Urban Dictionary has defined the term ‘ratchet’.  As an adjective, it describes a person or activity that is out of hand, out of control, or generally whack in some way.  So to de-ratchefy means to remove the person or activity that is out of control or whack in some way from your social media outlets.  Below you will find 10 Ways to De-Ratchefy your life.

Trust me if you do this you will find a new zen like peace of mind and your 2012 will be off to stellar start!

Presented By: JB

Facebook and romantic relationships make for a potent — and potentially volatile — combination.

While the network does offer opportunities for meaningful social interactions and self-esteem boosts, it also opens a Pandora’s box of options for spying, stalking and other insecurity- and jealousy-driven actions between lovers.

And all those public relationship tidbits of data, from new relationship announcements to breakups to digital PDA, can have an impact on how others, including your partner, see you.

Here’s an interesting infographic on the subject from Online Dating University and AllFacebook.

How do you handle Facebook when it comes to interpersonal relationships, especially those of a romantic variety?

I’ve been working in corporate America for almost 14 years (I was hired by International Truck and Engine in 1998) and over the course of time working in the corporate arena I have learned many concepts that cross the professional lines and work inside of the personal as well.  Wether it’s how to effectively communicate, how to properly ask questions, or actively listen these skills have transcended corporate into how I interact with people daily.  Recently I began to think about dating relationships and how closes it relates to Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development model.  Most people have heard of the four stages Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing.  I think these stages play into dating relationships as well. Let’s examine each stage and see how it translates into dating relationships. I’ve adapted these definitions from Wikipedia and training material I’ve taught from over the years to fit inside the dating model.

Forming

In the first stages of team building, the forming of the team takes place. The individual’s behavior is driven by a desire to be accepted by the other, and avoid controversy or conflict. Serious issues and feelings are avoided, and people focus on being busy with routines, who does what, when to meet (date), etc. But individuals are also gathering information and impressions – about each other. This is a comfortable stage to be in, but the avoidance of conflict and threat means that not much actually gets done.

The couple meets and learns about the opportunities and challenges.  The couple still behaves very much so quite independently. They may be motivated but are usually relatively uninformed of the issues inside the relationship. Both parties are usually on their best behavior but very focused on themselves.

The forming stage of any relationship is important because, in this stage, the couple  get to know one another, exchange some personal information, and make new friends. This is also a good opportunity to see how each person works as an individual and how they respond to pressure.

You know this stage. This is the happy stage. The stage where things are good the sky is blue and every love song on the radio seems to remind you of that other person!

Example Couple: Pick any of your friends who’s recently started to date someone promising!

Storming

Every relationship will next enter the storming stage in which different ideas compete for consideration. The couple addresses issues such as what they each really want in the relationship, how they will function independently and together and what leadership model they will accept. This is vital and if it’s avoided it will lead to conflict as you progress in your relationship.  People tend to open up to each other and confront each other’s ideas and perspectives. In some cases storming can be resolved quickly. In others, the couple never leaves this stage.  You have seen these couples that argue all the time!  You know… The dysfunctional couple.. The couple friends hate to invite to things.. The couple that makes you ask yourself; “why are they even together?” The growth of the individuals in the relationship and ability to communicate  usually determines whether the couple will ever move out of this stage. Some people only focus on minutiae to evade real issues.

The storming stage is necessary to the growth of the couple. It can be contentious, unpleasant and even painful to those who are averse to conflict. Tolerance of each person and their differences should be emphasized. Without tolerance and patience the couple will fail. This phase can become destructive to the couple  if allowed to get out of control.

This stage is the “getting down to business” stage.  It is the stage where you really get to know the other person and it’s very vital

Example Couple: Marcus and Tasha in For Better or For Worse… Bad Show Great Example

Norming

The couple manages to have one goal and come to a mutual plan for the relationship.  One may have to give up their own ideas and agree with other in order to make the relationship grow.  In this stage the couple takes the responsibility and have the ambition to work for the success of the relationship.

I don’t think many get to this stage. I think many relationships never go through an adequate storming phase and therefore stay stuck moving between forming and storming.  Once the storming phase gets difficult the couple abandons the path and if they choose to continue to date they try and go back to the happy-happy, joy-joy (Pause… my twitter people get this) phase of development.

Example Couple : Dwayne Wane and Whitley in Different World

Performing (Winning)

It is possible for some couples to reach the performing stage. These high-performing relationships are able to function as a unit as they find ways work together and provide happiness smoothly and effectively without inappropriate conflict or the need for external input (the friends comments). By this time, they are motivated and knowledgeable of each other and communicate effectively.  Dissent is expected and allowed as long as it is channeled through means acceptable to the communication platform. Talk it out or have a breakdance battle to settle your differences.

All in all I think this is a very applicable business concept that works in real life… What do you think?

Example Couple : Heathcliff and Claire Huxtable

In the 1990s, Intel (INTC, Fortune 500), Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), Dell (DELL, Fortune 500) and Cisco (CSCO, Fortune 500) were the so-called “four horsemen of tech” — the high-profile public technology companies that were sure to return strong growth to investors year after year. For nearly two decades, all four held keys to technology’s growth engine: the personal computer. Intel made the processors, Microsoft made the software, Dell made the PCs and Cisco networked them together.

But things have changed. The PC is no longer driving technology growth. Mobile phones, tablets, and cloud computing are blazing a new path.

So who should replace the old guard? We surveyed 30 technology experts, ranging from stock analysts to tech consultants to fund managers, asking them to pick four public companies (sorry, Facebook). We also polled thousands of our readers.

The results are clear: Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), Google (GOOG,Fortune 500), Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) and IBM (IBM,Fortune 500) are the new four horsemen of tech. Unsurprisingly, all four companies are leaders in mobility or cloud computing.

Apple: The voting wasn’t really that close. Apple was the clear leader, appearing on 84% of experts’ ballots. It’s no surprise: Apple is the most valuable technology company on the stock market, yet it is also one of the fastest-growing.

Apple is a frontrunner in the smartphone revolution, and its iPad created a new category of mobile computing.

“I think tablet computing is going to be one of the next ‘big things’ in tech, and Apple has a near monopoly on this market,” said Zeus Kerravala, an independent tech analyst at ZK Research.

Apple is also embracing the other key technology trend with its high-profileiCloud.

Google: Of the experts we polled, 70% placed it in their top-four picks.

“Search is still the prevailing storm for monetization on the Web, and that will continue for the foreseeable future,” said Michael Grossi, director at Altman Vilandrie & Co.

Of course, Google has grown way beyond being “just” a search company. Mobile and display advertising are each generating more than $1 billion a year for the company.

The Android operating system powers more smartphones than any other OS. And if the company’s bid for Motorola Mobility (MMI) goes through, it will give Google control of both the hardware and softwarefor its devices.

Amazon: Appearing on 57% of experts’ ballots, Amazon is by far the lowest-valued company on the list. Its market cap is $80 billion. Google, the next-smallest, is valued at $170 billion.

But Amazon’s sales are projected to grow faster than any of its other horsemen companions.

“Amazon’s core market is still in its infancy, with just 5% of commerce taking place online,” noted Steve Lidberg, director of research at Pacific Crest Securities. “The company is also poised to be the biggest disruptor in technology, with a business model that is supported by thin margins, providing the flexibility to make investment decisions that others may avoid.”

The company sells Kindle e-book readers and tablets for no or little profitin order to support its retail and media businesses. But Amazon’s biggest bet is happening in the cloud, with its Web services and hosting business.

“Today they are a retail outlet, with a foot in technology,” said Vanessa Alvarez, analyst at Forrester Research. “Tomorrow, they’ll be a technology company, running a retail business.”

IBM: With 40% of experts’ votes, IBM edged out Microsoft (37%) to become the fourth horseman.

Its SmartCloud technology is helping IBM deliver high-powered analyticsto small businesses and governments, optimizing everything from road construction to call centers.

“The importance of analytics of all kinds and the depth of their portfolio in these areas is unrivalled,” said Susan Feldman, analyst at IDC. “These technologies are vital to round out the understanding of what’s going on and why.”

The “big data” revolution that IBM is leading has led to multiple successful initiatives, including Smarter Planet and Watson, the Jeopardy! playing computer. That’s one reason why the 100-year old company’s stock rose by 25% last year.

No safe bets: In the tech market, icons can fall hard and fast. Shares of three of the four old horsemen are all down over the past 10 years, while Cisco is down substantially from where it was five years ago.

Meanwhile, the new horsemen have been a great 21st century investment. Apple’s stock is up 3,650% over the past decade, and Amazon’s is up 1,160%. Google has grown 550% since it went public in 2004. Even big, bad IBM is up 90% over the past 10 years.

But there are no guarantees. Just a few years ago, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIMM) may have been on this list. Or Netflix (NFLX).

That led one analyst to choose “no one” for his four horsemen picks.

“There are no safe investments in technology right now,” said Ed Zabitzsky, analyst at ACI Research. “I have never seen this much change at one time. Change brings market disruption and lower prices, and often it brings commoditization.” 

When Facebook gets involved, relationships can quickly fall apart – as Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi have discovered. But dictatorships are not the only ties being dissolved by social networkingsites: now Facebook is increasingly being blamed for undermining American marriages.

Even though the rate of divorce in the US has remained largely stable in recent years, American divorce lawyers and academics have joined Middle East analysts in picking out Facebook as a leading cause of relationship trouble, with American lawyers now demanding to see their clients’ Facebook pages as a matter of course before the start of proceedings.

“We’re coming across it more and more. One spouse connects online with someone they knew from school. The person is emotionally available and they start communicating through Facebook,” said Dr Steven Kimmons, a clinical psychologist and marriage counsellor atLoyola University Medical Centre near Chicago.

Yet while the US media has been quick to trumpet any evidence of Facebook as the country’s leading marriage-wrecker, the truth is “It’s complicated,” as the site’s relationship status would have it.

A 2010 survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) found that four out of five lawyers reported an increasing number of divorce cases citing evidence derived from social networking sites in the past five years, with Facebook being the market leader.

Two-thirds of the lawyers surveyed said that Facebook was the “primary source” of evidence in divorce proceedings, while MySpace with 15% and Twitter with 5% lagged far behind.

Those statistics included not just evidence of infidelity but other legal battles, such as child custody cases in which parents deny using illicit drugs but boast of smoking marijuana on their Facebook pages.

Photographs harvested from social networking sites – including those posted by friends or colleagues on their own pages – are a particularly rich source of damning evidence, according to divorce lawyers.

“This sort of evidence has gone from nothing to a large percentage of my cases coming in,” Linda Lea Vicken, a member of the divorce lawyers’ group from South Dakota, told the Associated Press.

Marlene Eskind Moses, president of the AAML, said the openness and sharing of social networking sites left their users’ public and private lives more exposed.

“If you publicly post any contradictions to previously made statements and promises, an estranged spouse will certainly be one of the first people to notice and make use of that evidence,” said Moses.

Statistics for January from online analysts Nielsen showed 135 million people in the US visiting Facebook during the month – nearly 70% of the country’s internet users. On average, users spent more than seven hours a month visiting the site, far longer than the less than half an hour spent on visits to Amazon or the average of two hours and 15 minutes on Google, America’s most popular web destination.

The overall rate of divorce, however, appears to be unaffected by the advent of social networking. The most recent published data – from 2009 – shows the overall divorce rate declining, slightly more slowly than the shrinking percentage of Americans who get married every year.

A spokesperson for Facebook said: “It’s ridiculous to suggest that Facebook leads to divorce. Whether you’re breaking up or just getting together, Facebook is just a way to communicate, like letters, phone calls and emails. Facebook doesn’t cause divorces, people do.”

But given its popularity, it is little wonder that negotiating “Facebook divorce” status updates has become another unhappy event for failed romances, over when to launch the site’s broken-heart icon out into the glare of the world’s news feed.

I couldn’t start of talking about anyone else 1st other than my absolute best friend in the world my sister.. Jennifer Beckham she knows more about me than anyone. My favorite memory was when we were little and we stayed in the same room in the 1 bedroom apartment my folks had as young parents. She and I would play games where we would hum songs and try and guess what each other was humming. It’s hard to believe that was so long ago.

I remember one time my dad left us alone in our room I had to be 5 and Jen was probably 3 and I decided I was going to help him out and get her dressed and ready to go.  Let’s just say it wasn’t a good look. I think I put like 100 ribbons in her hair and tied them to her arms and legs. When my mom got home and she saw it she only could laugh.

Now she’s a great mother, counselor, friend, and teacher herself. I know she’s one person I can always count on She deserves every good thing God has for her and I know there is great things just on the horizon for her. She’s the strongest person I know and she’s only 115 lbs.

To say I’m proud to be her brother would be an understatement.

March Madness may be the best cap to a season that any sport features. Despite what has gone on for the last six months, when the brackets are released, pitting the best of every conference in college basketball against one another, it seems that nearly everybody has a chance. The push to find the Cinderella, the underdog small school team that can pull the big upset, is one of the best stories in all of sports. That Cinderella aspect is not only limited to college basketball courts however.

Across the nation, there are millions of underdogs that are working to make a life out of the game of basketball, but struggle to grasp the academics needed both make it in the game, and more importantly, in life. On the South side of Chicago, a team of hardworking individuals has made it their mission to embrace the very essence of  “college” and “basketball”, and is redefining the means to the end both on and off the court.

The Swish Dreams program is taking a unique approach to academic preparation, by taking basketball and turning it from only a cultural interest, and morphing it into an academic one as well. Through the statistics, geography and structure of the NBA, this program is teaching not just the strategy of the game, but the math, reading, geography and even business management that surrounds it. Started in 2006 by Joshua Mercer, who after returning to his hometown of Chicago after college, saw a clear need for the youth of the area to have an outlet to see beyond the often-difficult surroundings they were growing up in. Heavily influenced by the game of basketball his entire life, and having the gift of vision that a Business degree from Howard, and later a Master’s degree in Education from National-Louis University provides, he sought to start a program where he could spread the needed tools to succeed and overcome the rough environment of inner city Chicago, via one of the great influences and passions of the city: basketball. It was from this vision that Swish Dreams was born.

Initially funded through Mercer’s own resources and money he collected from opening up the gym of the school he was working at to his friends on the weekends (at the price of $3 per day), his vision began to take shape. Also required of those who attended the gym was to contribute their time towards mentoring and tutoring the kids that were beginning to make up the Swish Dreams program, who got to run games on the court early Saturday morning before the pay-to-play games started up. This original model has continued to grow and thrive, as the program has grown in support, outreach and capacity. Now Swish Dreams has a strong core of directors that contribute to growth of both the in-class and basketball IQ of those who take part in the program.

“The problem with education is there is one standard, and everyone can’t learn that way”, says Mercer. “We use basketball to get the fundamentals of school out in a new way the kids can relate to.” Although it is a year around mentoring program, Swish Dreams took its impact to the next level in July 2010, by hosting an intensive summer camp, where the participants not only got continued educational support and in-depth instruction in the game itself, but had both elements combined into an inclusive experience in school and the sport. The summer camp league is constructed from the ground up and supervised by a team of volunteers, however it is run by the kids themselves. The camp’s league program includes an NBA-style training camp & draft, league play & playoffs, team management and fitness training. Through these processes, the participants’ personal and educational skills are honed and continually put to the test, with interviews to increase communications skills, mathematics development through in-game statistics accounting and learning about health and the human body via what puts it in the best shape to perform on the court.

Combining education, love of basketball and community, Mercer is changing fortunes on the court and classroom.

Much like the stats that kids learn to compile for themselves, the proof of the impact in the program’s approach is in the numbers and results of the participants off the court. “There was a 27% increase in overall math scores and 3% improvement in reading scores by the end of the camp across the board”, reported Executive Vice-President Jason Campbell. However, for as ambitious and proven as the program is, it needs more help to expand its reach. Many kids were able to receive partial sponsorships to participate in the program last summer (with a writing a personal statement essay to be scholarship eligible being a requirement), however the program needs more help to expand its reach, not only to those already in its fold, but to further expand throughout the entire city. Mercer states that around $400 can sponsor one camper throughout the entire program, but that any contribution can go towards empowering Swish Dreams to do more.

The best testament to what is being done here is from the kids being impacted by the program. “Swish Dreams thought me through basketball that I don’t have to be just a basketball player”, said 2010 camp participant Aaron Ashraf. He also made it clear that playing in a competitive league was great fun, as was keeping a written journal of quotes from famous basketball players and discussing them, which helped his reading efforts. He later received the camp’s reading award for his literary progress. Aaron also made it clear, with no hesitation, that Chicago Bulls star (a native Chicagoan) Derrick Rose is his favorite player.

Swish Dreams is making it possible that not only can there be more Derrick Rose’s that rise up from the city, but that there will also be more men that use basketball to reach higher levels in life overall, whether they continue to play the game, or take the lessons of it along with them in high school, college and back into their community (and the program) as well. Through Mercer’s vision, and a little help from his friends, he is assigning a brand new spin on what being a student-athlete truly means.

For more information, upcoming events, further program details or the make a contribution, please visit www.SwishDreams.orgor contact Josh Mercer directly at jmercer@swishdreams.org