No – I find it a great way to stay connected with friends but it can suck up time if you aren’t careful.  Like most things – you have to monitor it and put your use in relation of all your other activities.

This Friday, I am doing a short introductory class on “Social Networks for Fun and Business” a part of the Spring Back to Life Series being offered by the American International Woman’s Club here in Geneva.  I was actually searching for something completely unrelated when I stumbled across this video.  I finally decided to post it here rather than on my other blog.

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How could I offend someone because I won’t follow them back on Facebook but I am happy to do so on Twitter?  I managed to do so.

I recently had a wonderful and interesting discussion with an excellent blogger, Brett Simmons, after reading his great post: Personal Branding: How and Why I Use Twitter Perhaps it got too personal and it ended rather abruptly.  You tell me if I was out of line arguing that Twitter and FaceBook are different and can be used differently.

So I have a clear policy and I am public about it.  However, it is my experience that most people don’t read it.  Not sure why that is.  Why would someone be offended when I point it out to them and tell them that I won’t be “friending” them immediately but probably will do so if we continue to have meaningful online interactions?

Anyway, thanks to Brett I realized that I wasn’t quite as consistent in my FaceBook policy and my FaceBook restrictions.  Turns out that is was pretty easy to locate me – picture and all in any search.  I thought I had a set up some decent privacy settings but I was wrong.  That is fixed now.  Guess that I had better take the FaceBook link out of my Key Social Networks to the right as well.

Consistency is sometimes more important than transparency as you do the latter without congruence first.

“I see Twitter for information consumption,” wrote one Mashable reader. “I see Facebook for keeping in touch with friends. Too different to put head to head.”

The picture has no relationship to anything – just liked it.

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I have nothing else to add. Enjoy! Sometimes it is not available to embed but very funny. Click here to view on You Tube.

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I feel so ambivalent about this whole Fan Page thing and so far have refused to become a fan of anyone.  This makes me feel a little guilty as a couple of requests have come from real “friends” who are trying to use Facebook for their business and keep their other Facebook profile for more personal purposes.  I also heard that if you get 25 fans – you can claim your name back.  Didn’t I say I didn’t care that someone else has my username: robertahill?

I read with interest this article yesterday – How to Get the Most Out Of Facebook Fan Pages:

Facebook Fan pages allow you to officially represent your business on Facebook. You get to give your “fans” and customers a unified place to hold conversations about you, to get updates on what you’re doing, interact with you, and connect with other people who are “just like them” and love your products.

Michael Jackson via last.fm

It is the term “Fans” that really bugs me the most. Maybe I would be more inclined to consider a Fan Page if is was called something else.  Don’t know exactly what but anything would be better.  They say in social media, it isn’t who you know but who knows you.  The whole paradigm has shifted.

Michael Jackson’s Facebook fan page grew from 80,000 to over 7.3 million members in under ten days following his death, unseating President Barack Obama as the most popular fan page. This huge following leaves the singer’s heirs (and his record label) with a massive network to communicate with fans and continue the massive resurgence of interest in Jackson’s music.

OK – maybe dying is a little over the top in order to get attention.

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“Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”  Ecclesiastes 1.2

Facebook announced 200,000 usernames were registered in 3 minutes and one million in the first hour.  So the fact that I had better things to do with my life on Saturday the 13th, it is not surprising that one of the other 50 Roberta Hill’s on Facebook got “my username“.  At first I thought that I would be upset since I am so intent on owning my brand – but I am not.  Does this mean I am growing up?

Too be honest, I have absolutely no idea what it means.  I have been toying with three other names but once you pick it – that is it for the rest of your life.  I am in no rush – especially since, I am actually not trying to have people find me on Facebook.

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I have always liked the work of Adrienne Rich so I was amused when I took the Which feminist thinker are you? quiz and the result was Adrienne Rich I normally hate these things and try not to do them let alone post it BUT this was developed on a lark by my friend Jennifer and I think it is rather fun.

Diving Into The Wreck
by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenelated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

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Welcome to my Social Network Landing Page and Occasional Personal Blog

Who am I?

See the About Me Tab above for a full bio or click on one of my social networks to the right.

How do I use Social Networks?

This is all explained in my Social Policy but I have decided that my main focus is not for marketing or even building my brand.  I like social networks because as an introvert (talkative gregarious on MBTI) I like the ability to connect with others but not in person.  I like them because I can learn from others and when I stumble across something interesting, I can immediately “Twurl” or “Hootlet” it out to the Twitter universe. (Actually, not the universe as I am not always on the public timeline but that is another story.)  It is in the moment – I don’t plan my tweets and schedule them for distribution with “TweetLater” which has become “SocialOomph”.  (Sometimes I come across a series of quotes I like and rather than bombard everyone at one time,  I schedule them over a few days. I do schedule blog post sometimes as well.)  I don’t retweet everything a couple of hours later – you either got it or you didn’t. Sometimes I do track  them so I can see what my contacts find interesting. So on the weekend, I may retweet one item that people found particularly interesting.

How my Social Networking is evolving?

I have never been one for “chat”. I don’t have an IM account and while I may send a quick chat to someone on Skype to se if they are available, I don’t like using it for any conversations.  However, I have found that a private DM once in awhile with someone I know on Twitter has proved to be a wonderful quick chat and a great way to touch bases.

It is fair to say that I am obsessed with my iPhone and all the applications.  I have at least 8 specifically for social networks and I do like to tweet or do a Facebook update sometimes when I am “on the road”.  It is particularly fun to send a photo or link of where I am.

When is the Social Network too limiting?

Occasionally, I have a short exchange with someone and it becomes clear that we need to go “off line” and then a serous of longer emails and in a blue moon a Skype call will occur.  From here our connection goes deeper. Social networks are merely the possibilities of something deeper and more meaningful.  They only scratch the surface of wht is real.  I have met a couple of people for coffee in the flesh after having corresponded through Twitter or LinkedIn.

There are times when I would love to expound on some article or post that I have read. Knowing that it is unlikely that I will “get back to it”, I find that putting up a quick tweet or a short update on Facebook and this becomes an acceptable compromise.  If I can see a logical – even if it is tenuous – connection to my “professional” blogs and I find the time, I will elaborate and post it.

Once in a while I come across something that has much more of a personal story and element to it.  If it is not of a private nature and I want to “record” it somewhere – I have been at a loss.  It is with this in mind that I will write my own journey of discovery and post them here.  They are more for my own edification and so the path to find them may not be obvious.

Why is my Twitter Account sometimes locked?

This is a long and involved story but simply, I found myself loosing “control” over my Twitter account.  I kept getting more and more followers and unless it was an obvious spam, I felt an obligation to follow back.  I was being reminded regularly (read pestered) to follow someone that I didn’t want to follow.  It wasn’t until I took the time to really review how I wanted to use my social networks that I decided to go private for a while.  It is a big conundrum for me . . . how many are too many to follow and should I have a limit on how many follow me?  See more by clicking my Social Policy Tab above.

What made me choose this WordPress theme?

I searched through many themes and actually downloaded a number that looked very professional or had a “Twitter” feel.  The truth is that when I saw this design, Desk Mess, I knew in order for me to be authentic, I would have to select it.  The title says it all.  It is SO me: right down to my love affair with my iPhone, our car keys, pen, money and that picture of Paris.   (I took one just like it.) OK, I am not sure about the unicorn and star necklace but you would be surprised with all the knick knacks and papers on my desk.  And maybe it is usually a cup of coffee and not tea, but the spill is real.

Disclaimer: Just because I may have an account with a social networking service like the ones listed to the right does NOT mean that I use or support or recommend them. I do use the services listed in the sections – “My Key Social Networks”.

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