Reut  Mark has a family & friends all over Israel & the world, and she loves seeing them often. She also loves visiting new places and networking. To be able to do all these she is working from home in various programs & companies.

Shalom Reut, we are happy to host you here at Learnoutlive and to learn form your experience of maintainting and suataining an online lifestyle. We are glad you could find sometime to share this interview with us.

You are running an online business, working also from home, did it change your relation to work and if it did, how ?

My main business is not really an online business, but I do use many of the options and tools that the internet, email, social media and so on have to offer. It has been my dream for a long time to work from home. I suppose many of you can understand the reasons for this, but let me mention just a few:Watching the traffic jams on my TV rather than being a part of them every morning and evening.

Having a good boss (That’s me!!!)

Being able to earn as much as I want (well, it takes time, but it depends ON ME!!!
Working only with nice people – yes, I can choose them now! Helping other people to become healthier and financially secure. And yes, it did indeed change my relation with work.

Let’s be honest – although I can not sleep until lunchtime and do next to nothing and still earn, I CAN decide when to get up, and sometimes to sleep a bit later. And except for the times when I am meeting other people, I decide what I do and when, and also how. It is not easy. There is so much to learn, and I need a lot of self discipline but it’s worth every minute of it.

After trying a few companies and deciding what I want and what I don’t want, I looked and asked around and found a company that fits all my requirements and I am very happy there. I get all the support I need but I am totally independent, and no one can fire me. (Forever Living Products, an MLM company that produces and markets Aloe Vera and organic bee products.)

So now I am learning how to be a good boss (to myself!), how to build and support my team, I learn about marketing, the products, nutrition, health, running a business, people!!!
I am very busy and very very excited. And I am learning and developing all the time.
Oh yes – now I do LOVE my work, I wake up excited every morning, not dreading another day but looking forward to it.

How does social media change the way you relate to people?

The internet in general and social media in particular changed me quite drastically. From an introverted, reserved person who is afraid to open her mouth, I can now quite easily start communicating with even complete strangers (I do remember though to be careful!!).

I got to know many people from all over the country and the world, I learned to sort of decide quite quickly which are “the good ones” and which ones I’d rather have nothing to do with.
I believe that I rely far less on stereotypes, and rather try to judge every person as a human being, unrelated to their age, nationality, religion, political views…

OK OK, there ARE some people I can’t stand, but hey – there are so many people out there, I can happily choose those that I like, those that interest me. I have become real friends with some people I haven’t yet met face to face, hopefully I’ll get to meet some of them, I already did meet a few.

You lived 16 years in South Africa, in what way this period developed in you a global perspective?

Having lived in South Africa for so long did indeed change my perspectives.
For one thing – I was literally living on the other side of the world….the Southern hemisphere, where winter is in summer and summer is in winter, where they drive “on the other side of the road”, where they speak another language (well rather MANY other languages), where there are so many different cultures.

For another – it improved my English to an almost mother-tongue level, thus opening for me the possibility to communicate with many more people than I previously could with just my Hebrew.
I obviously came into contact with many people of many kinds, most of which I never really met before in the relatively small Israel.

In South Africa there are people from many races (and during the Apartheid era it was something that could not really be totally ignored, even though I am generally apolitical), different religions, originating from many different parts of the world, speaking many different languages.

Naturally most of the time I was within the Jewish/Israeli communities, but while studying, working, shopping I came into contact with other people, realizing (again…) that people are people. They can be good or bad, clever or stupid, right or left etc, no matter where they were born and in what circumstances.

Many of our friends and relatives also emigrated while I was in South Africa, so I became exposed to even more places, time zones, life styles. Of course the internet, to which I first became exposed in 1998, opened for me even more worlds, time zones, countries, languages.

From your experience with people and networking, what massage would you like to deliver ?

My 2 main messages are:

1 – People are absolutely fascinating!!

2 – If you network a lot and come into contact with many people and groups, you can find just about anything you want.
Now let me clarify – of course not all people are good and interesting, but many many are.
And it makes no difference where they were born or where they live now – some will become good friends, most not, but hey – I can’t be friends with EVERYBODY in this world, so it’s OK!

And what do I mean by “finding anything you want”??
I personally found… some very good friends, parties and other events, business contacts, a personal coach, the company where I now work and am very happy with, training courses of many kinds…
I am sure I forgot many things, but you get the point – if you come into contact with enough people and groups, you WILL find many things that you need, want or are interested in.

It has been a pleasure talking to you, and I hope I did contribute something of interest, too.

About the author: Eti Shani was born in Israel, studied General History and Political Science at Haifa University and has been teaching Hebrew for more than 10 years both for beginners and advanced students with a special interest and experience in ancient scriptures, culture & Judaica.

Hello Michal, I am very happy that you agreed to speak to us today. I know you have a lot of other things to do, so we really appreciate it.

Okay… let’s start with the first question:

You are running many websites and online services that allow you to work from home. What would you say are the advantages of making a living online ?

There are many advantages for making a living online, especially when you’re a family with kids.

When we decided to work from home and make our living online – the choice was a lifestyle choice.

We knew that there are many things we can do for a living, but if we think of what we want to do – we have to think of how we want to live, and the way we want to live can only be supported by this way of making a living – online.

And as for the advantages – the most important ones are:
When working from home – first of all there is no “commute” – no driving to work, which used to take up a lot of our free time and money.
When working for yourself – you get to decide what to do with your time.
I for example work during the morning hours and spend the afternoons with my kids. If there’s work to be completed – sometimes I work at night.
This also allows me to go shopping “off hours” – at mornings, which takes less time and is more fun.
This also serves my work in a better way, since working with customers from the US – Is done later on in the evening.
The challenges of working from home have to do with balancing work and life. This took some time, but today I think I have reached a good balance that I can maintain.

Many parents today are worrying about full classrooms, violence at school, etc. What can we do to improve the situation? Should we try to reform the education system from the inside or take our children out of school and teach them at home, as for example Asher Idan says?

These are global problems that we in Israel also suffer from. Since most of us can’t afford to teach our kids at home – I think we need to make the change from within: First – each of us has to make sure that his children get good education after school hours – at home, And what we also need to do is keep involved and try to help our children’s teachers at school.  The educational system is a big system – but what each of our kids meets every day is a collection of private people who are teachers.  Teachers who have to handle the system’s problems on a daily basis, and who can use our help as parents. In the long run – there needs to be a major change in the way children are taught, but that will take time. We should all try and support the efforts being conducted by people like Dr. Idan, and contribute for the long term campaign.

You told us that you and your husband left your jobs in high-tech companies in Tel Aviv and you moved to live in Ayalon valley next to Jerusalem growing children and olives. What motivated you to make this shift?

What motivated us for this shift was that – as we see it – the urban surroundings have changed since we were children.  Cities in Israel today are mostly not a pleasant and supporting environment to live in as they used to be, to say the least, and we could not think of our children growing up in such a busy environment. We wanted our family (our children as well as ourselves) to live closer to nature, shop and consume less, and have a more laid – back lives.  We wanted to have a view of the mountains rather than the next buildings on the block, and to be able to decide for ourselves our wants and needs – with much less influence from urban society, and the commercial messages you are exposed to in the city  And the result is that our lives are much more balanced and relaxed.

The Internet is rapidly expanding and becoming more and more an integral part of our daily lives. How does it affect us to be connected all the time?

This has certainly good and bad effects, but I think it’s more for the good side. Generally speaking, I see this change as the transfer of power from the center to the peripheral,  as the transfer of power from a few main media channels to an infinite number of small and very small channels. The new communication channels enable us to receive real time news and updates from services like twitter, as well as to transmit this information in real-time and make the change.  The most prominent example I can think of – of how things changed – is from two weeks ago. What happened two weeks ago was that a flotilla of ships was headed to Gaza with intention to break the blockade on Gaza. In reality what happened was that the first ship in the flotilla had in it not only peace activists, but also a large number of terrorists who were hired by different groups with the aim of kidnapping or murdering Israeli soldiers.  The story evolved in real time, and many supporters of Israel followed it and expressed their opinion according to the latest findings.  Now, a few years ago – this whole event would have been communicated only by the news channels, and according to their perception of the truth.  What happened this time – for a change – is that thousands of Israel supporters expressed their view on facebook, twitter, youtube and the news channel websites, and the volume of user generated content and activity on the matter was something that none of the main stream news channels could ignore. Very soon after – reporters on those news channels started speaking differently about the entire situation, and the world got a better understanding of the situation as it was.

Thank you very Much for your time, Michal.

About the author: Eti Shani was born in Israel, studied General History and Political Science at Haifa University and has been teaching Hebrew for more than 10 years both for beginners and advanced students with a special interest and experience in ancient scriptures, culture & Judaica.

Almost every day he is speaking at different conferences, universites and assemblies about Medicine, Business Management, Politics, Private Innovations and Education.

We are very grateful that he took his precious time to answer a few of our questions.

Hello Mr. Idan, first of all I think it would be very interesting for our readers if you could briefly summarize what issues you are dealing with as “Manager of Future Studies of Social Media”, in The Department of Management in Tel Aviv University. That sounds like a very exciting job and – as far as I am concerned, not many universities offers “Future Studies of Social Media”, or at least – not yet.

Future Studies of social media watch the future trends of the social media (SM): If Web 2.0 is social media, than what is Web 3.0 ? Web 3.0 is the Semantic Web or the Intelligent Web that Tim Berners Lee, envision in the Year 2000 in a paper in Scientific American. What is Web 4.0? The Nano-Bio Web.

Social Media is undoubtedly having a very big impact on the way human beings relate to each other. What would you rate as two or three most defining characteristics of change? Do you see any trends towards the future?

The three most defining characteristics of change are: A, the transformation from Mass and Monologic Communication to Conversational Dialogic Communication. B, From Mass Representational Democracy to Direct Communal Democracy. C, From One-to-Many Education to Many to Many Education.

Since the burst of the dot-com bubble at the end of the 90ies, people are looking at online commerce differently and have become much more sceptical and cautious. On the other hand we are seeing more and more emerging online businesses. How do you think online business is going to develop? Are we going to see more and more people “working online” or will it stay something that is only for highly trained professionals like web-developers, designers, coaches etc.?

In 2015 there will be 2 Billion people on the Internet. Most of them will be Y Generation (age 5-35) and/or from Chidia (China+India). Most of them can work from everywhere.

Now I have a question, that I am personally very interested in, since I am teaching languages online and have been teaching young adults for many years before in a local school. I am very curious as to the development of “traditional schooling”. The whole concept of children sitting in a classroom, not being able to move much, required to be quiet for hours and hours and only express themselves when being asked seems very old-fashioned, to put it mildly. What do you think about the future of education? I know, this is a big question, but to ask more directly: Will “school” as we know it disappear? Will it be replaced by something else, and if yes, by what? Or will our children continue to sit in classrooms like they have been one hundred years ago?

The answers to the following questions depends on our actions: Will “school” as we know it disappear? Will it be replaced by something else, and if yes, by what? Or will our children continue to sit in classrooms like they have been one hundred years ago? The Social Media enable us to move from Monologic Teaching to Dialogic Learning

My last question is a very simple one. A lot of people are using Social Media these days. People even speak of “social media addiction”. What would you say, is a healthy balance between and online and an “offline” life?

There is no one formula for a healthy balance between an online and an “offline” life. Everything should be balanced according to individual criteria.

Thank you very much for the interview. I am sure this will give our readers a lot to think about and to research for themselves.

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.

Momen is a 16 old blogger from Saudi Arabia, learning and teaching languages online. Recently he built his own online business offering Arabic Language tutoring on arabtutors.com. On his blog he encourages us to pick up a good book and advocates reading in general and memory training techniques.

Today we asked Momen what it means for him to be a connected individual in an increasingly globalized world.

Hi, Momen. You have built your own homepage, blog and you know how to use all kinds of online publishing tools. What do you think are the advantages of having those skills? Or in other words: What do you find fascinating about working with homepages, blogs and Social Media?

I will not deny that publishing tools (blogs, homepages, etc…) have recently aided me greatly. After working with them for several months, I can now notice how they have become powerful tools that made connecting with the whole world possible. Indeed, blogs, websites, along with Social Media have significant advantages one must not forget when dealing with online businesses. These publishing tools give you the opportunity to advertise any of your products, express and share your ideas, and get to know new individuals. As a matter of fact, I was really enthralled at how effective those publishing tools were when I worked with them. And in my opinion, having the skills to implement those tools online wisely is so essential and helpful to ensure a productive online business.

How does it affect your life to be connected to individuals from all over the world through Facebook, Skype and Twitter? And: Are those relationships you have online different than the relationships to your friends and family in “real life”?

Actually it is an amazing experience to have friends from all over the world. I can now feel that I’m not limited to how many friends I can have or from what nationality they are. I’m now free! In addition, Facebook, Twitter, and Skype have been my lovely assistants that made meeting new people online possible. Online friends are absolutely different from real life ones. Having never met each other face-to-face from before, you both are likely to develop a different relationship than that you develop with your real life friends and family. As for me, I try to maintain my friendly personality while dealing with online friends. I have also observed how rarely the quarrels and disagreements happen with online friends, unlike real ones. I believe everyone should try and make some friends online!

You are currently finishing your school in Saudi Arabia. I’m curious if you are learning how to use computers and technology in your classes?

If you are speaking about learning how to use computers to benefit ourselves in our life, then no. Basically, our school has been mainly focusing on teaching programming languages (ex. Visual Basics) rather than focusing on technology aspects. I am convinced that this is wrong. My school, and all other schools, must aim on increasing students’ awareness regarding the critical role technology and computers are playing in life. In addition to that, they can introduce to students programming languages and other computer softwares.

Do you think kids will continue going to school, or will more and more of the basic education happen online?

Well, I can tell you that I do have a positive feeling that says basic education is going to be done online in the near future. I believe that if this process is applied, parents all over the world will favor the idea of having their children learning in the comfort of their homes, rather than sending them to school everyday. Although it does have its disadvantages, its advantages are much dominating which ensures an effective and successful learning experience. I’m assured to say that online education does not lack any element the basic education needs for a maximum learning benefit.

And what are your plans for the future? Do you intend to go to University or maybe continue building your online business fulltime?

As for my future plans, I guess I’ll be doing both. Building my online business, however, will not be my full time job. For sure, I’ll be concentrating on my university studying, while I’ll work on my online business during my spare time. Well, I believe attending university is going to be an essential part for my online business success. You can think of studying in University as being complementary to having an online business. Meeting new people and being in touch with business professors will certainly assist me with my online business. Definitely, University studying will aid me in generating a fruitful and powerful online business that will surely benefit the online society.

To end with something practical: You seem to know a lot about Memory Training. Can you give our audience maybe just one hint, if they have an important exam coming up, what can they do?

A neat mind map is going to be your ideal tool and helpmate. The main job of a mind map is to help you link and organize information. Scientific studies have shown that a mind map is a genius powerful tool that can abet you not only with your studies, but also with your writing, problem solving, and even decision making. Before an exam, you can sketch up a (colorful) mind map including the information you need to study for the test. By revising it, you will make sure you have linked and associated all important information needed for the exam. Besides, mnemonic techniques, including the Major system, are so helpful while studying. You should not dismiss from your mind that having enough sleeping hours will nurture the information you have studied in the previous day, preparing you for the exam.

Thank you very much for the Interview, Momen.

I’m the one who must thank you

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.