As the words to a popular song goes, love is a battlefield, a scene that one can imagine in homes with hard-headed problem child or teenagers with really serious problems such as substance abuse or gang membership or even criminal activity. Behavioral and developmental psychologists have recognized that a child’s character starts to genuinely take shape at the early age of five or younger, and that tough parenting or authoritative parenting should therefore start at such an early stage. Moreover, if implemented in the correct manner and with consistency, the need for more drastic types of tough parenting techniques would be eliminated when the children get older and serious behavioral problems become increasingly prone to crop up.

More than many of us realize, our parenting style impacts how our child grows up to become an adult affecting whether he or she becomes a well-adjusted, productive member of society capable of handling any curve ball life may throw at him or her, or whether he or she turns out to be a so-called “child-adult” with no coping skills that ideally should have been learned during childhood. Child psychologists and counselors with expertise on modern parenting categorized parenting styles into four general types:

1. Liberal – high level of caring, low level of discipline.
2. Autocratic – strict, low level of caring, high level of discipline.
3. Detached – hands off, low level of caring, low level of discipline
4. Authoritative – firm but fair, high level of caring, high level of discipline.

• Lock the doors. Although hotels are equipped with CCTV cameras, you would not know when danger comes your way so better be prepared for it. Ensure that doors are locked at all times. When someone rings the bell, make sure you peep in through the hole and check who the person is before opening the door for them.
• Know the numbers to call. Upon checking in to your room, ask people from the reception area the contact numbers to dial in case something happens. In case of emergencies, you should also have numbers of hospitals, police stations, and fire departments. Make sure you are prepared with all the contact information you need just in case you need help with something.
• Do not leave your kids alone in the pool side. Many hotels hire lifeguards to watch over people who swim by the pool but it is still better if you watch over your kids yourself. Leaving them by themselves can get you and your kids into trouble and may make them susceptible to other possible dangers such as getting lost around the hotel.
• Make sure you keep your things guarded. If you are going to leave your hotel room, make sure you lock the doors so that you can secure your things inside. Aside from that, it is not advisable for you to bring things and gadgets when you decide to take a dip at the pool. Lastly, make sure you have some contact information placed on your belongings so that people may contact you just in case they find your things somewhere else.

Matching funds are funds added to your 401k fund by your employer together with your usual contribution. The contribution of your company is generally smaller than what you contribute, it is approximately 50%. This is done as an encouragement by employers to their employees to participate in 401k plan rollover. Companies however do not profit from this investment but they may use the funds for any other purpose.

There are many things to know about 401k rollover before deciding about it. The following are some facts about 401k turnover that you should know, good or bad:

1. 401k rollover avoids you from tax deductions.
2. 401k plans can be transferred.
3. 401k plan rollover gives you full control of your investment.
4. In case of company merger, your investment shall be moved to the company’s new rules and regulations.
5. If you are aware that your company is going down, then you can transfer your fund from your old company to the new company.
6. With an IRA rollover, you can withdraw your money unlike in 401k account, you can’t.
7. Transferring your 401k account to an IRA account is more beneficial and flexible.
8. 401k plans actually depends from company to company.  To be eligible in investing money using the 401k plans, your employer should participate in the 401k programs.
9. You must be 21 years old and above
10. Your employment within the company should be less than a year.
11. Your employer is not the administrator of your fund but the financial institution that you chose to control your account.
12. Employee contribution is the money deducted from the employee’s payroll to deposit into the plan.

However, keeping the site live did not make sense from an economic or strategic standpoint.  As the parent company, Intrascopic Media Inc., considered what we had learned from our experiences and what the real value in our work continues to be, it was decided that killing the site made sense for the long run.  Why?

It turns out that podcasters, the original target market for our Social Media Player, already had their hands full in managing to turn out their shows on a regular basis.  Being involved in audio and video production ourselves, it’s a reality we understand intimately: good content takes a real commitment of time and energy.  So while everyone thought we had a cool service, with people like Adam Curry, Leo LaPorte and Twit.tv taking an early interest, and John Havens, Mark Blevis and Chris Brogan hip to the idea, in the end, it was a layer of complexity and brand management that turned out to be too much for busy podcasters.

But that was okay, because while we remained focused on podcasters, another market began to find us, and really USE our social Media Player technology: educators.

From the moment we opened the doors to our site, we saw the potential of an educational tool, and evidently educators at all levels agreed with that assessment.  During the 18 months or so that the site was live, we had literally hundreds of educators tell us how, with a few tweaks of the application, they could use the site to stimulate learning in a fun, interactive and participatory environment.  The Social Media Player technology continues to have huge implications in distance learning.

So this brings us to the “why” of our decision to shut the site down.

Our podcasting friends were not using the application as rabidly as we hoped, due to the management overhead it implied.  Our educator friends were telling us the site needed modifications to be fit for educational access restrictions.  So rather than let the site languish, we chambered a round, drew a bead, and pulled the trigger on Crowdabout.us.

Will the educational version of our technology ever hit the streets?  Good question.  We hope to one day explore that market.  But in order to really enter it with the long haul in mind, we would need some funding.

Would we consider selling the technology?  Honestly, it’s always been a possibility, and while the phone isn’t ringing off the hook, we have had a few conversations along those lines.

So we want to thank you.  Thank you for using our service, for embracing us as thought leaders in the emerging social media playground that the web is quickly becoming.  And although our site now sleeps, we do not look upon this grand experiment as a failure.  Not at all.  Rather, the lessons it taught us, the experiences and relationships it fostered, and the foreward momentum it provided continue to etch themselves into the fabric of our lives.  We have been truly blessed to have shaped the world’s conversations and communities, if only in a small way.

Best to all,

Carter Harkins

Daniel Nelson

The Team at CrowdAbout