cre8d design

Nels Wadycki has written an excellent little post with links I’ve been absorbing — ironically I found it through a trackback to my post on John Mayer quitting Twitter for blogging.

Nels writes that some are quitting twitter for blogging due to its longevity: research shows tweets really have a lifespan of just an hour, whereas blog posts may have comments and discussions on them for days, weeks, months or even longer. They’re certainly more searchable than old tweets and old Facebook status updates.

Paul Carr writes of another reason to continue to blog rather than tweet: depth.

“Throughout my earlier archives, I was able to find lengthy, sometimes surprisingly personal, posts – recounting the highs and lows of starting companies, making and losing friends, leaving London, beginning to travel around America and Europe… and countless other published episodes that backed up, and enhanced the contents of my private notebooks. But then, as I clicked forward through the archives to more recent years, something odd happened. At a certain point, the number of posts in each monthly archive dropped off a cliff, particularly where details of my personal life were concerned.

The reason, of course, was that I’d started to use Twitter for that kind of personal stuff. Unperturbed, I moved my research attentions away from my blog archives and over to my Twitter archives – and that’s when I started to panic: for all the dozens of updates I wrote each month, there was absolutely no substance to any of them.

140 characters simply doesn’t give enough depth or breadth to commit events, memories or feelings to the permanent record.

…blogs may have been twee or self-absorbed or clumsily written or emo or just plain boring – isn’t that the joy of a diary? – but they at least required the writer to take the time to process the events of their life, and the attendant emotions they generated – before putting finger to keyboard. The result, in many cases, was a detailed archive of events and memories that they can look back on now and say “that was how I was then”.

And then along came micro-blogging – and, with a finite amount of time and effort available, the blog generation turned into the Twitter (or Facebook) generation. A million blogs withered and died as their authors stopped taking the time to process their thoughts and switched instead to simply copying and pasting them into the world, 140 meaningless characters at a time. The result: a whole lot of sound and mundanity, signifying nothing.

To argue for a mass switch back from Tweeting to [blogging] in the interests of the permanent record is as ridiculous as campaigning for everyone to abandon instant messaging and return to letter-writing. The fact is people are busy (or lazy, depending on your view of humanity) and for the vast majority, immediacy will always trump posterity.

…by constantly micro-broadcasting everything, we’ve ended up macro-remembering almost nothing.”

Leo Laporte also wrote to his return to focus on blogging – on ownership and engagement:

“I feel like I’ve woken up to a bad social media dream in terms of the content I’ve put in others’ hands. It’s been lost, and apparently no one was even paying attention to it in the first place.

I should have been posting it here [on my blog] all along. Had I been doing so I’d have something to show for it. A record of my life for the last few years at the very least. But I ignored my blog and ran off with the sexy, shiny microblogs. Well no more. I’m sorry for having neglected you Leoville.”

It wasn’t easy for me to put together my lifestream – especially pulling out old Facebook status updates and while I love Twitter and Facebook, I’m getting enjoyment out of blogging more regularly again. There was something immensely satisfying writing about the birth of my second son nine days ago on my personal site. It was a different feeling to the immediacy of tweeting his birth announcement and getting back a flood of comments and tweets on Twitter and Facebook:

“Yeah!!!! Just gave birth an hour ago to a gorgeous baby boy Austin no drugs or complications or stitches feeling on top of the world”

I’m not going to close down my Twitter or Facebook accounts in the near future, but I am thinking long term about where my written memories are stored. Are you?

We recently watched the documentary “We live in Public“. It’s disturbing, prophetic, confronting and thought-provoking. While it’s an extreme version of the lives almost all of us live, the elements many of us play with each day inch closer to “living in public”.

The ubiquitousness of social networking, recording devices and ease of worldwide distribution in merely a few years has changed what each generation understands as being public versus private.

I’m all for engaging with social media and I love using Facebook and Twitter, reading blogs, video conferencing and using my iphone. But at the same time, I found myself reflecting on some of the comments made in the documentary – made years before the advent of these things:

• How people find their self-worth based in the number of comments, or reads, or likes or numbers of “friends”.
• How people are crying out to be heard and to get their 15 minutes of fame every day.
• How we think we’re getting community online but we often feel more alone.
• How we trade privacy for connections with people.
• How we forget how public things are when we’re immersed in a culture with no privacy.

When I found myself in the emergency room of hospital ten days ago, I sent txt messages to close friends and family – but didn’t tweet about it. I wanted to know that the people I love deeply knew first. Years ago, news would take quite a while to circulate in a circle of friends and acquaintances but now it can be done in an instant – globally.

I’ve seen numerous times people forget this on Facebook or Twitter and stress about making sure someone knew before they were told by someone else – rather than directly. From the outside, it may seem silly that someone should “forget” that anyone can read it, but once immersed in social media it is hard to remember what private means.

Another result of watching the documentary: I recently did a cull of people on Facebook – names I didn’t recognise, or people I had never exchanged communication with on there. There were surprisingly lots of them and it actually felt good to do a spring-clean.

I also was reflecting on my sister’s comments about how she always left a comment if she looked through a set of someone’s photos on Facebook – she felt a bit stalkerish without doing so. That’s quite a nice thing to do and it really doesn’t take time – let someone know you’ve noticed, you’re interested, you’re there. We read so many blog posts and then skip on to the next interesting thing without stopping to engage – because it’s not required. We’ve swap ease of access for probably less engagement. Yes we don’t have to sit through boring slideshows of other people’s trips and can pick and choose what we want to see, but we’ve lost all those real conversations, the context around the photos – the laughing together, the eating, the swapping of stories. They can be gained online, but it’s more work than we’re used to.

PS, I’m fine!

As a follow up to my previous post on why it’s OK not to have a popular blog (i.e. one with lots of traffic): I found a great post today, thanks to Seth Godin who says:

“So what if your company’s blog only reaches a few dozen people a day. If they’re the right people, the payoff is obvious”

Bill Sweetman describes how he chose a whale-watching company in the Bay of Fundy area, Canada (which, by the way, is a gorgeous place to visit).

Here’s the process he went through to make his decision:

1. Gathered tourist brochures to get a short list of companies and reduce this to those with websites.
2. Visited the company websites for further information.
   1. Companies without websites were crossed off the list.
   2. Companies without additional information on their websites lost his interest.
   3. One company had a sightings and updates blog which has regularly updated photos and stories of recent whale sightings.

I was immediately captivated by the near-immediacy of this information and the fact it chronicled the spontaneous nature of whale watching. The blog also demonstrated to me that Quoddy Link Marine really cared about whales and the environment, not just selling whale tour tickets. Thanks to their blog, I also felt one degree closer to the people behind this tour company than with those from any of their competitors.

Needless to say, I chose to go whale watching with Quoddy Link Marine, not because they had a blog, but because of what the blog revealed to me about the company and its staff, something a typical corporate Website is not usually very good at. And in case you’re wondering, the company and the whale watching tour lived up to my expectations.

The number of times I’ve had a similar experience – grabbed some brochures then jumped on the web to do more research – but didn’t discover a blog (business blogs are rare here in New Zealand) is far too many to list.

We can get so caught up in the numbers game but forget that a useful, helpful informative and insightful blog can have a far great impact than the numbers would ever imply.

I wish the stores I like buying clothing from ran a blog with “what’s new this week”, fashion tips and trends, in-store specials and information about upcoming events. I wish the companies I want to use the services of had a blog with photos of their latest work and insight into who works there and I’m not just talking about the big corporates – small businesses would be probably even more interesting to me.

On a blogging note, I was disappointed and frustrated this week when a regular tech radio show I often tune into here in New Zealand pointed out all the problems with blogs (anyone can do it, so the quality isn’t high; people writing slanderous comments about teachers and others which could get them into legal hot water; more than half of all blogs are written anonymously so there’s no credibility…) and ended up with the host having a good laugh about blogs just being a silly place for gossip.

The tech, gossip and political blogs may be getting a lot of attention right now but there’s countless other blogs out there like the whale watching blog.

I’ve been reflecting a little on my time in South America since getting back a couple of days ago. Taking time to experience other cultures, languages and perspectives on life in such an invaluable experience and I’d love to go back there one day – Peru was by far my most favourite country we travelled through and Rio de Janeiro the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to.

I have CDs full of photos which I’ll need to sort through and organise and then share with everyone but in the meantime, here’s some thoughts on my time in South America and how it (loosely) relates to blogging now that I’m back:

I forget how fortunate I am. When I saw people who are content and happy with so much less than the norm here, who are living such simple, yet hardworking lives, I’m reminded of how fortunate I am to be able to drink water from the tap, to have power, to have a tv, to have a computer, to be able to travel and so on. It’s so easy to get caught up in the rat race – and caught up in wanting more and more things.

Reading the blogs I do, I’m reminded of how often people are discussing upgrading their computer or buying the latest gadget. It’s easy to start wanting new things too. It’s easy to forget to be content with what I have already. It’s a personal challenge to see people with so much less being content, and not complaining about what they don’t have. The online and blogging world – while growing rapidly, is leaving others behind. I’m reminded to watch out for people who are forging new areas, who are just getting going with writing a blog. I helped someone today get a blog up to help kids they’re working with in a war-torn third world country.

I’m challenged by the work ethic of others. Everywhere we went someone was trying to sell me something or entertain me to make a quick buck. Whether it be toilet paper at the traffic lights, endless beads, tarot cards on the underground, a BBQ lighter while crossing the road, or a pen on the train – someone was making the most of the opportunities and people that came across their paths. People in New Zealand tend to hold back, to not bother people, to wait until someone approaches for help or to buy something – and that has its advantages and disadvantages. To see people desperate to make money and to be innovative and so hardworking for little rewards was challenging.

I’m inspired by their servant attitudes. In New Zealand, we don’t tip. I’ve travelled a lot before and found it difficult and strange to tip – I wondered if I was just a stingy person or if it just wasn’t part of my culture. While in South America, I found that I wanted to tip.

When we temporarily lost our bags (thanks to Varig…) a taxi driver took us back out to the airport, and came in and acted as our translator (even though his english was very very poor). He went out of his way to serve. People went the extra mile with their service and never were frustrated at our lack of Spanish/Portugese and loved our little attempts at speaking their language. In New Zealand, we pay for everything up front – and we found it awkward switching to paying for everything afterwards. They were embarrassed when we tried to pay before hang gliding or going on a tour. It was such a reminder of how important service is – how much of a difference it can make, no matter what you’re paying for.

The world is beautiful. People are creative. South America is a gorgeous place, full of contrasts in landscape and weather from the cold high Andes to the low jungle sweltering heat separated by only a half hour plane trip.

Seeing ancient Incan ruins and artifacts, traditional highly intricate woven rugs, bright clothing, hearing loud vibrant music and much more gave me new inspiration for coming back and creating blogs for others. It’s too easy for me to get caught up in online ideas for inspiration. So many blogs are clones of one another. There’s so much colour and life bursting out in other cultures and even around us where we live. Blog design has so much room to grow. Blogs could be so much more of a personal reflection of a person’s character and life than they are now. It’s easy to get side-tracked with the fancy new features and plugins coming out and not focus on creating something unique and beautiful.

I went to a design fair of emerging artists in Buenos Aires and was so inspired by the ideas they were coming up with that I hope to get in touch with one designer now that I’m back home. It’s great to see how creative people are all over the world.