When I read 'Working Wikily', I began to feel a few different emotions. One was that of being challenged. The authors, Kasper and Scearce, offered many advantages to using social media for the social good and prosperity. Groups come together more quickly and effienciently. No need for an organzation. Just call for a 'Smash Mob' or a collective for a cause (remember the candlight vigil for the soldiers in Iraq?) The challenge for me is, though I want to do good and be a part of the greater good, do I really want to use this media to achieve it?
Being unfamiliar with social media requires a change in thought and behavior in order to use it. It is very easy to stay just as I am. You see, I am accustomed to my ways and think that they are right. Changing requires effort; a desire to achieve more than I have already and a willingness to make whatever strides necessary to reach the goal. Sometimes its simply easier to change the goals. I experienced frustration of the simpliest level while trying to add a RSS feed to a page. Frustration and 3 days (or rather nights) of wondering, 'Did I do it right? Why doesn't it like right?' And they say change is good. Anyway, as I continued reading I was convince that I needed an open mind. Changing my mind would help me to change my behavior. This could be a transforming moment for me, if I let it.
Another emotion was humor, when they spoke about using tools well and matching them to the need, and especially about 'friending'. Using the tools well, means knowing how to actually use it, which is more than simply being acqainted with it, but rather you have become one with it. It is by this that you better know its application. (Becoming one is no easy feat! ) 'Friending' and Facebook, need I say more. This friend option reminds me of middle schoolers who think everyone who is nice to them or invites them to something is a friend. Really? I had to learn how to use the notifications and privacy settings quickly. By invitation only. You see, my daughter explained it to me this way: She uses Facebook for its event planning and notification only, so regardless who wants to be her friend (especially people who are friends of her parents, imagine that!) unless they are related to the business at hand she declines the friendship invitation.
The last emotion was intrigue. This article prompted a conversation between my son and me. Regarding Twitter, he felt that there was no one that he wanted to remain in such close contact with so regularly. Oddly enough, by this time I had completely finished the article and could now promote the benefits of following only those whose interests were the same as mind. There was a professional benefit involved. But what I realized is that he had the same mindset that I had weeks prior and we had not even spoken on the subject before then. He being a young person, of the generation who grew up with the internet, surely he would embrace this technology wholeheartedly. Not so.
The connections or network potential involved here was much greater than I could imagine. So, while I previously looked at networks like Twitter and Facebook as new toys for young, uninvolved mind I could now rationalize, logically, that if I am going to participate in business at a higher level, my 'toys' will need to change also. I mean, who plays with Atari now?
No comments:
Post a Comment