By Nancy Hardaway
At a workshop on social networking for small businesses run by a local chamber of commerce, the presenter was asked how many times a day should a business plan on posting to their social networking sites. The answer was no more than 5 and it evoked a groan in the room.
Who has time for social networking? Who is really using it effectively? We’re wondering where you are interacting in cyberspace? Are you active on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Ning, WordPress?
The statistics on increase in users on each of these channels are impressive, but if everyone is signing on because they feel they have to and not really becoming active or finding value, then the statistics are somewhat meaningless. The real question is what content or tools are valuable, either for your business or practice development or for your professional development. How is it changing how you do business or interact with others?
We got started on advice from the marketing pros. With participants and faculty located around the world we wanted to offer new ways for our community to interact and continue to engage with one another to share best practices, new ideas, and ongoing learning. Just as we recommend experimentation as a way to learn new behaviors, we tried experimenting with blogging, tweeting, and linking ourselves.
As in face to face communication, presence is key. Making good contact requires energy and involvement. We quickly discovered the commitment it takes on top of everything else we do. It’s easy to lose track without a strategy and a focused prioritization. We see and hear that others are finding the same challenges in managing their time and social networking engagement.
Now we are refocusing. We’re looking at ways to engage our participants that offer connection and value. We’re looking for your ideas of what information you’d like more of and how you want to see it. We welcome your ideas.
One great cyberspace tool is YouTube. I would love to view snippets of sessions that are relevant to current business troubles. It seems that GISC could post a brief library (YouTube channel) of issue specific videos that might help folks get know the programs, create interest in attending, and might also attract other financial supporters.
I am studying Gestalt and also working as a consultant within the area of collaboration in virtual teams. So this is an interesting topic for me.
As more organisations become geographically distributed and even global, the need for collaborating or co-creating without meeting face to face is steadily increasing. Going virtual also means new challenges that has to be adressed compared to face-to-face work. To be able to bring people together – anyone with anyone, at anytime, from anywhere – also holds great potential for personal and organisational development and growth. I personally believe that this development will bring more peace, tolerance and insight into the world.
So, to the point – for one example, I am really interested in getting in contact with persons within the Gestalt community who would like to share there experiences around Gestalt applied on people meeting and collaborating virtually. And I think it would be great if I could adress this interest to a social network or/and a community of Gestalt practitionars globally. Who knows – we might find each other, start collaborating and make great things happen within this area. So if there is such network already I would be very glad and would like to know how to join? If no, it would be great to create one.
For me social networks shouldn´t necessarily be used to add new things to do on top of important things that we already are doing (there is no time for that), but rather to do the same things as today but a little bit different than today.
Cheers!
/Lennart