Thank you, Mack Collier, for your Social Media is Making Extroverts of Us All post. This is something I've been thinking about in recent months and the following is my stream-of-consciousness thinking on the topic.
I set up my first blog through blogger.com over two years ago, but it took me some time to find my voice in the blogging world.
I was a Dr. Jekyll blogger, experimenting in the blogosphere, but without a clear idea of exactly where I wanted to go or how I could contribute.
Why? Because, while I DID have things to say, I was a techie slinging code and not a primary spokesperson for the organization I work for. I didn't want to take a misstep in the blogosphere that could negatively impact my workplace. Michael Gartenberg's 2003 post on Personal vs. Corporate Weblogs addresses this issue.
Over the course of the last two years I've gotten more involved in monitoring social networks and watching, listening, and exploring the opportunities of connecting with others in meaningful ways beyond just what I do for a living.
And I wrestled with the question: If networks don't have people, people have networks, are social networks just about the individual or can organizations play, too?
Today, I'm an online extrovert -- a Mr. Hyde, if you will. I've expanded from trying a simple blog to having conversations on facebook, twitter, technorati, digg, delicious, youtube, slideshare, etc. As a result, I've discovered my voice and launched into ongoing conversations with a variety of voices. I've also discovered what features make a blog work for me and ended up moving from my original blogging platform to this current one.
And while I maintain a blog apart from my organizational blog, this simply reflects the difference in content. My organization focuses on issues at the intersection of environment and human needs. My area of interest supports this focus, but doesn't quite fit with the content posted on our organizational blog. My blog does feed into our intranet where the content is more useful.
Important note: The world of Mr. Hyde is messy. This is a challenge to anyone wishing to set foot in the social media world. In an overconsuming world, people are already dealing with too much "stuff" or "stuff-to-do" and too little time. As a result, sometimes it's hard to get people to set foot in the social media space on a regular basis. See ReadWriteWeb's post Real People Don't Have Time for Social Media.
It is also interesting to note that the World Future Society predicts that
In the next 25 years more decisions will be made by nonhuman entities. Electronically enabled teams in networks, robots with artificial intelligence, and other noncarbon life-forms will make financial, health, educational, and even political decisions for us. Reason: Technologies are increasing the complexity of our lives and human workers’ competency is not keeping pace well enough to avoid disasters due to human error.
Which leads me to the following: A good question that may separate the social media Dr. Jekyll introverts from the Mr. Hyde extroverts is, "When you go on vacation can you disconnect?"
