I am, A Man Without a Facebook

I am what most would call a late adopter. Up until last week, I still had not seen, The Social Network. Even though the movie came home with many awards at the time, I was left with the thought that the movie was just OK. Even more strange to some, I still resist the urge to create a Facebook profile on the 750 million strong social network site. I must admit, the urge is not a very strong one.

Don't get me wrong, Facebook has brought millions of people together and its prominence and acceptance counts for something. It is a force for good in the world even amidst all the controversy. I simply have many other things that I enjoy doing, and maintaining another personal social media presence is not a high priority. That being said, I look forward to joining Google+ once the door is open to all, and I think Twitter is simply awesome. Social media is only going to grow upward as the desire to express ourselves grows more and more.

Many people ponder as to how this may affect us in the future. One of the worries is that person to person social skills are being supplanted by this new technology, and you would have to be living on the fringes of civilization to not notice: we provide updates to our whereabouts when we drive (in the face of law), we allow ourselves to be interrupted anyplace or time, or we walk down the sidewalk in a trance staring at a 2.5 inch screen, to name a few. There are many examples of poor social media behaviour without even mentioning adultery, though that is a big one.

It's not fair to entirely demonize social media. It's here to stay and if properly used it is a major force for good in the world. Just this morning, I came across a study that showed virtual conversations can help people with autism improve their social abilities. I sometimes wish positive stories such as this gained more attention in mainstream media so that the listening public might hear about them more.

All of this really started today as I came across a funny – and very well-produced – schtick that is a humorous take on a Mel Gibson film called, The Man Without a Face. If you only click on one of the links in this post, click here to see it. And no, I was not consulted for any advice during the production of this film.

Just in case you were wondering.

A Different List Five

A classmate of mine had an excellent idea for a blog last year and I couldn't resist piggy-backing on the name she gave it.

Twitter turned five years old this week, though I hesitate to call something old when it is actually so young. Biz Stone has been touring the talk show circuit all this week and still seems surprised at how much his social media invention has revolutionized communication. I had to wonder though. What was happening on this week five years ago when Twitter first hit the collective consciousness?

1. March 20, 2006 Separation anxiety?

2. March 21, 2006 Are humans more powerful than asteroids?

3. March 22, 2006 Who knew that the word pandemic would rise and fizzle so quickly?

4. March 23, 2006 There's no dip with this chip.

5. March 24, 2006 Oh, LEGO. Is there anything you can't do?

I think social media is brilliant. I am not fully immersed in it, but at this point I have more than dipped my toe into the water. There's a simple beauty in Twitter's 140 character limit to be convincing and succinct. And thanks to tools like bit.ly, it's very easy to drive a user to your website.

I feel Twitter is superior due to the managing capacity that Facebook seems to involve. If your resources are low, this simple two-way communication is an excellent place to begin, and you can drive visitors to your website and encourage them to comment. If you don't have this minimum set-up, you should probably fire your website-builder.

It's a safe guess that none of the stories above were "tweeted" back in 2006. Would they be now? Except for the last two items, the rest of the issues are pretty complicated subject matter. Our modern day challenge is to disseminate and "whittle down" this information so that a wider audience can appreciate and understand it. More and more organizations are adapting to this style of communication. I'm no authority on the matter, but I predict Twitter will continue to expand its role and eventually contribute more to organizations' bottom line while creating closer engagement with their audiences. It will create a more educated and informed world, all in 140 characters or less.

Unfortunately, we'll still have to navigate around the Kardashian's and Sheen's of the world.