can identify who your top influencers are, but don't just use these like a press release distribution channel.

2. Understand How to Say Hello

We've lost our basic social graces in the cyberworld and don't seem interested in even starting a relationship.  "We need to understand how to say hello before we ask," says Vaynerchuk. Influencers are repeatedly asked for things all the time which is irritating when the organization does not take the time to truly engage in a meaningful way.

3. Build Context That Matters

Engaging the influencer by providing context over time is key to building a relationship and bringing a more personal relevance to the eventual request.  Vaynerchuk comments that on any given day is besieged with Twitter DM (direct messages) with asks that he has no context as to why he is even being contacted.

4. Consumer B.S. Radar Greater Than Ever Before

Consumer mistrust and skepticism is at an all-time high, so know going into an engagement the critical importance of being authentic, transparent and building trust.  Otherwise your ask is going to look and be perceived like spam or the irritating direct mail and marketing calls you receive at home.

Simple lessons which also have application to the for profit world and influencer engagement overall.

If you were on Twitter or on any other social exchange today, you might have noticed that Facebook made a significant, "life-altering" announcement at its f8 developer conference today. In his ongoing pursuit to make all of us share more information about ourselves for what Mark Zuckerberg believes will ultimately lead to a better, more engaged and understood society, Facebook is making new changes to its platform in three ways:

1) Timeline - in a few weeks your current Facebook profile will be replaced with a real-time, photo-rich, graphical chronological history of your entire life (on Facebook, that is).  At any given time, viewers of your FB page will be able to see a mini-storyboard of things you liked, photo memories you're posted, news articles and videos you've shared that will add up to creating a more comprehensive view of your life, what interests you and what's important to you.

2) Open Graph - a new application that will take the "like" button to new heights - allowing you to immediately see what social activities your friends are doing and be able to join in and share in the same experience whether it's watching a TV show or listening to music together.

3) New Apps - While social gaming apps like Zynga have always been popular, new apps like Spotify, Netflix and news by the Washington Post will enable richer, shared experiences that will allow you to more deeply engage with friends in your network.

My reaction today was one that left me feeling both horrified and fascinated at the same time. Horrified in realizing that Facebook is becoming the Internet and that very soon, every post and action may become the default and superficial representation of who we are.  Yet fascinated at Zuckerberg's relentless drive and ambition to make more than 800 million people around the world who spend up to 90% of their social networking time on Facebook realize his vision of shared information.

But are we only who we want to be on Facebook?  Studies show that people actually show their true selves on social networks.  For younger users who have grown up with sharing every aspect of every minute of their lives with friends, this question is perhaps irrelevant because sharing is their life.  For more mature users, this will take some adjusting and even as our professional and personal lives becoming increasingly intertwined, some will ultimately have to decide how much is too much.  But Zuck's got that figured out already by saying that users will have control over what they want to share and not share.  And I suspect he'll still find a way to make what we share profitable -  which is why Facebook will continue to dominate as the leading platform for our social lives.

Today for Coastal Cleanup Day my son and I volunteered a couple of hours to help pick-up trash and debris around the Corte Madera Creek in Marin.  In just a few hours, we collected more junk than we expected, including 173 cigarette buts, 54 candy and food wrappers, 2 tennis balls, a pair of broken sunglasses and a dozen or so party streamers.  Marinites are generally good about taking care of their public spaces, but when you look carefully, it's amazing how much litter there actually is -- and how much of it unfortunately is due to human consumption and waste.

Trash and debris around water ways are especially damaging as the waste is not only harmful to wildlife who either eat or get entangled in things like string, soda can snaps and plastic soda holders but eventually make its way to a final destination - the ocean.  Plastic is the main component of litter and finds its way into the North Pacific Gyre Garbage Patch, a floating dump with more than 7 million tons of plastic, spanning an area at least twice the size of Texas and more than 30 feet deep.

A few things to think about the next time you're enjoying the outdoors:

1. Take a reusable bag with you on your next outdoor hike and pick up litter along the way.

2. When having a birthday party or picnic at the beach or park, encourage guests to help clean up and safely dispose of trash.  Don't forget balloons and streamers which often get left behind.  Kids love to help and by engaging them in clean-up and sorting trash activities they are also learning valuable lessons in ecology.

3. If you have to smoke, please make sure you properly dispose of any cigarette packages and used cigarettes in a trash can.  Don't just leave them on the floor where they are a potential fire hazard and contribute to additional litter along our public walkways.

Coastal Cleanup Day was a rewarding experience to spend some quality family time out in the beautiful outdoors, get some physical exercise, engage with our local community and help make a small difference.  To check out Coastal Cleanup activities in your neighborhood, go to www.healthebay.org/get-local/your-neighborhood.

LinkedIn added a new feature recently that allows members to add volunteer experience and causes to your profile.  This is really wonderful news because it not only enables you to highlight additional experience  but it also helps validate the importance of giving back to a professional’s overall profile.  The increased transparency and connectivity through social networks like LinkedIn has created an open blending of our professional and personal lives.  And I for one, celebrate this, because donating your skills outside of the workplace and the concept of giving back should make all of us more fulfilled, engaged and committed professionals instilled with a greater sense of purpose.

And why is a greater sense of purpose important? Because today, more than ever,  Americans appear to be feeling less fulfilled in the traditional workplace.  A recent survey by Aflac showed that 77 percent of Americans would leave their current job to become entrepreneurs, citing economic pressures, work politics and/or juggling work/life balance as key motivators.  But the good news is, you don’t need to quit your job to find a sense of fulfillment -- many are seeking and finding fulfillment in volunteering.  According to a recent report by the federal Corporation for National and Community Service, in 2010, 62.8 million adults volunteered more than 8.1 billion hours.  GenXers in particular, contributed more than 2.3 billion hours in what the report calls the “volunteer lifecycle” -- the arc of civic involvement that tends to increase as citizens feel a deeper connection to their communities through personal networks, their workplace and their children’s schools.   This number can only be expected to grow, with Millennials in the workforce who’ve been raised with volunteering throughout their formative school years.

Volunteering today is easier than ever before, and no longer requires you to take an extended period of time off of work or use vacation time to actively get involved.  Many companies now allocate employees a certain number of hours per month for local community service, and there are now more online volunteer “matching” organizations that have figured out how to efficiently incorporate volunteering into a professional’s busy work life.  Two wonderful organizations that I support and that make it easy:

Taproot Foundation – a non-profit organization that makes business talent available to organizations working to improve society.  Taproot currently focuses their efforts for social impact with select metros and typically asks for volunteers who can donate 3-5 hours per week over the course of a six-month project.

Catchafire matches professionals who want to give their skills with nonprofits and social enterprises that need their help.  They match professionals and organizations based on skill set, cause interests and time availability and recently announced their nationwide expansion.

So try volunteering – it’s guaranteed to not only enhance your professional skill set but also improve your professional soul.

But that’s the hard choices that children and mothers at the “bottom of the pyramid” face every single day.  The majority nix school or even baseline healthcare because of the need to work for literally pennies to feed their families daily.  What’s even more shocking is to realize that in many high concentration areas of poverty such as remote villages in India there is cell phone coverage that rivals what we have here at home. But the brilliant folks at mPowering have figured out that to address some of the biggest challenges in education and health in developing countries, a technology solution is not enough — you also have to understand your users and take into consideration the behaviors and needs of the ultra poor.

Technology can solve so many problems today but remain useless if we forget the human element.  As Katrin Verclas, co-founder of MobileActive says, “the human dimension typically proves harder than app development.” According to a recent mobile industry market study, the mobile app development market is anticipated to reach $100 billion in revenue in less than four years. Today, there are already more than 300,000 mobile apps in the market. It’s also interesting to note that despite this explosive growth, demand for mobile apps is expected to peak in 2013. So while it’s fun right now to check out that brand new app on your smartphone that makes you look skinnier in photos or entertains your cat, consider the potential to develop apps with actual purpose.  Even in this country, if we took into consideration more human motivations and behaviors, we could apply the same concept to reward things of real value – not Groupon discounts or Nike runner’s goals, but how we treat each other, help solve societal issues and become a more benevolent nation.

Today I had the pleasure of volunteering at the San Francisco Food Bank as part of my company’s Volunteer Day event.  I have to say that while I’ve heard of the SF Food Bank before and the important work they do, visiting the headquarter location and witnessing their operations first hand was quite an experience.  Imagine a huge Costco-sized warehouse filled with hundreds of pallets of fresh fruit, food staples and cans with forklifts buzzing about and a constant whirl of trucks coming and going with either food to be stored or boxes of food being delivered to more than 400 non-profit organizations throughout the Bay Area.

Our volunteer guide, Steve, gave us a quick rundown of the state of hunger in the Bay Area.  While we live in one of the wealthiest regions in the U.S., it’s easy to overlook the fact that hunger is a very real problem in the Bay Area with more than 150,000 people struggling to put food on the table every day.  Through a volunteer workforce of more than 2,000 people – equivalent to 55 full-time employees – this worthy organization is working to provide 88,000 nutritious meals a day and 6,000 healthy snacks to low-income public schools.  The SF Food Bank covers people at 185% of the poverty line – this includes many families that are experiencing economic hardship due to job loss and long-term unemployment.

Today’s team project was hand-packing , weighing, sealing, labeling and packing one-pound bags of brown rice in 15lbs. boxes.  On any given day, the volunteer project can be different, based upon what kind of food donations come in and what needs to get packaged for that day’s shipment.  The work was fast-paced but well-supervised, with several staff available to help direct and answer questions.  One of the most interesting thing I learned was how much the food bank operated like an efficient supply chain.  The food bank is dependent on a steady flow of a well-coordinated volunteer workforce to help quickly sort, package and move food in and out of the warehouse.  The faster the process, the more food that can be accepted, housed and ultimately distributed to more people and families in need.

If you haven’t volunteered at the SF Food Bank yet, it’s a great team-bonding and fulfilling experience.  You can find volunteer opportunities at http://www.sffoodbank.org/volunteer/, donate online at https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5420/t/9547/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=1974 and also text “EAT” to 50555 to donate $10 from your mobile phone.  I also learned that families can volunteer on weekends as well, with children age 8 and above accepted on Saturdays and children from 4 years old on Sundays.  What a wonderful way to teach children about the importance of giving back during the holiday season.

I don’t often watch talent shows on TV, primarily because I don’t have much free personal time and as a result, I never have the opportunity to get hooked onto or get to know any one particular contestant.  This summer, however,  with time off from work , I managed to watch almost the entire season of America’s Got Talent and ended up feeling empathy for one contestant.  This contestant had been down on his luck for many years and who embodied such humility and love for his grandparents, I couldn’t help but immediately feel a connection with him.  Last night, America selected Michael Grimm, a “boy from Mississippi” who just wanted to win the million dollar prize to help buy a real home for his grandparents who raised him and who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina.

Although I was a fan of Grimm and hoped he would win, I expected America to choose Jackie Evancho, a beautiful, gifted 10-year-old girl with the voice and looks of an angel.  Despite Grimm’s talent, how could America resist voting for a phenom with what the modeling industry would call strong “commercial” (read: marketable) looks? 

The one thing I love about these national voting shows is that the selected winner in many ways, represents the current sentiment in America.  There are some takeaways from America’s selection of Grimm that Corporate America can learn from:

People Seek Connection with Authentic, Real  Individuals:  As people continue to struggle with job loss, mortgage foreclosures, natural disasters and other challenges associated with the economy and/or the impact to the environment associated with climate change and/or irresponsible human behavior, the more they seek and empathize with individuals just like themselves.  Grimm was a perfect representative for the common man persevering through many setbacks and career failures.  Americans are no longer tolerant of jet-setting executives who’ve lost touch with their shareholders, customers and communities.  As we’ve seen with recent corporate executives who have allegedly dealt in questionable behavior – no matter how talented, most Americans now expect and demand executives be held to the same standards as you and me.

Humility and Decency are Rewarded: Grimm is the anti-star.  Throughout the entire competition, he remained true to himself – simple, humble and grateful.  Even when he was announced the winner, instead of grabbing the mic and stealing the spotlight for himself, he immediately talked to runner-up Evancho to ensure she was ok with the results.  I believe that for the majority of Americans, they are over the hype and  the perfectly postured and manicured executives of Corporate America and feel a closer connection to executives that demonstrate humility, hard work and ethical behavior.

Storytelling Now Says Who You Are:  From the very beginning of the competition, Grimm told a simple story – he wanted to give back to his grandparents who had given him so much in his life.  This story immediately gave him a likeable personality and someone who every person in America could relate to.  He never changed his story or his person values throughout the competition and with each performance, despite him getting closer and closer to fame he fundamentally stayed true to himself and authentic. While politicians and  executives have certainly used personal stories about their mother or family struggles to illustrate a point, those values now need to be consistent with the decisions and choices that an executive makes every day.

It’s a stretch to say that a talent entertainment show should be taken seriously by executives.  But it’s nonetheless a quick pulse check on what mainstream Americans value.  I, for one, hope these values continue and that more executives take note of the need for a new humility, compassion and connection back to the common man.