I have a 13 year old boy and I realized something enormous this past Saturday. I’m speaking of a game changing event.
Evan and I planned to spend Saturday in the city (about a 25 minute bus ride from where we live). We would walk and talk and have lunch somewhere. It was to be a free-form afternoon.
As we were getting ready I naturally packed up my iPhone. Evan immediately asked me “you’re not going to check in on Twitter and Foursquare every place we go with that all day are you?”
Stunned, I answered no but I suddenly realized that in some part, Evan has indeed been an innocent by-stander when it comes to my Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare ways. I am not, by any means, a social media addict. I’ll even prove it. I am able to leave the house without my iPhone and I sometimes DON’T check in on Foursquare everywhere I go. You should be able to do the same by the way.
Anyways, all this got me thinking. Here I am; thinking that I am a cool Mom because I am an early adopter when it comes to geeky things like social media and technology. That should make me awesome right? It seems not.
Social media participants know, it literally takes a few seconds to check in somewhere but all this paused-attention has a direct effect on the people around us. I think we are unknowingly sending them a message.
What is that message?
Well in my case, I am telling Evan; and very clearly I might add, that every person I follow on Twitter, Foursquare, or Facebook is more important at that moment and that we must pause our conversation, our walk and our moment while I announce to my audience that I am doing, seeing, watching something extraordinary, funny, odd or stupid. Aren’t those things supposed to reserved for our offline lives? Or at least some of it should. Don’t you think?
Make no mistake: this is also an issue for our non-participating Social Media loved-ones.
Let’s say you are out with your non-participating social media life partner and you both have planned to walk, converse and share quality time with each other. Now, how much of that is actual quality time if and you are clutching your iPhone, Blackberry or Droid with the grip of a young Chuck Norris and are constantly announcing to a bunch of strangers precisely where you are and exactly what you are doing at every possible moment.
In actual fact, if you really think about it, you ARE NOT doing what you say you are doing with your child or life partner because you are are way too busy signing in, tweeting and checking @ statuses every moment you can. And of course, hoping someone will RT your message as you announce every clever word, phrase, action or reaction your child or life partner experiences during what was supposed to be “quality time” together.
I’ve asked Evan a few times if he wanted a Twitter account and his answer has always been “Nah, it’s not for me”. Of course it’s not. Why would he want to use the one thing that takes my attention away from him.
I think I may be unknowingly creating a social media hater.
How do I (we) change this? Well, like with every problem knowing you have a problem is a good start.
A case for moderation
I think we all need to monitor ourselves and gauge our Social Media usage to the more appropriate moments in life.
Don’t Use Case – You are the only person at the family reunion with a smart phone and the inclination to Tweet or self-geo locate. Answer: Your best bet is to send an offline-for-awhile Tweet and put the mobile away and enjoy your family. They love you and want *and deserve* your complete attention. (update) Okay, maybe you can take pics with your mobile but wait until you get home to upload them to Flickr.
Ideal Usage Case - It’s Twestival and the place is filled with like-minded tech-savvy peeps and you want to share your minute by minute experiences as well as share your pics and want to pick up lots of info for your next blog post.
Share your story about the non-participating Social Media people in your life. Do they understand what you do? Are they frustrated? Has it affected their view of Social Media?
I like Jason Calacanis and think he is a genius entrepreneur. This is an honest and spontaneous bio and it’s filled with great tips and advice! If you have some time please watch it. It’s totally worth it.
P.S. Thanks Kate for sending me this link!
Entrepreneur and Startup Thoughts from Jason Calacanis: Be A Samurai, Not a Rice Picker
A few weeks ago Daisy Whitney asked me to come up with a logo for her involvement at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) Expo. Daisy is a partner in the Broadband Theater Sessions. This is a brand new exhibit area for the NAB Show:
The newest exhibit area at the NAB Show focuses on broadband-enabled TVs, online video, mobile broadband networks, platforms, set-top boxes, gaming, IP, streaming, advertising, monetization and the mavericks driving today’s media.
Exciting times for new media indeed!
I’m happy to announce that the logo is up and it looks great (although a little small).
Just last week Facebook started rolling out its latest redesign and for all it’s worth I like it. I think it’s more intuitive and it’s definitely a better and a smarter layout.
However I seem to be in the minority among my non-geek Facebook friends.
As we all know by now; every time (and I mean every time) Facebook releases a new layout or a feature change, a small but very loud minority whine and complain about how they hate it. Let’s be clear, hate is a huge word and I don’t think it applies here.
Over the last two years, Facebook has become a hyper personal experience for most of its users and I believe these users are very attached to it – perhaps too much. Hence all the negative emotional outpouring and haters when something changes.
Here’s what I think. people are reacting in a negative manner to the displacement of “their” buttons and re-arrangement of “their” layout.
“How dare you change my Facebook – Put it back the way it was – Now!”
I believe that most people have trained themselves to use Facebook in a certain way (their way) and now their “work flow” isn’t like it was a week ago. Cue the hater mode. And the whole thing is suddenly turned to crap. It’s as if they shut down and their brain can’t handle the extra pressure of The Unknown. When the reality is that all they’ve got to do is look around and explore. This should be fun and it just isn’t and that’s really too bad.
At the same time we all should realize that life and goodness knows, the internet, goes through constant change everyday and if it didn’t it wouldn’t follow its true organic nature. I use the words “organic nature” here because the Internet is an living and evolving extension of our selves. I like to think we’ve come a long way from Geocities.
If Facebook didn’t change it would be… MySpace. Sure there are still many MySpace users (about about 125 million) but it’s no secret users have been leaving the site over the last few years because it just doesn’t change at least it didn’t change enough. Ironic, eh?
Facebook, as I have noticed, is always setting us up for the next development phase. They aren’t dumb. They know that in order not to become the next MySpace, they need to aim ahead (way ahead) and towards their next development plateau. They, as with all businesses, know they cannot rest on their laurels and remain satisfied with the status quo. They are building and when you build you often reinforce, restructure and rearrange. Facebook equally knows that if they don’t do it – someone else will and better. In fact, that lesson isn’t only reserved for businesses (at least is shouldn’t be), as human beings we should also seek (want to seek) to be better than we are today.
Maybe the bigger question is not why do you hate the new Facebook so much as why do you become a hater when things change and that’s a question I can’t answer.
Just my observation but I believe the iPad will be a long term success story much like the iPod was and remember that changed everything.
People (which include TV, Film and Print industry people) are much too much into immediate gratification. They have to help out in reaching that sweet spot. It’s not up to Apple to hand it over on a silver platter. Apple has simply provided the vehicle to achieve it.
iPad is an advance in technology that we don’t understand yet. I am confident that this will be revolutionary for the future of the print and rich media industry.
A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.
A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.
Why is it important?
With the increasing need/demand for real-time news, search, etc. I think that Google Wave correctly pushes this notion even further to include document collaboration and communication. The co-creativity potential in Wave is enormous. Imagine co-workers collaborating on a project, a business plan, a software development project or even an internal communication document. Only time will tell where Wave will lead us; and by us, I mean everyone – because in the end everyone benefits from Google innovations, right?
Although in limited release for right now, the 100,000 invites released yesterday (Sept. 29 30) should provide a good testing base and should reveal the many new and creative ways that Wave can be used. Can’t wait to see!
UPDATE: February 9, 2010 >> I’ve been using Wave at work for web development and some internal collaboration work. It’s a great tool and we are all enjoying and benefiting from the experience. Yay!
What am I referring to? Audiobooks and Podcasts, of course.
I commute and have done so for over 19 years now. Either I was going to school or going to work but the one gadget that I always took with me was my yellow Sony Walkman, then silver Sony Discman (darn it, cannot find an image of the one I had) and finally my iPod (I’ve owned 4 now). I really wasn’t a book reader in those days. Plus reading on the bus made me nauseous and still does.
Throughout decades of this earbud addiction (i.e., the better part of my teen and adult years), I have noticed a significant shift in the type of things I listen to. The ’80s and ’90s were no doubt my most musically intense times. That makes sense because that’s where I was developing my ‘ear’ let just say.
Something happened in the last 5 years though. My music sensibilities changed drastically and my taste for what came out of my ear buds was also altered. I started downloading these things called Podcasts when I got my first iPod. They were informative, interesting and totally addictive.
I remember that I worked for a company that used Mac’s and since I was a total novice with anything to do with Apple, I decided that learning about Mac through Podcasts would be a perfect match.
Fastforward 5 years ahead, I owe a lot of my social media/web and technology knowledge to Podcasts of all sorts. Oh yes, even foodie podcasts. I love the idea that as I am walking, shopping and staring out into space (but not really) … I am totally absorbed by what is being pumped direcly into my brain and I hope … learning something.
Speaking of learning something…
Audiobooks are another way I spend communte time. You name… it from Agatha Christie to Sophie Kinsella to Seth Godin, I am there and I am present & accounted for.
What’s that? What did Seth mean? Well, let back that up 30 seconds (new feature on the iPod – Yippy) and listen again until I understand it. I get my audiobooks from Audible and have done so for about 2 years now.
I’m trying to keep my brain working and this is the best way for me.
Let me know if you decide to try it.
P.S. I’m even learning about Art History on Audible. HA!
Twitter
Facebook
Flickr
RSS
As we were getting ready I naturally packed up my iPhone. Evan immediately asked me “you’re not going to check in on Twitter and Foursquare every place we go with that all day are you?”
Make no mistake: this is also an issue for our non-participating Social Media loved-ones.
A few weeks ago Daisy Whitney asked me to come up with a logo for her involvement at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) Expo. Daisy is a partner in the 
