connecting the dots in community

This week is not unlike most in that it was a blur. I knew that it would be busy just because of the nature of my job but here it is Saturday night with only 4 minutes to go until Sunday.

Wednesday afternoon at 1 pm I took part in a meeting about the IP phone system at work. I spent most of Monday and Tuesday getting ready for that meeting in the hopes that we as a collective team we can put those issues behind us once and for all. At one point in the last 10 months the system was purchased and configured and it replaced the old Avaya system that was in place. We have had nothing but problems with it every since.

Wednesday evening we had praise team practice at church which happens every week like clock work. Thursday evening marked the end of the Mixed Nuts bowling league at Royal Z bowling alley in Goose Creek. My wife and I met up with all of the league bowlers and we all ate food and chatted just before the awards were announced and the pay outs were given. We left the bowling alley at around 8:30 pm on Thursday and then ran over to meet up with the Low Country bloggers who were meeting in Hanahan for their monthly meetup.

Due to having been to several of these meet-ups I recognized most of the faces and I actually know some of the names. Having been in law enforcement for over a decade I never forget a face. Remembering your name is a good trick though so it takes more than random meetings in a room for me to get it drilled into my brain cells. The tough thing about these low country meet-ups is that while people are gathering in person you still have to do more than just be there to get to know folks. Participation means that you have to engage the people and be a part of the action. For me it is just easier to sit on the outside periphery and watch and observe.

This particular blogger meet-up was special because one of our members had his birthday wish granted. Chuck celebrated 70 years of living this week and he had mentioned in one of his blogs that he wanted to celebrate his birthday with a cake with 70 candles. Several folks who are better at reading other blogs noticed that and decided to help make his wish a reality. Thanks to Heather and several other folks Chuck got his wish and the Hannahan Fire Dept got to crash the party thanks to the 70 candles that were all ablaze. I am not sure the fire dept actually got called to the event because we arrived after the fact but that is what Chuck told me.


While we were at the birthday celebration Thursday evening we found ourselves taking part in a trivia game that was being run by the DJ that night. It was fun to watch different people at the table putting their heads together to figure out the answers to the trivia questions. There was a sense of competition in the room as the DJ called out the scores. In the end the Low Country Bloggers were victorious with 40 points and they won a 25.00 gift certificate to be spent at that restaurant which was cool.

I have been told recently from people who are not that familiar with the Internet that they just do not “get it” when it comes to social media. What is all of the chatter about Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Friendfeed and bloggers? Why is everyone buzzing about this new phenomenon? As I think about it all I realize that these tools enable us to build community and to connect with other humans.

I have been blogging for years and I have been part of the Low-country bloggers website but I never knew it until just this last year. I became aware of the community after I got caught up in the Twitter madness and I think Jared Smith reminded everyone of the low-country blogger meetups. Once I started going to these meetings I started making personal connections with other bloggers just like me. When you make a commitment to go to the meetings and you participate in some small way you are able to connect the dots. You meet with other people just like yourself who are in their own unique worlds writing about things that they are interested in and are passionate about.

Being able to connect the dots through social media and getting to know the people who are part of the local group of Internet users in our area helps me to realize that I am part of a bigger picture. If you look at the Internet from a distance you could very easily get lost in the huge vastness of what goes on. It is sort of looking at the night sky and trying to comprehend how huge our universe is. Only until you start focusing on the planets that are close to us like the moon are we able to bring things into focus. Yes, we are all part of the bigger picture and we are never going to be able to meet everyone or understand what makes everyone tick or how to fix all the problems that we see. What we can do is to make the connections that we can make within our own local communities and do what we can to help one another through personal connections and by sharing our dreams and visions and talents.

Friday was not a typical work day because it was so darn quiet. Most of the time my Friday is usually like a horrible Monday. It seems as if Tuesday through Thursday everyone is in meetings and planning on how to unleash holy heck on the IT department on Friday. Everyone comes out of the word work and wants everything done yesterday. This Friday was unusual because it was quiet but it was a nice break for me so I could get ready for other things coming next week.

It is hard for me to believe that it is Sunday May 4th. It seems like we just celebrated Easter and that was two months ago. In 14 days we are moving out of Duck Ditch and going to Johns Island. We are doing this so I can be much closer to my job on Kiawah Island. For the last 9 months I have been driving back and forth to Kiawah Island and I have to say I am getting pretty sick and tired of it. The morning drive is usually bearable however when I am tired at the end of the day the last thing I want to do is to get hung up in the five O'clock processional of traffic leaving Kiawah Island. When I am mentally worn out I find it very difficult to be patient while I am stuck behind soccer mom or the school bus who is inevitably doing 8 miles per hour under the speed limit which then drags my commute beyond the typical 60 minutes. I also have to consider the amount of money that is being drained out of my family budget for gasoline and the wear and tear on our family SUV that is now three years old and getting closer to having 70,000 miles on it.

Saturday was a laid back day that included running errands and taking naps in the middle of the day. The children managed to box up some more of the stuff in their rooms and they are trying to separate the stuff they want to keep vs the stuff that needs to be donated or thrown away. While at Walmart I rented two movies. One was The Day that the Earth Stood Still and one was Marley and Me. Both of them were excellent movies. The first one was a Scifi that Katy and I had seen before in the theatre but the kids have not seen it. Marley and Me is a definite chick flick but it also turned into a huge tear jerker at the end so if you have a tender heart just have the tissues ready because you will need them.










James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net

Createsouth 2009

This last Saturday I attended Createsouth in Myrtle Beach SC which was hosted at the Horry-Georgetown Technical College campus. I was able to car pool with several of the lowcountry bloggers out of Charleston SC so the trip was pretty interesting. It was nice to rub elbows with folks that I have seen on Twitter and Facebook online. Some of these folks I had also met at a couple of the local Blogger Meetups as well.

This Createsouth event was the second event in two years but my first to attend. When we arrived the weather was awesome and even though there were forest fires approximately 10 miles north of us I did not see any hints of smoke or ash in the air or sky. There were approximately 100 + people registered to show up for the event and it looked like quite a few of them had already showed up.

The first key note speaker was Tiffany Trent who is a writer and author. Tiffany spoke about the importance of creativity and being willing to do whatever it takes to pursue that creativity whether that be writing, drawing, painting etc. Tiffany handed out small sea shells to everyone in the conference and asked us to think about how we would feel if we were that sea shell. How would we stand out and what would be our best attributes.

Tiffany stated that creativity is play and that we should be passionate about our creativity and be willing to work hard at it. Tiffany encouraged us to get the book called The Artists Way which is a book about writing and tips for creative people. Tiffany said that we should be willing to engage in commitment, vision, action and networking. What is our vision? Am I willing to commit to that vision and take action? Tiffany said it is very important that we be willing to come out of our shell and network with other people who can encourage us in our creativity and to share in that creativity.

Tiffany challenged us to set goals with regards to writing such as 1000 words in the morning in the form of “morning pages”. Tiffany told us that we should be willing to make whatever sacrifices necessary to perfect our creativity. That means that our social life may have to take a hit and our friends and family may not understand why you can not participate in their social events just because you are committed to writing. Tiffany also stated that the path to publishing is different for everyone. Some folks start out writing and getting published in print first and then going on line and then some are just the opposite being published online first and then publishing in print later.

Tee Morris was the next key note speaker for Createsouth 2009 and he spoke more about the nuts and bolts of social networking. I was very interested to see that he used a notebook computer running Linux to project his multimedia presentation complete with audio. It was nice to see someone utilizing an operating system other than Microsoft Windows to get a point across. Tee Morris made us aware of the need to remember the “social” in social media. Tee also echoed something that Tiffany Trent told us and that is the importance of community. It was evident that most of the attendees of this conference were not only big on social media but they were all very in tune with technology. We were reminded that while we use technology tools such as Facebook, Twitter etc that we are connecting with a community of people who have a lot to offer.

Tee Morris reminded us that while it is ok to use social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to network and make money it is not alright to use social media tools to leverage donations. Tee Morris spoke to us about several celebrities in the news such as Oprah Winfrey who totally misrepresent social media and what it is for. In other words it is not important to see how many people you can get to be your friend. What is important is that what friends you have because of social media you are making real connections with them by being social. If you are not interacting with your community then you are doing noting more than broadcasting.

Tee Morris said that the secret to social networking is participation on a global stage. There are a lot of social media tools on the Internet and not every one of them will work for everyone. We need to learn about the tools and how to use them and see which one works best for us. Tee Morris reminded us that social networking can make us better communicators. He also said that Twitter is not just another way to promote your crap.

Tee Morris also reminded us that if we are going to use social media that we are going to have to be fearless. He reminded us of the fact that if we are willing to publish our thoughts on social media that we are not as much an introvert as we might think we are.

He encouraged us to step outside of our comfort zones and be willing to do whatever it takes to be successful.

Social media is about reaching out and connecting with your communityand sharing your talents with others. This same community in Myrtle Beach SC recognized that there are a lot of talented people in Hory County that utilize social media and have a lot to offer in that community. They banded together with a common desire to see that community grow and to share that community with other users of social media in the Carolinas. It is good to see the different people who have banded together with this vision to bring about this conference which is no small feat in itself. The conference was created for and supported by the same people who use social media.

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net

Createsouth 2009

This weekend I attended a conference called Create South which was all about South Carolinians embracing social networking (Facebook, Twitter etc) and using it to build community both online and off line. The key note speakers were excellent and they really helped me to understand why it is important to utilize these tools in the market today whether you are a business or a professional consultant or every day user.

In one of the classes that was held in the community track in the afternoon I was told that Twitter gathers metrics on all of the tweets that are sent out on their network and the more tweets that are sent out by an individual or company using # (hash tags) the more likely that person or company is likely to be trended. The bottom line is this. If Twitter sees that you are very active on their network because of all the #(company name) hash tags showing up then your company will be highlighted.

Does that mean that one single individual person at one location needs to sit at their desk and constantly tweet this or that with the #(company name) hash tag? No, absolutely not. What it does mean is that every single location that has a marketing person assigned to BUILD COMMUNITY within the Twitter/Facebook communities should be using the #(company name) hash tag so that Twitter will begin to build metrics on our activity. I guess this is sort of like the way Meta tags work on web pages. I am assuming that meta tags are still be used to build metrics on web pages.

I was also reminded of a tool that is being used online to build community. This tool is called Meetup.com. Meetup is used to bring people together in real life in a face to face meeting who have common interests. For instance there is a Meetup for Photographers and bloggers in Charleston. How can you use that for you or your company? How about searching Meetup for people who are interested in a specific aspect of your business or hobby?

Another tool that is used for building online community is Podcasting. Podcasting is where you create a 5 or 10 minute video snippet about your business or whatever and post it to your website for others to view. You also can have folks download the podcast to their iPhone or iPod touch or whatever. There are podcasts on almost any topic you can think of.

No matter what tools you use or how you use them the key element of using them is to BUILD COMMUNITY. To make personal connections with other people and businesses who can help you network your talents and what you are trying to sell or share with others.






James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net