GREAT ADAPTATIONS

How could we quantify the collective experience, skills and knowledge of the baby boomer demographic? This is one massive convergence of time and place, this twinkling, decades-reaching, ever-longer-lived group of – um, shall we say, “seniors?”

The brains of Boomers must be mined. Contained therein are solutions, innovations, social histories, and the wisdom of time, to say nothing of some pretty good grammar.

With the current models coming into play where the average person can put together a website and start downloading their knowledge to a community they proscribe, there’s no excuse for losing all that accumulated savvy and smarts.

Give it up, Boomers! You know stuff, and we want to learn it! We need you! Besides, putting yourself through the brain challenge required to learn a little bit about the Internet will make you smarter too. So skip the crosswords this week and do some research about teaching online.

I’m doing my part with some of these posts. Check out this post about the Blogosphere (click on the blue word), or subscribe to my e-mail list for more articles about learning to blog, being friendly to your brain, and crossing that big fat digital divide. And if you have questions about this groovy world I’m peddling, go ahead and post ‘em in the comments section. That’s what I’m here for.

By the way, I’m updating this post as part of Problogger’s 31-Day Build a Better Blog project. Howdy to all my new friends from the comments and forum over there! I invite you to include your own links in the comments below.

See you in the funny pages,

Suzanna Stinnett

Read about how bloggers are interacting in The Collaboration Code

—————————–

On this buttery-warm March morning, I took a few minutes to throw some new soil on my teensy garden. The poor fuschia, which has never recovered from my absence last fall, had managed to sprout a few off-color leaves. As I gave it a drink I noticed, stuck point-into the dirt there, a shiny little acorn.

I thought of the tiny squirrel paws that stashed the acorn in this unlikely spot, and smiled. The fuschia, if it keeps trying to grow, will go back to its hanging place under the eave where a squirrel couldn’t quite reach. Instead of being food later on, it’s possible I could end up with a little oak tree in my hanging fuschia. Now there’s an interesting juxtaposition.

This is the kind of uncertainty we engage in the multiple universes of new media. Social networking and its exponential potential can take a seed, whether it’s a thought, an invite, an introduction, or some other creation, off into places we aren’t even aware of.

Doesn’t sound like much of a plan, does it? But it is. It is, because, like the squirrel with all those arbitrarily placed seeds, those multiple universes are intersecting. Our digital imprints circulate through this astonishingly interconnected multi-verse, and return to us with who-knows-who now attached. We talk to one person, they talk to several thousand. Ten or twenty or hundreds become aware of us. Because of that one person.

I don’t know if your brain is following this analogy. It makes a lot more sense if you’re out there experiencing it and it’s more fun that you might realize. In Novato Monday night, I spoke about blogging and social media to a careers transition group of 25 people. Everyone in the room was at a different level. I had a blast.

It is a real pleasure for me to share blogging’s burgeoning potential for connection, community, expression and income with a room full of people who have so far only experienced glimmers (alongside considerable confusion).

We social media users are a bit like mad squirrels, placing our bounty of words in strange places and letting them run their course. Like the squirrel, we don’t know when we’ll see that nut again, or if it will sprout into something big. But we’re in it now, and once you’ve experienced the expansiveness of connecting to great minds in such a deeply human way, there’s no reason to go back.

Happy seeding,
Suzanna

Interested in brain-friendly blogging? Click on the “Brain-Friendly” tab above.

_____________________________________________________

Getting noticed

For those of us who have been exploring and utilizing online communication for a while, it might go something like this:

We’ve prepared our trail of crumbs, hyper-linking our new friends back to us. There’s our home page, it’s the front porch. The porch swing has its comfy pillows. Before we go out, we dress up with just the right shades of red and blue, choose a few associates willing to stand with us, and then board the boat, bound for the bright lights of Social Media City.

A little momentum

We fuel the launch with our special notion of “value” in strings of words, showy links, and gestures of good faith thrown into the void of social media networking. Soon we arrive in cyber-public, navigating the steps in our strange new shoes.

Teetering out in public

Now we know how rising supermodels feel. Right? Walking out on that runway, all those eyes on you, critically observing your drape, your gait, your essence.

Or not. Maybe your onlookers are enraptured still with their own thoughts, pinging around in their brains, and your special moment of self expression is just the revolving screen saver, background eye candy for a disengaged audience. In new media, it’s called lurking. Onlurkers?

Still, the potential to be noticed, observed, and even replicated, imitated or plagiarized can be a body rush. The potential, at least when it’s well articulated, can really get your attention. It’s called “the world.”

Brain behind the curtain

You could ask yourself the same questions that a slender new clothes-colt might ask of her onlookers: Who is really watching? Who really cares? Who might be an ally here, who will rise to defeat me? Can any of these people launch me to fame, wealth, notoriety, or even a good time at the bar?

We’re humans, you know, and even as we extend our neural reach into exponential other-lands, we don’t quite get the power of what we’re doing. Boy, does it feel strange to know that your words could enter the viral spread and become part of the collective mind.

How many lurkers does it take…

So back to that potential. I’m thinking that lurkers make up such a large percentage of the observing online population, they must actually be considered part of that potential itself. After all, lots of people lurk before they participate, so they are actually changed by the experience of lurking.

How many lurkers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Are lurkers actually providing a kind of cushion, like mulch in a garden, protecting the emerging energies while they gather light? Do we love our lurkers as the future sparks they are?

Suzanna

Other interesting conversations: John Battelle

_________________________________________________________

Here’s the deal today, people. As an advocate (evangelist, even) for the power of online communication (or social media, or new media) to do great things rapidly in our society, I am using every tool I have at my disposal to help the family of Hollis Hawthorne as they raise the necessary funds to move her from a hospital in India to the room waiting for her at Stanford Medical Center.

What we all need to do here is give a couple of dollars (you know exactly how much you can  contribute to this, so do what is right for you) to the fund for Hollis. You can read the details of what happened on the blog set up for her, here.

Friends of Hollis blog

Briefly, Hollis is one of our cherished community members who suffered serious injuries in a freak accident while touring India with her boyfriend. She is in a coma. The hospital in India cannot provide the care she needs, and her family is raising the money to medi-vac her to Stanford. It costs a great deal of money to do this. They have already raised $50,000 through online communities, check that out! The awesome news today is that she is off the respirator and already on a miraculous track. We want to keep it that way and get her home to the best care in the world, which we happen to have right here in the Bay area.

Here’s what I am asking you to do. Go to the blog through the link above, and donate any small amount you can to this fund. That’s not all. I want you to keep telling people about this, because we need to act quickly. The Internet has its exponential capacity in place, let’s use it for the best possible cause. Saving someone’s life.

_____________________________

Be what you are.

I know that sounds too simplistic, but there’s no way around it. In the great open sea of online communication, we are subject to confusing changes almost hourly. How can we even remember who we are?

Michael Phillips posed a fascinating question recently that has provoked a lot of complex thoughts in my brain. He was pondering if the personality disappears as we sleep, since it seems we reinvent ourselves every morning.

I’ve written about this before, this reinventing thing. I know for myself, as a committed writer, I definitely reinvent myself every day. It almost always takes a writing session to become fully “me” in my day. If I am pulled away from this first-order process, my day is one-dimensional. There are no exceptions to this.

While I finish wrapping my brain and my words around what I want to say about all this, I am tossing the concept over to you, reader. Do you have something to tell us about how you begin your day and, especially, how online activities may be affecting the your re-entry into your daily life as you start your morning? Do you feel any of this adds or detracts from a sense of authenticity?

Tell me, tell me, tell me.

Suzanna

______________________________________________________
Pump it up
Innovation is a way of using your brain. It can be developed, pumped up, just like what happens to your muscles when you spend half an hour lifting weights.

Use it consistently
Innovation grows into an asset when it’s consistently and enthusiastically engaged. It is tied to optimism. Naturally. Why would a pessimist innovate?

We’re catching on
You’re going to be seeing this word a lot now. It’s more than a trend. It’s like a cellular mandate: Innovate or die. Our world is changed in many ways, and many more changes are coming. Not a person on this earth will be able to completely ignore the changes. Stick your head in the sand? Sorry, the sand is moving, too. The context has changed, and that means we all are changed in relationship to something.

Social media is an innovation engine
Change is like one of the pistons on the engine of innovation. And I can see how social media is the engine itself. Since social media is changing the way we communicate (whether you realize it or not), it certainly has the potential to drive change in a number of directions. Did you notice what happened with the Presidential election? Social media.

Innovation is linked to opportunities
The current crisis in all its algae blooms is opening the door for social media to create opportunities like nothing we have ever seen. We do not know exactly what happens, for example, when tens of thousands of people suddenly become unemployed, but one thing seems clear: They start paying a whole lot more attention to the online world. It’s a safe bet that people will need training, and training in the use of technology is a humongous field of gold. Social media makes training accessible, affordable, and as unique as the players who provide it.

Playful and powerful
Social media tools are very powerful; the reasons why are simple:
The tools are free or nearly free, you need no special skills to engage it (just  motivation), and it interacts with you. Not always the way you want it to, but it does respond. Social media hands the world to you on a digital platter. It asks you to come out and play. It does silly dances, swells up and crashes systems (sometimes), and beckons us all into a different kind of world.

Meet an innovator
I learned about Laura Weiss through social media. A knowledgeable innovator, she advocates some of the best practices I know of to nurture innovation from within. Her article in the Chronicle, “Innovate—and plan your own economic stimulus,” drove home several points that I spend a fair amount of time making to my readership. Here are three of them:

1. Get focused NOW
2. Leverage what you know
3. Be compassionate with yourself

Ms. Weiss presents innovation as it can be useful to the corporate mind. That’s critical to our future as a sustainably productive nation (and planet). I like to help spread the butter across a bigger slice of population. I like to see individuals realize their innovative power. And I like to use social media to further that potential.

Got Innovation?
So what’s your innovation I.Q.? Do you enjoy solving problems? Invent anything lately? Have you started that recession-proof online business? What’s in your way today?

The Secret Key
To enter the kingdom of innovation, you have to step out of your zone. Think of it as a dance, follow the little spotlight on the floor, and make it playful and energetic. Be generous with your dance steps.

And here’s the golden thought: Think of innovation as an action. Create your map to prosperity through this myriad of open roads called social media. Begin with a blog, and make it your special piece of online real estate. From there, grow your new relationships, connecting to your community through the dance of new media constantly presenting itself.

Suzanna

Get your blog up to speed (and start stimulating your own economy!)

How is your social media exploration going? Have you noticed the growing conversation about “The Conversation,” and how lots of people are converging to try to make the language of this new media more useful?

One of my associates, Ursula Kauth, and I are talking about social media in much the same way you might talk about a new frontier. It has a lot of those characteristics. We are actively learning more about social media every single day, and as we go along, we keep creating a better map to share with our readers.

Since the map of social media can lead people to success in all kinds of creative ventures and innovative businesses, I think of it as a treasure map.

What is on your treasure map? Have you thought about what you’d like to create as we move through these wildly changing times? Do you have your own domain yet? What is it called?

You are warmly invited to join me in the conversation. Stay up to date on the important changes in online communication by joining the website community, there in the box on the right column. You can also come look at the tab above, “Brain-Friendly,” to learn more about how I teach people to write practical online content. With a well-founded blog, you have a place people like to return to and talk about to others. And that’s the beginning of a business plan.

Put regular blogging at the top of your to-do list for social media. It’s the cornerstone. From there, many adventures will unfold.

See you in the conversation!

Cheers,
Suzanna

_________________________________________________________________________

Over on the Examiner, I’m writing about how losing my connection to the Internet while away from home (far away, in the frozen tundra of northern Minnesota), made me realize how deep into social media I really am.

Something great happens there in the “social” part of social media. I have gathered a little gaggle of voices I really want to hear. Regularly.

Since I’m about to launch a workshop series on social media, I tend to examine my own process rather closely. How did I get to this point? Can I help others through that technological thicket?

I think I’ve got some pieces figured out. It boils down to being able to jump to the next step, skill-wise, and finding the rewards there in terms of relationships, conversations, community-building, and feeling connected to the people and the projects you find most rewarding.

Isn’t that just like meaningful networking and relationship-building in any sense? Many skills to build.

Be well, be warm,

Suzanna

Read more about my experiences with connectivity at the Examiner.

Hear about my visit with my sister in Duluth (and other stuff!) on Twitter.

__________________________________________________

Possibility. Upheaval. Expansion.

Have you ever turned soil on a garden? Sent your shovel deep into rich dark soil, then turned it over, into the light? Did you see the life moving through the dirt? I remember my father’s gardens, the soil almost black with richness, big fat grubworms and long pinkish earthworms wiggling back down into the dirt where they could do their good work.

As the days grow short and the daily news narrows into a dim hallway, I find myself expanding as I dig deeper into the great creative potential of online worlds. Here, we are teaching each other, making discoveries, forming communities, and recreating ourselves. I want to tell you everything I’ve learned. (And yes, we will definitely talk about the “pour forth plateau!”)

I’m most excited these days about the experiences I’m having as I teach people in my community how to write blog content. I’ve seen many new blogs be born, and new awareness of possibility that tends to come with the connectivity of online publishing. The community salon I’m founding now called Bay Area Bloggers Society (BABS) is taking off, and from the feedback I am receiving, this is a time for communities to gather to teach and learn together.

If you want to be sure you’re included, don’t forget to subscribe to my website. I have some excellent material to share with you!

Love and many blessings for this winter season,
Suzanna

Learn more about BABS by clicking the tab at the top of the page

_______________________________________________________________________

I’m in the midst of a mind-state that I describe in my workshops. I call it the “pour forth plateau.”

Consider it a convergence of energies, if you will, which happens when you’ve been working toward some related goals for some period of time. For me, it has to do with many months of developmental writing, blogging, and relationship-building. Throw in some soul-searching and a fair amount of reading of current innovations and world events. Add one tremendous two week journey to France and England, and –  Voila! The pouring forth.

My writing has taken on a new level of distinction, at least in my eye, and as I do my daily journaling I notice a kind of richness I haven’t had in a while.

What it all amounts to is this. I’m very excited to be presenting the world of blogging to my community. I’m teaching workshops, giving talks, and holding group consults to help people understand the world of blogging. Bringing this material to my community is the manifestation of a long-held vision.

I hope to see you in one of my community groups very soon!

Many blessings during the holiday week,

Suzanna