Facebook Findings

Facebook is a funny thing. With family spread from coast to coast it has been a uniter for our family. The west coast cuz is privy to the same trivial, day to day news that my daughter down the street is. We share the pics of the famjams so the ones who missed out, can still join in a laugh or two and the notes and teasings we post on our walls pokes the collective ribs of the clan.

I have limited the people I add to my Facebook account to my family, close friends and special work colleagues. It is not a collection of every human being I have encountered since birth. My guideline is simple: if I ran into that person on the street, would I update them on my family and whip out the kid pics? If so - they are added. Some peripheral people I knew distantly in school or in passing (in a small town everyone knows everyone - or thinks they do) invite me to add them - and I do - with limited access.

In addition to the people you may not be all too thrilled to reconnect with, Facebook can also deliver some wonderful surprises. In the past few months it connected me with a few special friends I hadn't seen since college years. It is heartwarming to browse their family pictures and see how their lives unfolded. As grown ups we can enjoy one another on a whole other level. A sparkling lady who had been one of my mom's dearest friends added me as a friend. She had spent many hours with us as children - not only did we play with her kids, but she also baby sat us so my mom could take night courses. She and my mom supported one another through the harried years of motherhood. She is now a grandmother and it is comforting to see her still perpetual wide smile shining through in every picture. oops ... tearing up here...

And then last week, my first work mentor we are talking 1981 here ... the man who gave me my very first promotion found my work Facebook account and contacted me. We had worked together at two different cable companies and he played a pivotal role in my work life. He is a kindly man with gentle brown eyes, an openly compassionate man who we dubbed the "hugger". We exchanged brief emails with promises to meet for coffee. Then on Sunday at my charity event, there was Mr. Hugger and his wife! We hugged  *naturally* and spent half an hour catching up - discussing his cancer journey, perusing the grandpics, chatting about old times. Fate had taken our reunion into its own hands - starting with a Facebook intervention.

So I guess I am trying to say that I am really enjoying the surprises and happy nuggets that Facebook has been dropping my way. Findings can be moving.

Flittering with Twitter

Cartoon by Krishna M. Sadasivam (PC Weenies)

Tweet, tweet, tweet.

No, it isn't the sound of birds chirping ... but rather Twitter! In the last few days it seems that everywhere I turn I am hearing about all things Twitter. Kudos to their marketing team. I turn on CNN and the anchors are discussing the explosion of the use of Twitter and their own accounts. On The Ellen Show P. Diddy sat in the guest chair, Blackberry in hand explaining the fine art of TwitterBerry to a befuddled Ellen. Why wouldn't you just call? You can now use Tweeter to post tweets on Facebook. A news report featured a story about congregations tweeting during church services. They gave impassioned testimonials on how tweeting their impressions, thoughts and comments to their followers enriched their church experience exponentially. President Obama has a Twitter account and apparently Washington has become the Twitter capital of the USA.

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service.
It enables its users to send and read other users' updates
(known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up
to 140 characters in length. Wikipedia

There seems to be an enthusiastic population wanting to share their abbreviated thoughts and impulses (140 characters or less) with, in may cases, a hungry audience of unknowns. Yes, I have a Twitter account and I have it mainly to keep up to snuff with social media for my job. I have a backlog of 40 people - none who I know - requesting permission to follow me. My posts have ranged from the mundane to the radical- political rants that I am not sure I am comfortable sharing with the general populous. Does that mean I am not transparent? Maybe. I think I will create a work-only Twitter account.

I am not comfortable in having my worlds collide. I squirm to think that someone could search on my email and know so much about me. I am always awestruck when I visit blogs that boast a lengthy list of social media outlets, or their communities -- follow me on: Twitter, digg, Facebook, MySpace, Profilactic, del.icio.us, Flickr, LinkedIn and Plurk. I can learn everything about them - even see the photos they took or like. Not sure how relevant this all this.

I just pulled up Twitterfall to see the latest 'tweets' cascading from the top of the page in near-real time. Lots of people are watching American Idol ... heavy sigh Did I need to know that? Do I care? Someone does. And do I need to have people caring about what I am doing, thinking, liking, who I am associating with, and what I have or have not accomplished ...

This has turned into a full out rant of sorts. Luckily I have contained it here ... I needed more than 140 characters. My tweet may have looked like this: Twitter is everywhere; not sure why?

Anti-social media

Today has been spent doing all things "social media". Most of it had to do with my job and the day started with a webinar on this very topic. The session lead to a lively discussion with my colleagues about the way we communicate - how it is changing - and what it all means.

Twittering.Blogging. Facebook. Wikis. The means of communicating online is endless - and instant. Maybe it's a little dangerous too. With a few keystrokes from our keyboard we can express our innermost feelings, reactions and opinions on an infinite number of topics. But express them to who? Quantity vs quality? Is it relevant? Who cares what I think on any given subject? What credibility do I have? Where is the context?

Why do I blog? I asked myself that very question when I first started my blog. It was a big step for me to share my writing -- with ??? Anyway, I write for myself - to express myself. I blog to exercise my writing muscle with unabashed abandon - a different exercise than the work writing. I write to stimulate and organize my thoughts.

It's ironic that all of this online communication is called social media. There really isn't anything social about it. It is impersonal at best -- we really don't know who we are communicating with - the individuals we engage with are strangers to us -- projecting personas of their own creation. I can see the attraction and appeal; we can be who we want to be online and have virtual conversations with people who we may share common interests with. Loneliness could be a thing of the past.

Anyway -- enough of the mindless meandering about social media. I have a blog to post to, Facebook profile to update and pictures to upload. And and on top of it all -- I am feeling anti-social!

What am I doing right now (in 140 characters or less)? Going to bed.