Postcards From Myself

I got this from HubSpot and simply love it. Seem that this really is the way it is on Twitter sometimes. Oh, and by the way, if you aren’t already following me on twitter, please do!

You have one life. Whether you believe in rebirth, reincarnation, or just darkness after death, you still have just one life to lead. You do not get a life for work, a life for family, and a separate one for everything else. This has always been true, but increasingly it is becoming more evident, and people are starting to wake up to the fact that it is this oneness that can help bring happiness or despair.

There is a saying that you can only be content when what you say, what you do, and what you believe are all the same. Mind, body, and spirit in agreement. When you try to say one thing but do another, you introduce stress and discontentment into your life. For proof, just look at Elliot Spitzer, Ted Haggard or John Edwards. Not only did these men all have great public trials to face when the news of their actions came out, even greater was the inner turmoil they faced.

Other examples can be seen in companies that talk about fiscal responsibility but still cling to wasteful ways of private jets and corporate perks. Or groups that preach green behavior but still waste paper, food, or gasoline. Or the individual who goes to church and prays for the poor on Sunday and then walks silently past the Salvation Army bucket on Monday. And how many people are there who say we should help the immigrants but still won’t hire them or who recoil from them in social situations.

All of these actions create turmoil within us and cause us to be less than content. And in no greater place is this evident than the Internet. As social media becomes more and more pervasive, our different roles in life become increasingly visible without borders. When I go to hire a new employee and Google her name, I do not separate that this Facebook profile is personal while this LinkedIn profile is professional. Which one should I use to evaluate this future employee? I am going to use both. And when I look up a new acquaintance on MySpace and see what he is talking about there and then follow him on Twitter and see what he is saying or doing, I do not separate these things into different areas of my mind. No, it all goes in there together.

I find it interesting that some prospective employees still find it hard to believe I would use Google or other methods to look them up on the web before doing an interview. Wouldn’t you investigate a prospective employer before going to an interview? If no, you should. Shouldn’t you know if the company you are looking at has any good or bad press? What about civic awards or criminal prosecutions? Or maybe since those things happened in a different area of the company then they don’t apply to you. Nope, didn’t think so.

See what I am saying? The Internet makes what few walls there are between parts of are lives increasingly transparent. I have always prided myself, for better or worse, on being one person. The Michael you see at works is the same one you will see at the soccer games and the same one you will see at home or church. There is nothing on my work related sites that my friends shouldn’t see and nothing on my personal sites that I wouldn’t want an employer or colleague to know. And I will tell you what, living that way makes life a lot less stressful.

Technorati Tags: facebook, google, happiness, myspace, twitter

As more people follow your blog, twitter stream, Facebook page, or forum posts do you change the message or the way you talk? Understandably we all have to use different voices depending on the audience. We don’t, or at least shouldn’t, address our grandparents in the same way that we talk to our young friends. And we certainly shouldn’t be talking to the people at work in the same way that we talk to our children – trust me, I have tried it and it isn’t pretty.

The question remains though, do you significantly change your message? If all of a sudden I become aware that some relatively important people are now reading my twits on Twitter, is it appropriate or even wise to change the way I use that medium or what I am saying on it?

On one hand, they must have followed me for a reason. So, if I change to make myself more serious or less controversial then perhaps I am changing away from what they were looking for. On the other hand, maybe they didn’t know what they were getting themselves in to. Maybe I need to clean up my act so that I am more “acceptable” to these people and can hopefully keep them around as followers so that I can get my message out. But then, is it my message if I have changed for them?

Again, you are going to dress up for a job interview, you are going to be quiet in a library, and you are not going to curse around a minister. But, you went into those situations knowing that you would moderate your behavior. If someone enters your environment, of their own will and knowing what lies there, do you change to suit them, or to what you think suits them?

What are your thoughts? I really need to hear you on this one. And thanks for following along!

Twitter and services like it, including FriendFeed and others, are becoming more and more popular. Many combine the ease of use of instant messaging with the more widespread broadcasting ability of a blog. What’s more, they are much more timely and succinct. When you have only 140 characters to get your message across, as with Twitter, not only do you cut out the extraneous, but you are also likely to post more often than when you have to come up with 500 to a thousand words for a blog entry.

But I am beginning to think that therein lies the danger – at least it does for me. When I can say what I am thinking and let off that mental steam quickly and easily, it takes the burn away for me to do blog entries. Anyone who looks at the history of my entries on this blog can see that the frequency has gone down since I began using Twitter. Think of it as text messaging versus the telephone call. If I can send a text message to my wife telling her I will be home late, there is much less pressure on me to actually pick up the phone and make a call. And sure, she gets that bit of information that I needed her to know, but what we aren’t doing is really conversing. We don’t hear the tone in each others voices and we don’t drift in to other topics and find out more information. Some might say that is a good thing, but it can take its toll.

And that, I fear, is what is happening with this and some other blogs. The fast and easy is replacing the longer and more thought out. Don’t get me wrong, I think that services like Twitter and instant messaging have their place, especially in today’s fast paced attention deficit world – and I intend to keep using them. But, I also believe that we need to make sure we don’t give short shrift to the fuller and deeper message. We need to take the time to have the full conversation – with all the give and take and feedback that entails.

What do you think? Do you Twitter? Has it changed the way your other communications go?

I don’t know how many of you use Twitter, but I am doing so more and more these days. It takes a while to get the hang of, and it can be as distracting or more so than instant messaging. (No, I don’t use IM very much at all – I love email.) But once you start to use it, you really start to depend on it.

Twitter is great for just seeing where friends and colleagues are and what they are up to. It is also good for posting that same information about yourself so that others can just check in on what is going with you. Follow me on Twitter if you want to see how often I get confounded by people’s computer problems, where I am going for lunch, or when I am working on a new post for this blog. For a good intro to Twitter and its uses, check out The Big Juicy Twitter Guide by Caroline Middleton.

I have also added a little Twitter section in the sidebar of this blog that will display the last five updates I have made to Twitter. So while I may not post an article every day, you can always get a taste for what is going on by looking over there to the right. Feel free to comment on those actions too!

If you are using Twitter, or you have any questions about it, please let me know. Also, please leave your Twitter ID in the comments so that I can follow you and stay in touch. Oh! And tell me what Twitter tool you are using. Are you just using Twitter’s webpage? I am doing that some, but using twhirl more and more as a stand alone Twitter client.