Have you been strolling and chatting a little too long on the digital market square? Did it feel like oversharing? As on twitter, facebook, or even one of the newest beta apps for curating, that invite to share and say why, such as scoop.it (thanks, Jan and Robin) or for sharing beautiful bling better, such as pinterest (thanks, Seb and Jan). A rush of beginner's experience brought me back to reading blogs and blogging. Here is why.
Social is fun
Social media have, over the years, and it was fun, helped me meet awesome people, and build deep trust with some of them, selecting friends from acquaintances, virtual villagers and many others.
This is my fourth new year with publishing and collaboration tools at the ready. How did we ever get things done before (would I ask you a rhetorical question)? Of course, with mail, phone, fax, BBS forum, e-mail. The "old" way.
Blogging is old?
Are we being enriched more by quicker connections beyond borders? Yes, mostly. To a point. After a few weeks of not blogging, but rich sharing and conversation, building stuff in many other places, I realized I am scattering my insights with rarely being able to locate and retrieve them, to build on and refine. For making meaning solo, blogs do pretty well, and for making meaning collaboratively, a good wiki platform and a way to go about wiki'ing well can really help a team shine (thanks Venessa, for rediscovering Wikipatterns for me).
As the tools mature and are understood better, blogging, wiki'ing and curating solo or as a team may find their niches just like professional publications do in light of such tools crowdsourcing the information. While most mainstream news media focus on what's sensational and can be offered and sold to spectators, the people who engage often and try new things frequently find their network adding amazing richness to their information and connection. So thank you.
Build your network
Yes, everyone of us builds their own social filtering and curation net, it brings most of us good news, and in return we feel obliged to contribute, share, and add awesome to the noise. Blog is among the more permanent and portable ways, keep a local backup and rebuild anyplace else on the web. Try that with facebook or twitter. People who don't like it, can unfollow us... Yes, but: why engage in disposable dialog at all? How can we filter, focus, amplify, and go quicker beyond banal banter (still 60% on twitter?) to work on things that matter? Not that banter is bad, it helps to play together and build trust. If there are shortcuts to trust (first impression: no, current thesis: maybe, caution: filter bubble), which do work?
Add some commentary
Monica put it this way on her timeline (a convenient way to, um, blog in the walled garden of facebook) and I find it very useful for what we are doing right now right here in the open space of the web:
"I'd like to have an AI filter my news stream and only forward stuff that's interesting and important to me ... social media are a hack; it's the best thing we have at the moment. But if everyone just re-posts what they find interesting we're not using the medium to its full potential. Ideally, everyone that re-posts something should at a minimum add some commentary to the post, furthering the collective analysis. It simplifies life for those who are considering following the re-poster: If I add commentary to everything I re-post, then people can figure out more about who *I* am and *why* I re-posted something. If they don't like what I post for the same reason *I* liked it, then they likely should be following someone else - possibly someone that posted the same article for a different reason. ..."
On which I commented
I like this convention of adding the personal element, because it saves me time. Thank you.
Twitter's manual RT had some value, the RT button lost it. At this stage I find this thread so valuable that I do not bother to read the source (a must before I forward).
The source Monica posted (and I have now read and do recommend):
The Dangerous Effects of Reading
Upcoming post of mine
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