It seems like yesterday when my daughter first starting talking about “friending” people. Huh, my feeble mind wondered? Just another one of those passing kid things, I thought and brushed it out of my consciousness.
Today it is not possible to brush those terms from consciousness. In fact, if you’re working in many professions today, it’s plastered all over the place and summarized in the term “networking.”
Now mind you, networking is no longer your mother or father’s brand of networking. It is no longer going to a few meetings a month, talking to some colleagues on the phone, taking on an office or two in an organization or two, and handling some work off line, on your own time, in a relaxed and focused fashion.
Nope, not like that anymore at all. Today it is a whirling dervish of Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Delicious, WordPress, Blogger, Twitter, text messaging, email, and myriad other digitally-based networking and communication options. Not the least of it is is that today’s super-networkers are doing five or six things at one time. They are involved with a list of groups too long to fit on a single screen. They are constantly in your email, Twitter, etc., their smiling faces making you wonder when they get any “real” work done.
I know of one woman whose face is ALWAYS in mine, digitally of course, whose always leading some seminar or other, who is a member of countless groups and organizations, and an office in just about as many. Oh, and did I mention that she has her own business and is an ordained minister? Phew. She makes me tired. She makes me tired in several ways. First is simply the act of reading and thinking about all she does. Second is that her constant presence is just plain tiresome. Can there be such a thing as overdoing your brand in a digital milieu?
Okay, so what does all this have to do with us 50 plusers? I’ll tell you what. For the last few years, and the last one in particular, I got myself into a complete twirl thinking that I, too, had to keep up with this frenetic, manic pace of networking and communication, and that if I didn’t, I’d be missing the “spaceship” (as opposed to “boat” in ancient terms. I was a wreck. Everyday I’d spend the entire morning schlepping through the daily feeds on all my groups, my throat constricting as I’d guiltily skip link after link, sure that I would forever lose the golden ring.
I kept wondering what I was doing wrong. Why no one was responding to my Tweets? How do I establish worthwhile contacts? How do I even remember who I was contacting with? YIKES!!
Light bulb. Then I had a few conversations with and read a few articles from others of us in the north fifty and guess what I discovered? I discovered that it’s okay not to embrace and master all this digital stuff, and that if we use it, we can use it our own way! The pressure to be in a constant frenzy is self-imposed. If the younger set care to engage in multiple things at once, more power to them. If I try to engage in multiple things at once, my power slowly seeps through my fingers and out into the deep, dark recesses of cyber space.
My son and I were talking about this issue last night, and I proffered that we wise ones are perhaps the last of generations that deal in depth. What I mean is, we have been trained to take an issue, think about it, study it, and delve into it in a deep and thorough way. I think our approach tends to offer results that are more complete, and dare I say, of a higher quality? I mean, if you’re focusing on just one thing instead of multitasking, there has to be a difference in results!
As for the younger set (my 25 year old son does not consider himself a member of this group), the approach is more of a skimming off the top, never delving too deep, and striving to get “it” (whatever that might be) done as quickly as possible.
To conclude: there is obviously a major difference in styles here, and I, for one, have concluded that to try and adopt the multi-tasking, fast-paced style of the digital networking set is simply not going to work for me. In fact, it is a formula for disaster. So stuff it, I say.
Thus, my Twitter account lies dormant unless I want to see what people are saying about a particular issue. If I add anything, it is something about which I am moved at the moment. For example, I was researching a subject yesterday and performed the appropriate post to get all those related posts. There was one from News 12 Long Island with a link to their site that required you to be a paying cable member in order to view the link. Oye vey!! And yes, I commented about that.
I do believe Linkedin is a fabulous resource for working folks, but I need to modify my group affiliation in order to make it work better for me. Currently I am a member of several similar groups with lots of crossover. In addition, these groups have daily feeds that are overwhelming. Of course, perfectionist that I am, I feel compelled to read through them, and feel guilty if I don’t. My issue, to be sure, but there is a solution: quit the groups!
Facebook is also great — strictly a personal resource, and strictly a site over which I have control relative to my profile. The only drawback to it is my 23 year old daughter tends to express her “embarrassment” at just about every post I add. Oy vey yet again!
Conclusion # 2: Relax. (I’m really talking to myself here, can you tell?). Don’t let the technology and mantra of networking drive you. You drive the technology. And for God’s sake, enjoy the scenery along the way.
P.S. Look what I just found!! Cheers.
[...] cool thing is, it seems like other people are saying the same thing. Comments (0) Filed under: Writing by Mary [...]