Molly Murphy

My, my, but we’re a serious bunch.

This post is inspired by a YouTube video that my Twitter buddy Geoff Livingston posted recently. The video is called “20 Silly Twitter Remarks” and if you want a good chuckle, take 3 minutes and watch it. As I was watching, two thoughts occurred to me. First, for someone who isn’t on Twitter, these comments would probably seem even more absurd. Second, for the people who said those things (no attribution was given, but a few were recognizable to me), one of two things will happen. Either they’ll laugh right along with everyone else, or they’ll freak out, and get all hot under the collar about the fact that someone’s poking fun at them. I hope it’s the former, I really do. But past history of posts such as this dictates that someone is bound to get their knickers in a twist. I hope I’m wrong. Kudos to Geoff for being so darn funny and entertaining on camera. I hope he does many more like this.

Business on the Sides, Party at the Back. Ahhh, the mullet - signature hairstyle of the average dude in the 70s and 80s. You had one. C’mon. Admit it. (I may have even had one for a while, but let’s not go there!) My theory as to why the mullet became popular was because it was deemed “acceptable” in the workplace. Companies didn’t want any long-haired hippies wandering around, so men started to chop the front of their hair short, to look more professional, but they left the back long to show that they still had a less serious, wild streak.

The ability to genuinely laugh at oneself is charming, endearing, and sexy. But I think that often, especially in the online world, we’re trying SO HARD to exude a certain type of “personal brand”, that we forget that it’s okay to be silly once in a while. It’s okay to poke fun at ourselves, and even sometimes at those we respect (as long as it’s not hurtful). Remember when you were a kid, and that girl or boy on the playground would tease you incessantly? You’d go home and cry to your Mom about it, and she’d say “Oh, that means he/she likes you!”. Most of the time, that’s true. If someone teases you, it’s often a show of respect and admiration. Take it as a compliment. Of course, then tease them right back, to show that you love them too!

So, sometimes, be a little less business, and a little more party. You’ll probably make some new friends, and for sure, you’ll have a lot more fun.

Nobody Cares What You’re Having For Lunch. Or do they? I had conversation with a colleague the other day about Twitter. He is still working on figuring Twitter out, understanding how it fits into his day-to-day life, and how it can benefit his business. He told me that he had some reservations about being too “personal” in the social space, but at the same time he wanted to ensure he wasn’t just being that guy pushing his links out and not interacting. He was a bit stumped as to what he was supposed to be talking about. I said “Tell ‘em what you had for lunch!” Naturally, he looked at me like I had three heads.

Lots of “social media experts” will tell you that you shouldn’t talk about what you had for lunch on Twitter, because nobody cares. You shouldn’t post pictures of your cats – you’ll look like that crazy cat lady. And you shouldn’t goof off – people will think you’re not working hard enough.

I guess I’m doing it wrong.

I tell people what I have for lunch. Not every day, but often. What’s that gotten me? Ideas for recipes, which is great because I love to cook. Connections and friendships with talented foodies from all over, like my friends Don and Jenn from FoodiePrints, which is great because I love to talk about food. And, I’m doing Weight Watchers, so it’s tapped me into a very supportive Twitter community and we’re helping each other meet our weight loss goals. All this, from telling people what I had for lunch.

I post pictures of my cats. Not every day, but often. What’s that gotten me? Well, I don’t have human children, so my pets are my kids. They are one of the most important parts of my life, just like your kids are. When they do something cute or funny, I want to share that with my friends, just like you want to share memories of your human kids. Lots of people seem to enjoy my pictures, and we have many fun conversations about it. My pet pictures have connected me to people who are now my clients. So I suppose I should thank my cats for being so darn cute, eh?

I goof off. One day, a couple of months back, I was taking a break from work (yes, I do that occasionally), and I was poking around on Twitter. I realized that I had 4997 followers. Now, before you start talking to me about how follower numbers aren’t important, blah dee blah – this is about FUN. I thought it would be fun to offer a special surprise for my 5000th follower, so I suggested that maybe I’d write a song. The campaign started, and while I waited for my 5000th follower to show up, I wrote this. When @MCouto finally did come along, I posted the song. People got a good laugh. Then I went on with my day. What did this get me? Well, a new buddy in @MCouto, A.K.A “Follower 5000″. And I’ve met others because I follow him. The pay off? Purely social. But purely fun.

Social media is not all business, all the time. It’s okay to use the forum to just have some fun. Share some snippets of your life, even if it’s the view out the window of the coffee shop, or off the end of the dock at your cottage. Goof off sometimes, tease the people you love a bit, or just send a hug to a friend having a bad day. You want to enhance your personal brand? Don’t try to “be” a persona. Just be you – the same you that you’d be if I was meeting you in person.

How are you going to have a little more fun online?

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I’ve spoken before about the social media “bubble”. You know, this warm and cozy place where all us Twitter-loving, high tech super early adopting thirty and forty somethings spend a good chunk of our lives. We have our own gurus, our special buzzwords, and our own geek-a-paloooza assortment of Dungeons and Dragons inside jokes and bad 80′s references written on t-shirts. Even though we pride ourselves on “openness” and “transparency”, you have to admit, it’s kind of a secret club. Oh sure, anyone can join, but they have to know the secret password (it’s “social media d-bag”).

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

You see, the whole POINT of social media is to create online communities of people with common interests. It just so happens that the common interest many of us have happens to be social media.

We sit inside the bubble, but it’s only one of thousands of bubbles. It just so happens that what goes on inside our bubble isn’t dog breeding, or photography, or banjo playing..it’s social media. And ironically, we’re using the very tools and strategies we love, to talk about the tools and strategies we love.

To an outsider, that must look pretty weird, eh?

There are a lot of people outside the bubble looking at us sort of cock-eyed, I think. They wonder why we yammer on all day about ROI, community building, and measuring sentiment. They visit our blogs to try to understand more, but the backstory isn’t there. It’s on 15 other web sites we’ve linked to, and if they haven’t been head-down reading Mashable and Gizmodo for the past three days, then the point is lost on them. Back to dog breeding, then.

The thing is, do the people outside the bubble care? Not as much as we think (and maybe hope) they do.

While we sit around discussing the merits of having a Fan Page on Facebook, they are probably opening up their flower shop for the day. While we have blogchats and webinars, they are building a house. While we debate iPads and Androids, they are creating policies for health care reform. See what I mean?

We live this stuff, because for many of us, it’s part of our job. My clients come to me because I know a lot about video, web design, and online marketing/social media/whatever you call it. They pay me to help them understand this stuff, just like I’d pay a contractor to build me a new fence when I need one.

There is one problem I have with the bubble, though. Some people are treating it like Fort Knox. They are doing this because they think that by keeping the walls high and inaccessible and staying inside of them, they get to have easier access to the money. And they figure, if they can keep their clients in the dark long enough, about “mysterious” things like Search Engine Optimization, RSS and WordPress, then they can milk more cash out of the wallets of the unsuspecting neophytes. It’s shameful behaviour and it needs to stop.

As my friend Kneale would say, social media ain’t rocket surgery. Yes, it’s a new way of communicating. Indeed, there’s a sea of information to wade through. There are myriad tools and new things to learn. But ultimately, the whole point of social media tools is that the tools are supposed to be easy to use. And they are. Just ask my Mom. She teaches me stuff about Facebook.

If you want to really help your clients, don’t try to convince them that this stuff is complicated. It’s not. Your clients shouldn’t be hiring you to teach them how to use LinkedIN. Nobody needs a $1000 weekend retreat to learn how to tweet. Social media consultants are a passing fancy. Your clients need your expertise in how to use all media to more effectively tell their stories. That’s it.

As for us bubble-dwellers, the best way for us to understand more what our clients need is to step out of the bubble once in a while. There are a lot of cool people doing a lot of neat stuff online, and many of them don’t even know that what they are doing is “social media”. They are just doing it. Social Media isn’t an industry. Social media are a way of communicating.

The bubble is a valuable place for us. It’s where we hone our craft, learn from each other, and geek out. That’s a good thing, my friends. But remember, there’s a whole other world out there. We should try to be part of that one once in a while, too.

[photo credit: Jeff Kubina on Flickr]

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It’s not you…it’s me.

In 2007, I was introduced to social media at Podcamp Toronto. I happened upon a group of amazing people, many of whom I’m happy to call good friends today. What they were doing that weekend was remarkable. They were figuring out new ways to communicate, collaborate, do business, and build communities. They were exploring and creating and sharing in ways that 90% of the rest of the world didn’t even have an inkling of yet. But above all, they were there with open arms, willing to welcome media oldtimers like myself into the community without judgement. (Literally with open arms – I don’t think I’ve ever been hugged so much in my life as I was that weekend!). They let me ask silly questions. They didn’t laugh at my first blog post. They didn’t mock me when I asked what a DM was on Twitter. They led me through uncharted territory, and changed the way I do business and connect. To those people (they know who they are), I am forever grateful.

But I think my love affair with social media is over.

It was passionate, steamy, obsessive, blissful, and heart wrenching. There were the highest of highs, the lowest of lows, and everywhere in between. I’ve been moved to tears, laughed my butt off, and had thoughts provoked in ways I never imagined possible. But the time has come. I’ve got to end it.

Now before you go getting all in a tizzy…I’m not going anywhere. We can still be friends. The best of friends, in fact.

But here’s the reason I can’t be with social media anymore in the same way. Frankly, I’m ready to move on. I’m not saying I know everything – quite the contrary – there’s still so much more to learn!  The problem is, we are stuck. We, the ground-breaking, cutting edge super early adopters, the ones who were part of the first 1000 people on Twitter, are still having the same conversations.We’re still talking about how to use Twitter more effectively, how to get more readers on our blogs, how to maximize ROI from social media. We’re still talking about how to convince our boss to use social media. I’ve read and written more on those topics in the past 3 years…I could fill an encyclopedia.

Do we still need to be educating people, helping businesses, and figuring out ways to use new media? Of course we do. It’s here. It’s happening now. We need to keep doing it because that’s what we know. We’re good at it. But we also need to be looking ahead. We need to stop twittering about Twitter, and look down the pipe at what things like Semantic technology and linked data are going to mean to us and our clients in 2 years. We need to look at what video is going to be doing in a few years and how the way we consume mass media and new media are going to merge and change. We need to look at the new technology that companies are developing and really understand how that’s going to impact us. And above all, we need to know where the opportunities will be.

We don’t need to be looking at the “big thing” that is social media anymore. We get it. We have our arsenal, we know how to build effective strategies, and mould them and shape them into successful, measurable action plans for our clients. We’re out there, we’re doing it, and we’re making it work.

But the real danger is, if we don’t start to look beyond the current state of social media, then in a couple of years when it all changes, we’re going to be right in the same place we were in 2008 – trying to navigate new terrain without really knowing what direction to go.

So, social media…it’s been fun. I’m taking away from this passionate affair a new way of communicating, building relationships and doing business. I’m also taking away some really awesome new friends (yes, social media, I get to keep the friends in this break up).  I’m passing what I’ve learned from you on to my clients, and helping them to be more successful. But I need to be somewhere else now. I need to be out there…understanding what’s coming next so that I can be ready when it gets here. It’s been fun. I’ll always love you. xoxo

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I had a little conversation on Twitter with @SonnyGill last night. Sonny and I don’t chat that often, but we do float around in and out of each others’ radar sometimes. Last night we got to talking about our names. You see, Sonny confessed on his blog that “Sonny” is not his real name. I then confessed to him that “Suze” is not my real name either – it’s a nickname that my Dad gave me when I was a kid. Sonny then joked with me that it was my “personal brand”. And that got me thinking…

When I first got inspired to create my blog (after my trip to Podcamp Toronto in 2007), I raced home to Ottawa, hopped on WordPress, and the first thing it asked me for was a name. I was stumped. I thought, “Well I guess I should make it something sensible”. I tried Sue Murphy, Susan Murphy, smurphy, to no avail, of course, because my name is pretty common. So I thought for a minute, then just typed “SuzeMuse”. Suze, because of the nickname, and “muse” because I figured, well, my blog is going to be (mostly) written, so guess I’d better find my muse, and quick! I then realized that if I was going to be known on my blog as “SuzeMuse”, then I’d better be consistent. I went to a bunch of social network sites and got the username, and also bought the domain. Thus, and quite unintentionally, I might add, the “brand” of SuzeMuse was born.

There are a lot of people out here making social media, personal branding and online marketing much more complicated than it needs to be; to the point where it can be quite intimidating. Making social media work for you isn’t some mysterious secret. It doesn’t require you to be a technical wizard, a brilliant designer, or even a great writer. In fact, the only requirement to be successful in social media is to be…are you ready for it?

A human being.

Stop trying so darn hard. As my friend Kneale Mann says, “This ain’t rocket surgery!”…and I totally agree with him. That’s not to discount all the really smart people that are out here talking in easy to understand ways about social media and how it’s changing the game and making businesses think differently. Social media has fundamentally changed the way we connect with one another. But that doesn’t mean it’s complicated. I think it’s sometimes made out to be way more complicated than it needs to be. Ultimately, there’s really only one way to make all this social media stuff work for you. It doesn’t matter if you are a giant corporation or an individual doing your own thing. All you need to do to succeed in this space is to be yourself. It’s really that simple.

Make time to make it happen. People often ask me how I have the time to run a business, have a healthy marriage, spend time with my family and friends offline, AND work this whole social media thing into the mix. Well the truth is, I don’t actually consider it “working it in”. It’s part of what I do. It’s integrated into my day. I have basically two ways that I work it. I have chunks of time that are totally focused – like hanging out with my nephews or having dinner with my husband. I also have to be entirely focused for tasks like writing a big proposal or strategy. Those times, I am most definitely off-line. But other times, I take an integrated approach, like when I’m checking email or doing a tedious task like rendering video. At these times I tend to flip back and forth – chatting on Skype, popping into Twitter, or commenting on Facebook. I work both things together, and somehow, everything gets done. Does it make me less productive? Actually, I think it has the opposite effect. If I’m sharing what I’m up to, maybe I’m able to help someone else. If I’m checking in on what others are doing, maybe I can pick up something new. It’s all part of how I am just being myself out here.

Make no apologies. Ok, can we do something for once and for all? Can we STOP making such a big deal about making money? How many times a week do I have to listen to people defend themselves online for wanting to actually make a living? I remember Chris Brogan said once “I can’t eat a hug”. (I’m not actually sure where he said that, because dude’s everywhere).

Look – I love social media. I think it’s just great. It’s literally changed my life. Some of the best friends I’ve had in my life I know because I got involved in this stuff. But I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t doing at least some of this because of the opportunities it provides me to make a living. And I make NO apologies for that. Making money should never be your raison d’être for being here – people will find out pretty quick if you are are trying to gain their trust just so you can make a buck off them. But…there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be always looking for opportunities.

Connect with people because you see something in them that appeals to you. Some people will become good friends. Others may lead you to your next big opportunity. Some people may be both friends and opportunities. And that’s okay. If your intentions are good and you do that one simple thing (be a real person), then you’ll be richer in both your relationships and your pocketbook.

If you aren’t reading, you’re not learning. One final tip. If there’s one thing you can do right now to get ahead in social media, it’s to read. I am a voracious reader. I read almost continuously. Sometimes it’s 140 characters at a time, sometimes it’s 500 words in a blog post, sometimes it’s a whole book. But I have learned so much from so many smart people by reading. If I don’t understand something, I’ll first try to figure it out for myself. I’ll draw my own conclusions. Often, I’ll write about it on this blog – that always helps me to sort out my thoughts. I am infinitely curious about new media. I love to think about this stuff. And if I’m still lost? I have conversations. That almost always sorts it out. Read a LOT. Don’t just read what everyone else is reading. Read the stuff that you like to read. Read what you can relate to. That’s how you get ahead.

But most of all, don’t forget, it’s no more complicated than this….

The secret to success in social media is – be human.

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I’ve been thinking about spaces a lot.

There are many different ways we create spaces. There’s making emotional space, for your friends, your family, or that special someone. There’s physical space, as in the space you create for your home or your working environment. There’s the relationship between space and time, where you need to carve out the pieces and chunks of how you’re going to spend your time, and how much space you’re going to allot for all of the various things in your life.

We can’t survive (at least not comfortably) without striking a balance between all of our different spaces. Spaces are critical to our success as human beings.

Think about how you arrange the spaces around you. It might be the way your bedroom is set up to be most conducive to restful sleep. It may be how your desk is arranged so you are most productive. Everyone has different preferences.

For example, my desk is neat and organized, so I don’t often spend a lot of time searching for things. It’s a space that allows me to get things done. On the other hand, my car is messy beyond belief – but it is merely a tool that I use to get around, usually in a hurry, so for me, it doesn’t have to be organized. It’s a space that moves me from space to space.

How does this relate to online experiences? Well this is where spaces get really interesting. In the online world, it’s all about spaces. I have a space on Facebook, a space on Twitter, a space on this blog. I’m filling my spaces all the time with my thoughts, opinions, conversations, and questions. I’m being helped, and helping others inside of my space and inside of their spaces. In fact, the entire Web is just a series of spaces, all linked together. That’s fundamentally what makes it all work – spaces.

So you’ve got all these spaces, now what? Well, consider it like you’d consider your home. Some spaces are functional, like the kitchen. Some are beautiful, like your garden. Others are social, like your family room. But, it’s totally up to you how you use your spaces. Take Newfoundland, for instance – there, kitchens are functional, but they are also extremely social.

There are lots of social media “experts” out here who will try to tell you that Facebook MUST be used for socializing. LinkedIN MUST be used for functional, practical business stuff. Twitter is just fluff. Lots of people want to try and tell us how to use our spaces. Whatever you do, don’t listen to them. They are missing the point.

We are all responsible for creating our own spaces out here. We fill our spaces with the things we are interested in, are passionate about, things that are concrete…or sometimes we just fill them in with fun, silly stuff. Most of the time it’s a combination of those things. But the really cool part happens when we begin to let others into our spaces.

There’s abundant possibility in shared spaces. And this world out here, on the Web, is all about shared spaces.

So…what kind of space are you going to create?

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Once upon a time there was a guy named Dom.

Dom needed some stuff, to help make his life a bit better – to help him get around a bit more. Dom asked his friends to help him out.

But Dom wasn’t content to just make his life better. He wanted to make others’ lives better too.

This weekend, Dom and his friends on Twitter raised over $800. Dom is going to get what he needs to make his life better. But he’s also done something remarkable. Of that $800, he’s selflessly given $300 to 12for12k’s May Charity, the Hospice of Peel.

I am truly humbled, grateful, and overwhelmed, that someone could work so hard to bring his community together to help, that the community would in turn come to his aid, and that after all that, he would in turn, do something so selfless to give back.

Thank you Dom – you’re a truly special person. Your community loves you…don’t ever forget that.

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I met someone for the first time recently. They asked me “What do you do?”.

The story of what I “do” has changed over the years. I used to just say “I work for [insert company name here].” Then after a while, I started to identify more with the actual work I was doing. “I’m a TV producer.” “I’m a web designer.” “I’m a technical writer.” “I’m a professor.”

When we started the company, my description started to become more complex. “I’m a partner in a production company.” Which always prompted the response, “Oh? What kind of production?”, to which I’d have to go into a long-winded explanation that well, we do tv production, but also web video, corporate video, and oh – yah, we develop web sites too, and do marketing…..

The problem I was having is that I could no longer easily sum up what I actually “do”. I was “doing” too many different things. Then the other day, it hit me. What I do is irrelevant. It’s a task list. It’s what I am that matters.

So what AM I? Simple. I’m a storyteller.

All day, every day, I’m telling stories. I’m telling them here, on my blog. I’m telling them in 140 character increments, on Twitter. I’m telling them when I meet my friends for drinks or coffee or dinner. And I’m helping my clients figure out how to tell their stories too, whether it’s through a new web site, a video, a TV show, a marketing campaign, or all of the above.

It’s all storytelling.

So how does this tie in to the notion that it’s not about the tools? Well, the fact that it’s really all about storytelling rather proves it, I think.

If what we’re all doing out here is telling stories (our own, our clients’, others’ -it doesn’t matter), then really, the tools become irrelevant. Sure, it’s important to know how to use the right tools, and use them the right way to ensure the story is told well. But the tools themselves are secondary. It’s the story that really matters.

When all’s said and done, it’s the story that people will remember – not what you used to tell it. I’m wondering if it’s time to reconsider how much effort we are spending talking about the tools themselves, and if perhaps we should be spending more effort figuring out what our story is and how we’re going to tell it.

Thoughts?

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I know I know I know.

I promised not to write any more posts about Twitter. But, one of the things I like to do on this blog, besides breaking promises, is talk about how new media is evolving. And Twitter, well, it’s kind of the evolutionary story of the year, or at least the month, so I thought it was worth talking about.

It’s finally happening. Twitter is being taken over by celebrities, the media won’t shut up about it, and the tech-geek early adopter community, who have been on Twitter since the beginning, are freaking out.

“Twitter’s going to jump the shark!”, “Twitter’s dead”, and “It’s game over!”, are just a few of the rumblings I’ve seen pass through my stream in the past few days. Some are being downright possessive about it, almost violated at the thought that that Kutcher guy or ol’ what’s her face Winfrey are going to somehow infringe on their ability to use the tool.

So, can we just stop this then?

I am the first one to admit, I love Twitter. That’s probably pretty obvious to most of you. I’m on it often and it’s been a source of close friendships, fun social times, and new business for me. I find it a very valuable addition to my social and work lives. I’m a fan, and I’m not planning to change that any time soon.

Twitter is changing, as we knew it would. Seriously, it was only a matter of time before the rest of the world caught on. But the way people use Twitter does not have to change. The reason is simple.

If you are in your early late thirties like I am, you probably remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, where you would read to a certain point in the book, then have to make a decision about where you wanted the story to go. You’d flip to the page of your choice, and continue reading. It was different every time. I loved those books. Never got bored of them.

Twitter is like that – it’s a “choose your own adventure” tool. What I mean is, even though Oprah and Ashton Kutcher and P. Diddy are making tons of noise on Twitter, even though millions and millions of people are following them and talking about them and so on, the fact is, YOU get to choose how you use the tool. YOU get to choose who you follow. YOU get to choose who you talk to, and what you talk about. If you want to follow 50 people, follow 50 people. If you don’t want to follow celebrities, just don’t follow them. If you want to unfollow someone because all they do is follow celebrities, then geez. Just unfollow them.

Choose your own adventure in this space. Nobody’s telling you that you can’t.

I leave you with the quote of the day, for anyone who thinks that they can make a million bucks shilling advice about social media tools. This is a tweet from my friend Bob Goyetche, and is reprinted with his permission:

RT @bobgoyetche: Today, the legions of Oprah-ites join Twitter – your twitter “expertise” = soon to be as valuable as teaching someone to browse the web.

But we all KNEW this day would come, didn’t we?

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I’m watching with interest today a post written my my friend Danny Brown yesterday about a fake Twitter site. You can go read the post, and the comments if you like (WARNING: some of the comments contain some off-colour language).

This isn’t a post about the fake Twitter site, and it’s not a post about the silly comments it generated from the fake-Twitter site creators and their friends. This is a post about you.

In his post, Danny asks a very pertinent question – what if suddenly, someone took over your personal or professional brand (or your client’s) and started posing on social networks, saying all the wrong things, treating people badly or spreading untruths about you and your brand?

Think about it. You’ve worked for months, maybe a year or more, on creating a “social media” marketing strategy for your client. (Forget that you shoudn’t be creating marketing strategies focused on only social media, but that’s another post.) Then one day, a few Google searches reveal that someone is trying to damage you or your client through a fake ID, or a fake site. As Danny points out in his post, it would be pretty easy to do with the kind of thing the fake Twitter site was doing (it’s since been shut down, but that’s another story too).

The smart marketers are building contingency and damage control plans into their media strategies to counteract these kinds of threats. I’m not too worried about them. But the whole idea’s got me thinking on an even larger scale.

Forget impostors. What if suddenly, Twitter was gone? Or Facebook? Ning? WordPress? Sure, it’s unlikely these tools will just disappear. But what if?

Companies, agencies and individuals are putting thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and a ton of blood, sweat and tears into building their marketing strategies around a bunch of free tools, created by a bunch of people they don’t know. What strikes me is that people put all their faith into the tools without a second thought, but when it comes to each other, it’s about building trust and relationships over the long term. Shouldn’t we be subjecting the social media tools we’re using to the same kind of scrutiny to which we subject each other?

Why do we have so much faith that these tools are even going to be around next week, let alone next year? Who is to say that they don’t crumple under their own weight, get eaten up by some giant corporation, or simply, that something better comes along? All of these things are happening now – yet people still continue to focus all their efforts around the tools.

So what’s the solution? How do we stop relying so much on these tools and get on to the real work? Well, the good news is you don’t have to hire some fancy consultant to figure it out, because I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

Social media is not about the tools.

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I’ve been on the road this week. Hubby and I have been touring around the American Midwest, spending a couple of days in Indiana, then hopping over to Ohio. We leave tomorrow, to drive back home. It will be a 12 hour-or-so trip.

I really like road trips. More than flying, actually. Flying, as much as it gets you to your destination quickly, doesn’t hold the same adventure level for me. On the road, all sorts of things can happen. You get to stop places, meet people, even get horribly lost (which we’ve done a couple of times this trip). But in the end it just gives us more stories to tell.

There’s a lot to be said for getting the heck out of town sometimes. I’m not talking business travel here. Business travel still involves too much obligation. I’m talking about taking each hour as it comes, not committing yourself too heavily, and seeing where the road takes you. I’ve been away from home for 5 days now, and I’ve had a few realizations about the benefits of a change of scenery.

The world does not stop just because you don’t check your email for 10 hours.
Being from Canada and traveling in the States with a crappy cell phone package sucks. Roaming charges are ridiculously high, particularly for data. So, needless to say (or maybe just because I’m cheap) I wasn’t checking my email unless we were in Wifi range. Which usually was only at the hotels, and the odd bar or cafe. Sometimes I’d go 8 or 10 hours without checking. I was pretty concerned at first. What if there was some emergency? What if people were trying to reach me and couldn’t? Well, you know what? The world didn’t end. In fact, the number of emails I got that I actually had to deal with right away were minimal. Most of the emails I was able to either forward to the right person, file to deal with upon my return, or delete altogether. I’ve now turned off the feature on my iPhone that downloads my emails automatically. I am in control of when I check it. Lesson learned, and my time is officially more productive.

People who aren’t on Twitter are people too.
At the HorrorHound convention we attended there was lots of tweeting going on (hashtag #HHW). But I met several really interesting people who could care less about Twitter. With all the hype that Twitter’s been getting lately, I think we’re going to start to see a drop off of people who are using the tool. I’m talking the early adopter types mostly. The real geeks (like me). We’re ready for the next big thing anyway. Twitter is old news to us. Now we’re talking about how to extend these relationships into other realms. And a good place to start those conversations is with a bunch of people who aren’t using it. I’m looking at what they do, how they connect, commmunicate, collaborate. Life exists outside of this one tool. Perhaps we should learn to as well.

Meeting face to face outdoes online any day.
One of the reasons we came down this way was to see friends. Some of our friends we’d met before, but lots of others we’d only known via their podcasts, or blogs, or Twitter. I was really excited to meet up with our friends Jon and Nancy on the way down. Jon and I have been friends for almost a year, and he had a really great observation at lunch the day we met. He noted that when you finally meet your online friends face to face, the conversation just continues from the Web to in person. Then after you part, the conversation moves back to the Web. The same conversation just keeps going. Anyone who tries to tell you that online relationships aren’t “real life” or “real friendships” is sorely missing the point. However, the real icing on the cake comes when you do get to meet face to face, when you get to hug someone, shake their hand, and look them in the eyes. Then you know that what you’ve built in the virtual space is actually real.

If you haven’t been away from home just for fun for a while, you need to do it. Even if it’s just overnight or for a weekend. Grab someone you love, or head off by yourself – it doesn’t matter where you go, who you go with or even what you do. It will change your perspective. It will make you appreciate the things in your everyday life way more. I know I do.

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