A quick update on what I'm up to lately.
As many of you know I'm active in the blogosphere and in social media, mostly Twitter and Facebook. I read and follow dozens of writerly blogs and publishing industry websites and try to keep up on the latest news and information as it pertains.
A troubling perspective has formed in my little brain that I wanted to ramble about today.
I've made some great friends in the past and more recently too Thanks to social media, and, by contributing to and interacting with numerous literary and writer blog sites in support of my fellow scribes and their efforts. This is something I am sincere about.
Many editors, agents and publishers offer their opinions and advice freely in well done blogs and awesome websites and I've noticed tightly knit communities in these fields as well.
I also follow closely several of the cutting edge tech and SEO type sites like Hubspot, Mashable, Technorati, Digital Book World and a few others. Being both a techie and a writer, for me, these two worlds easily blend together in some ways, and yet, in others they don't.
I wanted to talk today about the ways they don't.
Let me ask you something: How do you act, think, feel about, and treat people you're close to, like friends, family, relatives, or even colleagues? Is the bond or connection for you personal and emotional or does it lean more and more to a business or marketing mentality, or is it a bit of both? And, is it the same or different from the way you speak to and think about and interact with clients, customers and business associates and others you don't know so well?
What? You might be asking right now.
Here's what I see every single day as I zoom around the internet touching base with friends and fellow writer's, writer sites, tech sites and just about everywhere else. I see the lines blurring between friendships and marketing - between people, and an odd mentality of association for gain or profit ONLY taking the place of a basic human trait of people just wanting to be together. Not that being and communicating with people I like is, (everyone together holding hands skipping through sunlit green pastures throwing rose petals in the air and singing,) all I expect or had hoped for the web to be for me or anyone else. Maybe it's because for most people the web and all it's glory and power is so new to them and since 99% of what's on the internet is profit driven the influence is invasively overt and at the same time subliminal and fuses with people's perception, development and use of the internet. Even to the point of changing how we find, see, interact and treat each other.It's becoming a capture (site) and convert (to sale) world.
It's okay to sell stuff, I have no problem with that. It's just that it's more and more selling and less and less people just plain talking with and enjoying each other.
Back in the early to mid nineties when I got my first computer, the world I knew to be out there was suddenly at my finger tips in living color filled with real people I could communicate with no matter where in the world they were. I kept in daily touch with a group of scientists stationed in Antarctica who were studying the dispersement and effects of sediment particles(pollution) in the atmosphere. I recall a somber Dr. telling me they had found diesel and other emission carbon particles up to 3 feet down in the older ice pack. This was historical news, very bad news. In those days it was a daily, momentary thrill to be part of something called "The World Wide Web" and we all knew it would soon change the world. Early on, I had a tech genius friend and pioneer who would regale us with tall tales of the future of computing and what the computers of tomorrow would be like.
Awesome stuff since I see his theories and predictions all coming true. For many it's still a new and exciting frontier but they're entering a different cyber world than we did back then.
I still see light speed changes, and new technology and it's application spreading it's mighty wings every day but I'm troubled by the dis-associative current silently(and sometimes not so silently) flowing underneath it all.
Maybe you don't, but I do.
One of the world's top blogger/marketers does too and it has caused him to change his online footprint and write about it recently.
Now, I'm not planning to run off and live in a cave or unplug my computers and throw them in the trash either, I'm just sayin'.......
Being and staying personal on every level, for me is a priority, not a clever sales or networking technique. It's part of who I am and how I demonstrate my love and respect for people. Being a writer online I enjoy daily emails, Twitter and Facebook communications and comments from lots of different folks. and it's still fun to make new friends and learn different things too.
Writers are people whose job can be solitary in it's fundamental execution so I see a higher level of understanding and exuberance among them interacting with each other professionally and socially and I really get a kick out that and happy to be a part of it.
I hope that never changes.
I just wanted to write a few words about how I see things lately.
That's it for now, you know where to find me.
LUVU
