Posted on April 23, 2017 by Fresh

Content Creation, Social Media, and the whole 9…

Greetings all…

I hope your Sunday afternoon (or whenever you’re reading this) is going well. It’s been some time since I last posted a blog, but one reason for today’s entry is a recent discussion I had with DK Wyatt, a long time friend, podcaster, and social media connection. We were talking about the age old topic of being a consumer vs a content provider on social media. There are tons upon tons or topical matter on this, so I won’t delve deep into it at all, put provide my own perspective. For me, I’ve been a “content provider” since I was 15, the year I started playing in guitar and playing in bands. For those who know my age, this was LONGGGG before social media was born (LOL). That said, the advent of social media (pick your site) has made ANY user a content provider, should he/she want to be. With that, I’ve used social media as a content provider in the area of music production and blogging equally. The thing Dk and I were touching on is the amount of consumption vs the amount of content creation. For us, we’ve agreed (and it can make sense depending on the path you’re own) that consumption, while easier, takes up MUCH time. The question to ask is, how does that consumption benefit you?

I’m an early adopter of Twitter. I’ve had my ID since November 2006, and even though it has become a behemoth in the world of social media, it is still a go to spot when I want to consume information that makes me smarter and helps me achieve things I’m trying to achieve. I’m more of a consumer than a content creator on Twitter now only because the information resources that it provides have become so vast. In addition, creating content on social media is often times associated with branding, another huge topic I won’t touch here. Do I brand when creating social media content? Yes, but I am nowhere near the expert many are or claim to be, but I will say it has benefitted me – doing so created one of the biggest opportunities I’ve had – music scoring for a web series (hence the graphic above).

So, the QOTD, should you choose to answer it – Are you more of a provider or consumer of social media content? Feel free to leave a comment here, on my Facebook page if you are a member or my Twitter feed (this post will be linked to both sites).

Be well…
Fresh!

Posted on January 1, 2017 by Fresh

HNY 2017 – Creativity – a way forward

Greetings readers and Happy 2017 to you. I hope the new year finds (and will continue to) you well. It was an unseasonable 55 degF today and sunny – a quiet day at that, one I couldn’t ask more of.

Interestingly enough, as 2016 was coming to a close, I had a discussion with two FB friends. Our talk essentially centered around the use of FB and other social media venues with respect to things the three of us were doing more of before social media REALLY became big (Note: we are still doing these things in the midst of social media, but not as much as we once did). The three areas I’m speaking of are: photography (digital), music (production and live), and blogging. Add to that a fourth friend who gave opinion on reading FB content which is believe to be “foolishnes” (for the most part). I don’t necessarily agree TOTALLY with that sentiment, HOWEVER, I can truly understand why that opinion was given (which, incidentally, does not solely align itself with FB alone). Of course, this discussion appears to be common as it relates to the new year, resolutions (which I don’t due), blah, blah, blah.

I’ve been blogging since 2007. The original concept for vibesnscribes was two fold – Vibes: (blogging about music, specifically about reviews of the artists and genres I enjoy) and Scribes: general topics that interest me. The latter always took place but the former quickly became more work than I wanted because it took time to succinctly post reviews of what I was listening to in a way that I found complete and satisfactory. Eventually I became interested in podcasting and produced The Sunday Soundtrack. The podcast then aligned itself with the “Vibes” portion of the concept

In any event, the conversation ended up basically summarizing the fact that we will return to doing these (enjoyable) things while diminishing the distractions of these big social media juggernauts like FB and IG. One of us said he is about to leave FB for good, because it is a massive timesuck abd detrimental to the creative process. Personally, I strongly believe that, in the end, spending whatever time one spends on things (social media, in this case) is a matter of choice. Social media, in and of itself, was not designed to become a major distraction, it’s just inherent to be by nature (human nature, that is). When trying to achieve anything, one statement stands true for sure: Starve your distractions – feed your focus. Do what’s necessary to reach the goal. It’s definitely one good recipe for a successful way forward. Your thoughts?

Be well,
Fresh!

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Fresh

FB – The Sabbatical

Greetings All…

Hope this post finds you well. It has been an interesting past two weeks. A few things sort of came to an apex and caused me to make a decision one evening that reflects the graphic you see above.

Lessee, it all started with some podcast commentary by a good friend Ray Garraud, who hosts “The Garraud Files Podcast”. In Episode 14, he extemporaneously spoke on his thoughts regarding social media fatigue. He made some great points which reminded me of a phone conversation a few months on how much social media is consumed by people today. It definitely got me to think, more than usual, about my own rate of daily consumption. It was, then, a week ago that I was listening to an episode of Kojo Nnamdi’s Tech Tuesday Show on WAMU.org. A good part of the 07 May episode of The Computer Guys (and Gal) talked about using and/or unplugging from FB and Twitter.

[THIS JUST IN: I just noticed yesterday’s (14 May) episode entitled “Unplugged: Overcoming Our Digital Obsession” !! Maybe I should listen to that before finishing this post! How ironic, LOL]

In any event, I thought of the time spent on FB (particularly) and what is was gaining me. My FB habits have never really been like most users. I rarely page hop, keep a very low friends list count compared to many, and generally share tech posts and participate in music fan pages. What I did notice that for me, it began to become a time sink – checking posts during the day, checking messages and posts at night and (unfortunately) being exposed to others drama (very childish). As mentioned, things I wanted to accomplish (and complained I didn’t have the time for) were not moving forward as a result.

By Tuesday night, I left FB and interestingly enough, haven’t missed it at all. I’ve learned (thus far) that I wasn’t attached to it as I thought. Oddly enough, I dont think I’ll ever leave Twitter though (#earlyadopter), and ADN is my new spot, a fresh and clean community similar to Twitter, but about engagement (tech and otherwise), without the branding and ads! (free to join, by invite only (thanks again, Ray) :-). Will I come back to FB? Maybe. It is certainly a good place to connect, but for now, I’d like to reap whatever benefits I receive from this sabbatical.

Take care….
F!

Posted on May 31, 2010 by Fresh

A DDO Realized (An experiment in virtual abstinence)

Hello Readers…

I hope all is well with you. and that your Memorial Day will be or was spent, to some extent, doing what the holiday was created for – in memory of the men and women in our armed forces. Those that are currently serving and have served for us in all capacities.

Well, it came to fruition this weekend, an experiment I’d been wanting to conduct for about a month now. Yes, the DDO (dedicated day offline) happened yesterday. There are a few of you that I had mentioned this concept to in the last month. I had two particular conversations with Deb Lee, @dallisonlee, professional organizer, on this topic (some of you may know I’ve been a contributing author to her Organize To Revitalize blog on the subject of my adventures in time management and the technology that can aid it). I initially called it a “Digital Day Off”, but thought the term was too broad, broad enough that it would have to included most, if not all, things digital (video games (though I’m not a gamer)), the use of mobile phones, HDTV, etc). My reason for conducting this exercise of “virtual abstinence” was to assess the amount of time I do spend online and how much of it, spent doing certain activities (largely related to social networking), is actually robbing me of time better spent reaching goals. Interestingly enough, the day I had the conversation with Deb, this article appeared in The Post.

My first foray into social networking came back in 2000 via membership to Blackplanet. I actually joined by way of helping a coworker design her site page. I was then that I began to learn the basics of website design (within the HTML code constraints for what Blackplanet would allow). After getting a taste of social networking there, it was basically onto Myspace and Yahoo 360, Vox, blogging from my own website, various IM clients (AIM, Yahoo IM, MSN Messenger), then Twitter, and finally FB (the latter I’ve since left about two weekends ago). Along with the social networking, I always used the net for two basic things – work, and as a learning tool for basically five areas of interest – music production, technology, photography, financial literacy, and web design. Let’s now add the mobile web, and there you have it, a communications medium, now in the palm of your hand, deeply woven into the course of our everyday lives. A communications medium, whose benefits (as well as its negative aspects) range far and wide Looking over the last 10 years of being a regular passenger on the information highway, but growing up through college my first two years of college WITHOUT the internet (fancy that, huh?), I began to remember what life was like without it, and how I spent my time without it. While I can only speak for myself, my assessment was that more time was wasted on the info highway than not. This assessment caused me to purposely conduct the experiment during a normal day – not a day or timeframe where I would be away from the net for whatever reasons (vacation, family visits, etc), but during a time where it was always a mouse click (or similar) away. It created a great challenge in overcoming the temptation to connect. As inferred above, it was done as a matter of habit assessment more than anything else, but the correlation to time management is there. In looking back on my regular online activities, I saw that I could have altered them to achieve what always seems more impossible than not (with my busy schedule) – knocking tasks off my to-do list. Was a DDO really necessary to make this assessment of time management? No, I could have just decided to allot only a certain amount of time online of every aspect of my online daily routines (which probably could have been easier).

The outcome of the experiment allowed me to use a good part of my regular online time time to improve my financial budgeting/investment literacy and revamp a financial improvement SPD (systematic plan of development) for savings, investing, debt reduction and retirement . I also got a great nap in during the early hours of the afternoon ;-). In retrospect, it made assess the extent of my habitual behavior and constant temptation to be “connected”. I won’t say that all possess it to an extent (my wife is a good example of one who spends very little time on the internet – but get rid of the TVs in the house and …never mind…you see the point I am generally illustrating – 🙂 ).

Now that I’ve taken my first DDO, purposely, I feel it’ll be something that I’ll regularly do, maybe more than just once a week. Curbing time daily spent online is, of course, something to throw into the mix as well, but it wasn’t until today that I really see how a forced day off (for me) is beneficial. The time is currently 11:44 EST, and this DDO will officially be over in less than 16 mins, but I’ve learned some valuable things on a personal level. That’s always a good thing. Back to the SPD. Forget the government, I want to create a stimulus package for my own economic situation.

peace.
F!

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Fresh

Ten Tips To Better Tweeting

Greetings readers.

Hope this post finds you in good spirits. I thought I’d take a moment to do a post about my favorite social media/networking site of all time, Twitter. November 21, 2010 will mark my fifth anniversary of tweeting, so I can safely say I am an early adopter and have seen the evolution of this micro-blogging site. I’m pretty much still subscribe to the original reasoning behind the creation of Twitter, though I’ve read more than enough times that some feel tweeting about the oatmeal you just ate is inane and boring. I beg to differ, in that it gives insight to one’s everyday activities (how’s that for “reality”?).

In any event, Twitter 2.0 (if you will) has evolved to be a major force in content and social branding. I simply love it for the info-push that I receive in various areas of technology, music production, and yes, those everyday so-called “boring” aspects of daily activities some tweet about. That being said are *my* ten tips for better tweeting.

1. Acknowledge new followers with a tweet of thanks.

2. Pay attention to the interests of your followers. If you come across information that they may be of interest to a follower, tweet it directly to that follower (or followers).

3. Follow Friday: If you’re going to suggest to your users why they should follow someone, give a reason why. A large list of IDs followed by #FF = #FAIL..

4. Retweeting someone else’s large list of #FF = #DOUBLE FAIL. Personally to see entire list of folks that I have no idea who they are is annoying. Call it a pet peeve, but hey….

5. Be courteous. Despite the origins of Twitter. It’s a social network.

6. Airing dirty laundry, twitter rage complete with expletives = #FAIL. (Yeah, yeah I know, unfollow the person – I do when it gets excessive).

7. Retweet info that you think would be beneficial to most, if not all, of your followers. If it’s just a few, try using list for that. I doubt all my followers would be interested in a retweet of how long a Shuttle EVA event lasted on an ISS mission.

8. Twitter is not a chat client (contrary to popular belief) . Though it can be done, I’ve found it difficult to carry on an ongoing conversation. The mechanism of Twitter is too dynamic (update-wise) to meaningfully keep track of one. Yahoo IM, Google Talk, AIM, MSN Messenger, BBM…you get the picture.

9. Relentless arguing on Twitter = #FAIL. You unnecessarily subject your entire list of followers to something they could possibly care less about. Doing it in real life is ridiculous enough.

10. When using URL shortners (bit.ly, etc), ensure that they point to the intended page before tweeting. Sometimes they dont always work properly.

That’s it. Have a great weekend. Oh, and if you like….retweet this (see 7). (wink)

peace,
F!

Posted on July 24, 2009 by Fresh

Location Awareness – GPS can be cool but…..

Technology…the continuing boon of mankind, especially in the advent of wired AND wireless communication. I use four primary wireless communication devices: A Mac G5 Dual processor desktop and/or Mac G4 desktop, a laptop (Toshiba Satellite and Powerbook G4) with built-in Wi-Fi connectivity, my Blackberry Curve smartphone, and an iPod Touch 2G. The creation of the Air Force’s Global Positioning System, or GPS has allowed anyone on the earth to determine exactly where they are on the earth. Since then, many vendors have manufactured GPS-enabled devices to harness this technology. Fast forward to today with the many uses of wireless devices and software applications developed for and embedded into cellphones, pdas, etc and you have the capability to now share with the world a very accurate representation of where you are in a very small envelope of time. Many of you reading this use this “apps” on a regular basis: Brightkite, Ubertwitter, Loopt, and tons of others allow not just people on your social networks, but the entire world, know where you are, depending on how you have your communication prefereneces configured for the location awareness app(s) you use. Many, if not all, of these apps allow you to send maps of where you are located based upon associated latitude and longitude coordinates given by the GPS system. You can send photos with your camera enabled device also associating your location. Frankly, I think it’s a fascinating aspect of communications technology that definitely bares its pros.

Last year I read a VERY good article in Wired Magazine about an iPhone user who decided to conduct a little experiment using the location awareness capability of his iPhone. The experiment was very interesting and for anyone interested in the social aspect of location awareness, I suggest it as recommended reading…the article is here.

As freely as it is used, I believe there should also be some thought in how freely one does use it. I’ve heard of many occasions where people tweeted, or otherwise posted there location over some timeframe which yield unfortunate results. One example was a business man who tweeted he was going on a business trip for a week and the location for the trip, only to return home and find his house…..robbed. Coincidence, maybe…but making your location easily aware to the public, along with the ancillary information u provided with it, should at least garner some thought as to what the consequences could be.

On a related note, I recently read a blog post by someone who I consider a super tech girl. (lol) and fellow Twitter user about how the EXIF data that digital cameras transmit (via wirelessly or not) can include the location and time of where that picture was taken (called “geotagging”) depending on if the hosting site of the pic strips out that data. One negative aspect of this is if the pic contained the outside of your house, or even the inside of it, complete with your VERY expensive belongings….you know where I am going with this. I also came across a great article on Lifehacker about how location awareness can change your life.

I love technology and embrace it, but the best uses of technology occur with the greatest exercise of common sense! Just some food for thought..stay hungry.

Thanks for the read….

peace,
F!