So the important question is, how do you know if it’s real or not?  There’s no single point of failure here, an element that says it’s a scam for sure, but let’s look at a non-exhaustive list of what’s wrong with this email.

Which Inbox

First look at your own inbox.  Is this the email address that your bank has on file?  Is this where they usually send their email?

In this case, the answer is no.  I don’t use my hotmail account for any mail that I actually want to receive, so this email is showing up in the wrong place.

Why did they use my hotmail account this time?

Who Is It?

Do you even have an account with this company?  If so, check who the email is actually from.  Not the friendly name, but the actual email address.  Is this the address that your bank sends email from?

I do have a Chase account, and the email address even looks good, but email addresses can easily be spoofed when sending so it looks like it’s coming from a different place than it actually is.

The Language of Fear

If you read through the email, your first reaction is probably one of fear.  Oh No!  Somebody has been trying to hack my account.  Communications from your own bank will never have this underlying tone of fear.

And if they’re that worried about it, they’ll send you mail, even if you’re on paperless statements.  They might even call you, that’s what my credit card company does.

Why is the bank trying to scare me like this?

Second Language

If this was really your bank, they’ve got templatized email to send to someone when something goes wrong, and you can bet that it’s been scrubbed over by linguists to make sure that every word is in place and used properly.

If the sentences sound like they were written by someone who doesn’t speak English very well, it was probably written by someone who doesn’t speak English very well.  Your bank speaks English.  I promise.

Something is definitely fishy here.

Logical Flaws

My account as Chase has apparently been disabled, so what am I supposed to do to unlock it?  Go to www.chase.com and log in immediately.  Wait a minute, if my account has been disabled, how am I supposed to access it?

Links

Most browsers have a feature, that when you hover over a link, it will show you the destination in the lower right corner of your browser.  The kicker for this particular scam is revealed.  I’m supposed to go to www.chase.com, but that link actually takes me to rotarylamarsa.org.  Huh?

Secure Communication

Now let’s say that I actually click on that link.  It takes me to rotarylamarsa.org where they have essentially ripped off Chase’s website and it’s a pretty good ripoff.  The form on the link asks me to enter some personal information.  Before you ever, ever do this, look at the URL.  The very front part says http:// or it says https://.  The ‘s’ means it’s secure.  Encrypted from your browser all the way to the server.

There are methods to beat the encryption, but it’s difficult and most scammers don’t have the resources to do something like that.  If the ‘s’ is not there, never put in any personal information and never ever put in a credit card number.

What Do They Want?

Now here on the rotarylamarsa.org site that looks a lot like www.chase.com there’s a form to fill out.  What does it want?  Well it wants my username, password, name, address, city, state, zip, email address, email password, account number, credit card number, CVV2 number (the credit card security number), ATM pin, social security number, mother’s maiden name, and date of birth.

Wait, what?!

Some of these things you could make a case for.  Likely your financial agency already knows most of these things about you, but they’re not going to ask you for them on a non-secure site and all in one place.  And why do they want your email password?  Don’t they already know your account number and your credit card number?  What does my home address have to so with this?

What Should You Do?

So what should you do about this?  Use common sense.  And if you don’t want to, then the other answer is don’t click on links in your email, even if it looks like it’s coming from someone you know.

Even if I had been fooled by this email, if I had gone to chase.com instead of clicking the link in the email, I would have been just fine.  I would have logged into my account just fine.  I’d have been completely fooled by the scam, but my identity would still be mine.

Not that there is anything inherently wrong with making money (I like to do that myself), but it does have an impact on how Facebook runs, and you should be aware of the ramifications.  Facebook was initially built on the foundation of privacy and a small group of your friends.  Overtime as the number of users grew, Facebook realized the power of what they’d built (they are now the most visited website on the Internet), they began to leverage their size in ways that required people’s profile information and activity to be more public.  If you haven’t looked at your privacy settings lately, you’re probably sharing with a much larger crowd than you anticipated.  See here for a vivid little demonstration of how Facebook has become more public over time.

Example #1

Every time you update your status, the contents are piped straight to all the major search engines, where search engines do what they do best: they index it and make it findable for anyone who types in related keywords.  In other words, the whole world can see what you write on Facebook, unless you’ve explicitly set your privacy settings to disallow this.  Explicit is the key word here, you can control all these settings, but now you have to set them manually to keep your information private, whereas before it was the default setting.

Example #2

You know all that information you put into your public profile?  Your name, hometown, likes, interests, musical preferences, favorite movies, favorite TV shows, etc?  Yeah, all that information is used to construct a demographic picture of you so that Facebook can target advertisements to you (I’m fine with that), but if you’re signed into Facebook and visit another site while still signed in, that site can also potentially see all the information in your profile.  This allows the site to personalize it’s interface to you which is powerful and actually pretty neat, but it allows a lot of other things to, and you should consciously be making the decision about whether the risk is worth the reward.

What’s Happening?

Keep in mind this is serious enough stuff that members of the US Senate are writing letters to Facebook’s leadership warning that the FTC may get involved if certain concerns aren’t addressed satisfactorily.

So for those who don’t follow tech news, if you don’t know what I mean when I talk about the Open Graph API or Instant Personalization (these are both Facebook “features”), I’ll almost gaurantee that you are sharing much more publicly than you thought you were.  Maybe that’s OK with you, but you should be aware of what you’re doing.  “Knowledge is power” and all that.

So What?

I’m not advocating a Facebook boycott like many in the tech world are doing.  Facebook provides a valuable service that I enjoy.  I am, however, advocating that you know the cost of the service that Facebook provides, even though that cost is not measured in dollars.

If you decide that you don’t want to share your details with the world and the rest of the web, Business Insider put together a handy little guide for putting Facebook on a “Privacy Lockdown”.  The guide will tell you to put everything to “Only Friends”.  You can choose your on level of comfort, I have most of mine set at “Friends of Friends”.

The weighted companion cube is one of the objects you use to get through one of the later levels and has a hilarious back-story to it. Anyway, here’s what the cube looks like.

And here’s my initial drawing on paper (Mr. Turner my 7th grade art teacher who often caught me tracing should be proud).

Here it is on the pumpkin after cutting the outline. Pretty happy with it at this point.

And the finished product. Not quite as impressive as I’d hoped, but maybe someone out there can appreciate it.

Call me a sellout (I’m ashamed already), but I have it on pretty good authority that in order to be a good blogger, you need to be on Twitter. Now that I’m taking this blogging thing a little more seriously (on the Omniture Blog), I went ahead and made an account.

The straight facts? It is a pretty good way to spread the word to a crowd of people with a certain interest, though it is annoyingly freeform and completely lacking in structure. Keeping track of a single conversation is next to impossible unless you happen to be following all participants, and even then it’s tough.

The Basics

Essentially Twitter is like Facebook status updates, with the limitation that it cannot be more than 140 characters. To get a feel for what it’s like, imagine broadcast radio mixed with TXTing abbreviations and the collective intelligence level of a 5-year-old with a bullhorn.

The @ symbol is used to direct messages to specific people, the # symbol is used to denote that your tweet has to do with a specific topic, and RT means retweet – essentially someone is repeating another person’s comment. When you follow someone, their tweets will show up in your stream, unless they’re replying to a specific person that you’re not following.

Why Do Intelligent People Who Value Their Time Do This?

It’s a fair question. The signal-to-noise ratio is ridiculous and without care, you can waste your life reading the world’s largest collection of non-sense.

Where I think the real (perhaps only real) value lies is in the hashtag (#). Communities of people form around particular hashtags, and whenever they say something about that particular topic, they’ll use the tag. Anytime someone uses that tag, it’ll show up in your stream. An example: a web analytics community has formed around the #measure hashtag, so they’ll put that somewhere in their tweets about web analytics, and anyone who’s interested can add those to their stream.

The problem with Twitter is that anybody can say anything, so the experience depends largely on the communities that you participate in and the relative intelligence level of the people that make up the community. I find it much easier to be part of the #measure community (web analytics) than, say, the Miley Cyrus community.

It’s Terrible, but I Can’t Look Away

If you’re interested in what’s happening on Twitter, but don’t want to participate (and who can blame you), I would recommend you take a look at http://friendsignal.com/ or http://trendistic.com/. FriendSignal makes a tag cloud of popular topics on Twitter which are links to pages that show you what everyone is saying about that topic. If you’re interested in seeing how a particular topic is trending over time, then check out Trendistic.

Bottom line: Twitter is not for everyone. I wish that my involvement wasn’t really needed, but I intend to make the best of it. By limiting the number of people and topics you follow it is possible to be a contributing member of a meaningful community. If you have trouble keeping up with your Facebook friends, then stay far away from Twitter.

If you’re getting into Twitter in any real way, then you’ll have to use an application of some kind to keep track of the madness. I was told to that TweetDeck is the best and I’ve not been disappointed (it also does Facebook). They also have an iPhone app if that appeals to you.

I was waiting for one last thing to become public before I wrote this post, but it’s not happening as fast as I thought, so I’ll leave it out and catch you up later.

One of the things I discovered about myself is that I am a designer at heart.  I love digging into a particular issue, understanding it from all angles, and brainstorming a solution.  When it comes to discovery and exploration, that is where my interest and talents are.

I’m not particularly bad at implementing things, I just don’t enjoy it as much, which means it doesn’t receive my full attention, and I find myself looking for the next challenge.  In the technology world, that always means I’m looking for the latest gadgets.  In the business world, it means I like small teams where roles are ambiguous, job descriptions are in flux, and there’s lots of changes to mix things up.

My new job has a little implementation and a lot of design.  Perfect.

In a nutshell, my job has three main responsibilities.  First, I’ve inherited and now own the Omniture implementation inside of the Omniture suite, measuring how our customers are actually using our applications (very much like an Omniture customer would measure how their users are using the website).  The current design was created during a day where everything was pretty much web-based.  It’s been extended a bit and we’ve got more mileage out of it than was ever intended, but it’s time to rethink a few things in an Omniture world that’s expanding beyond the web.

Second, I believe all companies struggle with data in silos.  Omniture has gone to great lengths to build a foundation where data is shared, and I’ll be working to define behavioral metrics, integrate them with the flow of information, and get them into the hands of decision makers.

Finally, I belong to a team known as the Emerging Business team.  This is a small team of extremely bright folks that are looking for new business opportunities.  They liaise closely with the business development team exploring technologies, running Proofs of Concept with customers, and various other things to see if new developments in the industry (online or off) could be a viable business.  The tie for me is that we hope to glean some insight into the trends taking place in the market provide some extra direction for out efforts.  And there are a few things I’m looking into myself.

So that’s the run-down.  Some of it I know I’m good at, some of it is completely new.  All of it is challenging and extremely interesting.  Success is defined very differently with long-term objectives and lots of rope to go with it.  But I believe I’m up to the challenges and I plan on giving it my best effort.

Besides the incredible amount of learning I’ve been able to do specifically related to the analytics field, I’ve also learned a lot about effectively managing my time, successfully managing my team, setting prioties, making estimates, setting deadlines, and in general, being a professional.

For the past few months, I’ve been feeling like I’ve been on a plateau, doing the same kinds of things (and doing them well, after all, my work is my brand) repeatedly, but not really learning anything new or working on things I found particularly challenging.  In addition, I made some personal discoveries, and realized that the defined career path was headed in a direction that I really didn’t want to go.  I figured it was time to find a new path.

I didn’t feel like leaving Omniture, I love the company, and I love the direction that we’re going, but I needed some new challenges.  I told my management that I was looking around and I started to branch out into my network within the company see what other opportunities might be available.

I found one that fits my desires in all respects, and as of August 1st, I’m the new Manager of Market Insight.  More info coming soon.

But having spent longer in my first real job than any other job I’ve had so far has caused me to start thinking about what the rest of my career looks like. I’ve been exploring a few options for a month or so and discussions I’ve had with managers and potential managers have caused me to really start to zero in on the things I like to do and the things I would rather avoid.

I love exploration and discovery, looking at different options, figuring out the best parts, and putting the pieces together to fit into a holistic solution. When it comes to actually executing on my developed strategy, I start to lose interest. I’m more of a thinker than an actual doer, but I’m convinced that it’s OK to be this way and that the world can use more strategists. More people like me. The challenge now is finding the best opportunity that will let me think big…

These words serve as the Preamble to the Constitution which was adopted 221 years ago, give or take a few months, and created the United States of America.  Though the Constitution has been amended on a few occasions, these principles still stand as a shining ideal for what I hope is a country that still believes in that ideal.

The question I’m asking myself on the day of President Obama’s inauguration is this:  have I done anything recently to contribute to the formation of a perfect union?  Have you?

Step 4: Walk-throughs

So give your agent a list of homes that you’re interested in.  Your agent has likely found a few homes to show you as well.  The more you can see, the more informed your decision will be, so don’t shy away from looking at lots.  My advice during this stage is simply to know what you want, and know where you’re willing to compromise.

Men and women have different ideas about what makes a good home.  I wanted a house that was wired for network, Alison was more interested in the neighborhood.  I was impressed by vaulted ceilings and large rooms, while Alison looked into school districts.  We both wanted a good sized yard and a master bathroom with a tub and a walk-in shower.  Alison wanted a jetted tub, and I couldn’t care less.  We both wanted something that was built fairly recently (within 10 years for us), one that was in good condition, and (obviously) one within our price range.  Talk through this together and know what you absolutely must have and what you’re willing to sacrifice.

Your agent will schedule time to walk through the homes.  It was our experience that most people will have an excuse to be gone when you come by, which is nice because you can talk about the things you like and don’t like with your agent as you go through.  Your agent is legally bound not to share financial information about how much you can afford, etc. with anyone else.  There’s a paper they sign for this, so make sure they do, but this allows you to tap their experience and opinions as well.  Trust me, they’ve seen a lot more houses than you have.

If the house is not empty when you go through, “just play it cool boy, real cool.”  Don’t wander around talking about how amazing things are, how much you love it, and how much better it is than all the other houses you’ve seen so far.  This will make it more difficult for you to get the seller to agree on a lower price =)  And no matter how much you want the home, you want to get it for the lowest possible price, so observe this rule.

Hopefully you can find the house with everything you want, but don’t hold your breath.  We gave up the master bathroom for the big-fenced in back yard.

Step 5: Making An Offer

OK, so now it’s time to get serious.  Up to this point it’s been all fun and games, but now you’ve got to get down to business.  When you’ve decided on a home you want to make an offer on, let your agent know.

The actual process is fairly painless.  Your agent will likely have a canned contract of some kind and you’ll spend an hour or so filling in all the required details, but more importantly talking through the actual offer you’ll make.  How much below asking price will you offer?  Are you paying closing costs, or is the seller (keep in mind that the amount in the contract is an estimate only, and the seller is bound to the estimated amount, not the actual cost)?  Do you want a home-owners warranty?  Who will pay for that? How long does the seller have to make an official response to your offer?

What won the deal for us – I think – was how fast we were able to close.  This was our first home and we’d been renting, so we didn’t have another house to sell, which simplified the process for us.  The seller had just had a job transfer and was looking to get out as fast as possible, so we offered them a quick closing date.  Keep in mind that there’s a lot to take care of pre-closing, so don’t move too fast.

Another thing to keep in mind is that as a buyer, you’re only committing to buy the house if you like it.  Final acceptance is hinged on a home inspection, more walk-throughs, and any other number of conditions you want to write in.  You can structure these contracts, so that if you change your mind at any point, you can back out.  You wouldn’t do this for just any reason because you’re honest and honorable, but it gives you some peace of mind.

Once this is done, written, and you sign it, then your agent contacts the seller’s agent to let them know and faxes them a copy of the written contract.  Now the negotiations begin.

Step 6: Negotiations

If you’re anything like me, you’ll love having an agent for this part, because they’re the ones that get to play hardball for you.  Also, we mentioned up front that agents don’t get paid until the deal is made and papers are signed, so your agent at this point in time has a slight conflict of interest and may no longer be as interested in getting you the best deal, but rather getting you to sign.  Once the offer is made, they are starting to taste that 3% of the purchase price, so they may start to push you in a direction you don’t want to go.  Just remember that as addendums roll in and things change from the way you originally laid it out.  Listen to your agent, but take thing with a grain of salt and if you don’t like something, don’t agree to it.

This was not our experience because we observed rule number 1, we had an agent that we knew and trusted.

Anyway, once the seller has your offer, they have the right to accept, reject, or counter.  In today’s’ market if they don’t like it they’ll counter, but everybody knows it’s a buyer’s market, so at the moment, things are in your favor.  The key to this step is finding a middle ground where everybody gets a good deal.  If you can’t do that, then you better hope your agent is better at hardball than the other guy.

Any change to the contract will be added as an addendum and signed by both parties.  Maybe they want a higher price.  Maybe they won’t pay closing costs.  Maybe the close date is too far out or too soon.  In our case, maybe they are using a relocation company to move and there’s a ream of extra paperwork to do.  Also in our case, the close date was actually too soon, so we worked out a deal where we own the home and they rent from us for a few weeks until they an get everything moved out.

In any case, keep copies of everything you sign, and work out the best deal you can.  When you emerge from negotiations, then everybody is under written contract.  Now you can go blog that you’re buying a home and you can start planning the move.  It’s not a done deal yet, but you’ve clearred a major hurdle.

Now you need to get the home inspected.  You’re already pre-qualified, but you need to obtain financing.  You also need to get hazard insurance.  I’ll cover these topics in Part 3.