Collective Thoughts

Is Being Social Online Enough?

Although I have had these thoughts about this many times before, I never placed pen to paper to convey my thoughts. I began this version of this post while sitting outside of Laidoffcamp/Freelancecamp in Miami. I was watching the afternoon monsoons about to come down on me. I was sitting alone in a garden of hedges and walkways watching the passersby. Everyone seemed to be busy buzzing by. The cool breeze just washed in from the approaching rain. I can feel the electricity in the air. The energy created by everyone that attends social gathering of large magnitude is incredible. The energy feels like the change in the air as a storm rolls in. I also have a sad disturbing feeling of what is about to happen.

photo credit miamisunpost.com

Unfortunately in the past once the excitement of the event dissipated the attendees often fall back into their daily grind and lose their zeal. The positive drive is taken away by the dream stealers and opposing elements. The mega builders in the MLM industry have spoke of this for as long as I can remember. They were always looking for a paradigm shift. Looking forward from where I am at, has technology brought this downward spiral to an end? Can the mix of an online presence keep the energy going?

Let’s look at online social networking; we have so many places to congregate. Every day I am approached by someone new with an idea or thought on how to make communication online one step easier. Although most of the concepts are spun over and over, often there is a spark of true imagination that pops into view. The main downfall of so many ideas is the lack of true open communication. It is difficult to pass the same feelings over phone, let alone a keyboard. If you lack communicative skills you may feel that your voice may never be heard. Video and webcams do help to transfer the visual imagery to a point. If there was a way to capture the intimate relation of one on one conversation like that of being in person, online long distance communications would also see a parabolic leap in growth.

I am one of the biggest supporters of both online and offline congregative tools. Conferences and Barcamps are great for connecting with your online social graph, but only occur over large periods of time. Refresh Miami and Social Media Club of South Florida hold monthly meetings that I have attended for close to a year now. (Both organizations are opening events, some may be near you.) Before that I was also very active in the local Meetups that are held here in South Florida. Now there has been a great surge in Tweetups popping up all around me. Some are even specializing these Tweetup events. Craig of Worst Pizza has taken this idea even further with starting Pizza Tweetups. These events are great sources of support for your online endeavors. They help you to cement your online bonds with the brick and mortar world that many of us are quickly leaving behind. Plus they are a great source to build your social graph with users that would ordinarily not friend you till a physical connection has been made.

I wrote this post to quite some thoughts on what needs to be addressed about online and offline social networking. Do we really need that physical connection to build our networks or is a virtual world something that we are all going to embrace in the future? Tell me, do we really need to attend offline events to grow? Are these events something that will advance the online world? Are these offline events dragging back the innovations that we need to make the next leap forward to a truly virtual world?

What is your view?

Posted in Rants | 9 Comments »

7 Ways to Own Social Media Before it Owns You

Last night, before sitting down to power through some serious social media activity, it really hit me.

I told myself that I need to blog something because my Alexa rank was slipping.

Alexa Rank?? What??? Am I insane???

When I started looking at my latest blogging performance, I noticed that my posts have been much shorter lately on social media. Much less than when I would primarily write about blogging tips and starting a blog.

Then, I started to look at some of my daily social media activities:

• Reading RSS feeds of my favorite blogs (I hate RSS, even full feed – but they are a necessary evil. Still, I try to actually read blogs that I like)
• Finding interesting content
• Submitting interesting content
• Checking stats
• Friending people on MyBlogLog
• Responding to my own comments
• IM conversations with people all over the globe (read: no sleep if I wanted to talk to all of them all the time)
• Write a few posts (some start to finish, some partial thoughts) and coming up with post ideas
• Prepare for blog interviews
• Submit stories to several social networks
• Save bookmarks on del.icio.us
• Stumble some sites
• Sphinn some stories
• Comment on other blogs
• Perpetuate poke, superpoke, vampire, and slayer wars on Facebook
• Ask others for Sphinn votes. (No, scratch that)
• Twittering, since everyone wants to know up to the minute details about my cat? Newsflash: I don’t have a cat.

Wow, all these activities are really fragmenting. Not super time consuming, as you can multitask, but fragmenting. Like 20 tabs up in Firefox and other apps all over the place fragmenting.

Can we really multitask as well as we think? Kathy Sierra, one of my favorite bloggers ever, would argue that we cannot multitask effectively. (By the way Kathy, if you read this – please, please return to blogging. The world needs you).

So, does this mean that I’m out of the social media space? No way! In fact, expect to see much more from me social media wise very soon

What’s the plan then, you ask? Easy. Instead of suffering from social media overload, look at a few other disciplines and tips for help:

1 – Focus. Getting hit from different IM’s, especially from offline ones when first signing in can really send you off in different directions. Actually turn off IM once in a while. I’ve tried this off and on over the last week or so, and some people were actually concerned

2 – Sleep. Whenever I get tired, but always wake up at the same time (for me, this is 6am). I first saw this on Evan Williams’ blog but it’s originally from Steve Pavlina

3 – Balance. Whether you have a physical / sports, religious / spiritual, art, or whatever outlet – use it. I’m personally a very religious person, and am glad that I am.

4 – Stop talking about social media to people that don’t care about it. Try not to talk everyone’s ear off about social media that isn’t in the space. My apologies to all family and friends that still don’t know what I do, but see that I’m clearly excited about it You know that guy that walks around with the hands free that looks like he’s talking to himself? Annoying, right? Don’t be him.

5 – Family time. Whether you’re an 18 year old social media pro or someone with a wife and kids, your family likes you. Walk away from the computer for a few minutes. You might notice that your kids have grown since you last looked at them

6 – Cross pollinate your brain. Find something opposite of social media to do for a while to let the social media parts of your brain recharge. You’re an SEO? Go do SEO (non-social media) work for your clients. You’re a zookeeper? Well, feed those seals already. They can’t live on Diggs alone! Learn some new skills or enhance ones that you already have.

7 – Unplug. Do something that’s not in front of the computer (since you’ll be tempted to Stumble it if it is something good). Read a book, watch a movie, do some knitting, cook, eat, play a game, jump out of a plane – whatever. A friend of mine even went so far as to go into an underwater cage where folks from above throw food down so that Great White Sharks try to get into your cage. He says it’s a rush, but I think I’ll read a book.

It’s fine to engage in social media snacking. Just don’t lose sight that life is the main course.

Posted in Productivity | 48 Comments »