. . . and Twitter is for Dummies, and Friendfeed, well, that’s way over the top!
Just how is one supposed to counter . . . and even live with . . . people who just don’t “get it” i.e., that the world has changed dramatically?
“Everything never changes. Something has changed and it impacts everything else.” [Quoting John Naisbitt in Robert Scoble’s Naked Conversation]
SOCIAL MEDIA impacts everything . . . now and in our future. So back to my original question, What do we say to anyone — particularly from my BabyBoomer generation and older? How do we share our enormous excitement about the possibilities for the world, for our friends and family, and for ourselves as individuals?
Personally, I believe I have a distinct advantage when it comes to answering the question, mainly because just three months ago, I was telling a friend that his use of Facebook three hours a day was a huge waste of his life.
What has happened to me?
First off, I have remembered that Open Minded-ness is key to Critical Thinking and as such I needed to check out the BUZZ before categorically dismissing a phenomenon that has captured the attention of millions in one way or another: MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, YouTube, and countless numbers of blogs.
What helped me most was Twitter, which surprisingly still is a mystery to so many people I talk with — but, of course, not to the vast majority of people who will read this blog post.
I’m not a cellphone texter, so that particular use of Twitter didn’t seem relevant. Initially I wondered if this great new technology could be molded into a teaching tool, i.e., to force my students to write something of substance in only 140 characters. The essence of good writing is clarity and conciseness.
Playing with Twitter
While I liked developing that “writing with Twitter” idea, however, I began playing with Twitter, i.e., following people, reading their updates, posting some of my own — especially “retweeting,” re-posting a particularly good update. Most of all, though, I was reading on a daily basis just what all this social media was about and the great benefits it has to offer.
And now I’m hooked.
In a nutshell, social media is allowing us all to share our research and our thoughts and, yes, our products/services with a community of like-minded individuals whose lives can be enriched by being connected to us through the Internet.
Like most knowledge, the more you learn, the more you realize there is so much more “out there” and that’s the primary reason for this blog — to help me learn more and to answer the question, “Why Social Media is NOT a waste of our time.”
Please let me know about any conversations you’ve had when people have told you that blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are all “a waste of time.”
Next post: Facebook for Business