I Am A Social Mediot

I like dabbling in Social Media.

I am just not good at it. That makes me a social mediot. If I didn't try to utlilize Social media, I would just be oblivious.

I have this blog, but I am really not doing much with it; at least not for the Kingdom. I have a Feedburner (but couldn't really explain it to you).I am linked into My Zimbio, Sitemeter, Feedjit, BlogCatalog, and Technorati. I even have Technorati tags, but couldn't tell you you how to use them. I have a vimeo account, but have never used it, and probably never will.

I am on Twitter, I have it linked to Gospelr and to Facebook; but I really don't quite get it. I am even on TweetDeck. It seems I need applications to manage my applications. I thought that what all the linking was about, a common misconception of the social mediot.

I am on LinkedIn and Plaxo Pulse, adding connections, but not using it meaningfully yet.

And I realize there are dozens of other sites that I have no idea even exist, let alone how to integrate them into my life.

I am a social mediot. Someone needs to come up with an intelligence quotient for measuring how good one is with using the ever burgeoning world of social media, how fast one adapts to and masters the latest and coolest new twist. Whatever the scoring scale, I would come out as a social mediot.

Not very flattering, maybe it is the curse of most baby boomers. (I said most, not all, so I do not want to hear complaining from my boomer friends who actually know how to do this stuff well. Both of you.)

I'll get help some day and clean up my act a bit. Or someone will come alongside me and help me out.

I am a social mediot, but I am determined not to be a corpse.

Reach Out and Stalk Someone

I recently fired up my LinkedIn account and started adding connections. With my connections, and the 2^nd and 3^rd degree connections that allows, my network now has over 234,000 people in it. Are you kidding me? I just got started and already I have a quarter of a million people to feed and care for? I do not know how I will ever keep in touch with all of them. Christmas cards do not seem a viable option. Almost none of them have ever read this blog; almost all of them never will. I have a couple of hundred Facebook friends, and with their friends, I am not sure how big the network of people I can reach, but it is probably quite large. Most of them never have nor ever will read this blog either. I am still not using my Twitter account as it was envisioned to be used, not sure I am hardwired to do so. A Facebook friend and fellow DTS student, John Saddington has also got me looking at JesusTweet and QuietTime.TV. And there is a lot more options, sites and services out there that I have not and will not even try. I need an assistant to handle my social media obligations and responsibilities. I didn't want to work this hard; I was supposed to be retired.

But what I realize is that all of this gives one the unique ability to check, at least superficially, on thousands of lives. Maybe see a few photos, scan a job history, learn likes and dislikes, make a wall post poking my nose into other folks business. In addition, I can parse out snippets of my life in status updates, photos or notes I can write (like this one). For an aging boomer, this is a brave new world. For someone trained as a financial manager, training that stressed the desirability of keeping information private, this is a strange new world.

It also makes me wonder if anyone is watching me. If they are watching my life, I feel sorry them. Should they worry? If they are watching my life, should I care? Social media is a growing and evolving field. I do not think we understand neither all the ramifications, nor all the applications yet. But it is interesting to watch. As long as we all watch and not stalk. I'll have my assistant look into that.