Reflecting on Blogging, Tweeting and Social Media

So I admit that perhaps I am not as youthful as I once was. Social Media has definitely changed the way we do things. It has altered my life. It is decidedly a 2.0 activity. However I cannot say that I am truly comfortable with the chaotic nature of the communication tools.

Blogging was not something I took to easily. I am not a writer or a Journalist. However I hope that what I contribute to the ether is useful and valued. I do have people come up and say so (real people real conversations) as well as quite a lot of feedback. Not everyone agrees with things I write. That is one of the beauties of the new channels of communication. It is direct and it is clear and the 2 way nature of the channel makes its impact all the more greater in contrast with the traditional media.

Over the last 2 days, I subjected my Facebook and Twitter network to my Tweets streaming from the CASMA Sprint 2009 conference.

Twitter has a definitive function in Social terms but I remain skeptical about its generalized business use. I think it can be so in the future but right now it's just not quite there.

I dont think I am going to do it again - at least for a while. It requires a degree of responsibility and well it just interferes with the process of comprehending to what is being said perhaps my multi-tasking skills are not quite as good as I thought.

So my reflection on the process is that I think there are some things I am very comfortable with - such as Blogging and Facebook. These are more akin to DIY Publishing and a personal website.

However I still prefer the more normal use of email because I can target to specific people and groups knowing that my addressing is real and controlled. This is not the case for Blogging, Facebook and even more so for Twitter.

The decline of conventional media like newspapers to me is a lost asset, a national treasure. I morn the death of my own local paper. But I am as much of a contributor to its demise as anyone. I haven't used a classified ad in well 6 years that I can remember. I use Craig's list. I largely ignore the news paper ads. So much paper goes straight to recycling. I have a DVR and skip through the commercials. So with all these new tools come new responsibilities and new realities.

It is these new obligations that I find a little hard to absorb. But the biggest issue of all is what I would call the infoglut. Junk data. The extra work that I have to invest to sort through the trash of people's ramblings (mine included). I do try to keep my output focused and valuable. But others don't. There seems to be an expectation that someone (the magical hand of god) will rise and cure this problem. That is part of what I find a conundrum. The expectation that someone else will fix it. I have no such confidence. I also don't feel good about choosing solutions that are clearly bad or compromised just because its the only option out there. The rise of power of Google is a good example. On balance doesn't make Google a universally good company.

So with this - I complete my 999th Blog entry.

Tomorrow - maybe even today - then I will write my 1000th

Cheers