A recent story came out about a 13 year old California girl who sent 14,528 text messages in December.  That averages 484 text messages every day for an average of one messages every 2 minutes.  Thankfully the family had an unlimited texting plan.  For comparison, the average cell phone user in America sends 200 text messages per month.

I often have parents tell me that their child texts all the time and some text with their child.  However, the most common statement is, “Yes my kids text all the time but I can’t understand it.”  That usually leads to a discussion of these kids and the bad habits texting teaches.  But that’s another discussion that I am not getting into.  Texting is here, at least for a little while, and parents really need to know what their child is saying and who they are saying it to.

Texting is in reality another language that falls into several categories: lingo or slang, abbreviations, acronyms, and text shorthand. So let’s start out easy.

Most of you have probably seen LOL and know it means Laughing Out Loud. No it means Lots Of Love.  Actually it could mean both. Maybe you know AWHFY - Are We Having Fun Yet? Or L8R - Later?  There are hundreds of these that are fun and harmless.

But what happens when you child is trying to hide something and you don’t know what they are texting.  Here are a few that you should know.

9 - Parent is Watching

99 - Parent is No Longer Watching

420 - Marijuana

A/S/L/P -Age/Sex/Location/Picture

LMIRL -Let’s Meet in Real Life

KPC-Keeping Parents Clueless

LH6 -Let’s Have Sex

Now the discussion becomes more serious.  It is important that parents know who their child is texting and what they are texting.  There are several good sites on the web that can help parents understand texting and learn the language. Please, get involved with your child and help keep them safe by understanding their language. 

From Webopedia

Text Messaging Abbreviations
Part I: Guide to Understanding Online Chat Acronyms & Smiley Faces
Last updated: February 05, 2009  http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/textmessageabbreviations.asp 

From Netlingo

The NetLingo List of Acronyms & Text Message Shorthand http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php 

From Lingo2Word

Acronym, Emoticon Dictionary, Texting Thesaurus and Text Message Translator. Funny txt message collection ,colorful phrases. Popular Smiley,Chat words and text message lists http://www.lingo2word.com/index.php

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This morning I attended an exciting meeting at the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce. This meeting was the first meeting of the Future Economy Council.  So what makes this council different and exciting?  Catawba County has always been pro active in looking to the future and what we need to do to meet the challenges.  However, changes in world, cheaper labor in other countries, and the current economic situation has left us questioning how we position ourselves as a community.

Danny Hearn started the meeting by showing the latest version of Did You Know to the group.  If you have not seen this video, you need to watch it carefully and think about the implications for the future.  It is clear that the world has changed significantly.  Part of this is the result of the technology we have today and the power that goes along with it.  Part is the move to a global society as opposed to local. Part is due to rapid change that allows for the next big advancement to happen before we even know about the previous one.   

The council will have a lot of work to do.  Areas that they will be addressing include: Building capacity for community transformation; How we understand the world and how we relate to each other;  How we think and how do we educate and learn so that our citizens and their children can enjoy a good quality of life;  What type skills do our leaders need and how do we govern in this new world;  The list goes  on but the major discussion will center around how we understand and work within a global economy.  To be competitive, to be relevant, Catawba County must have and continue to have these discussions.

In closing, I noted a few words used in the material.  They include alternative, creative, innovative, collaborative on, non-linear, adaptive, transformative and diversity.  Over the past year I have given a lot of presentations on Web 2.0 and about Digital Natives.  Seems these terms come up a lot when we talk about our youth and the social networks they are using to communicate.  To encourage our youth to live and work here in the future, we must understand and embrace these words and the concepts they represent.