A mini high-school reunion thanks to Facebook

My graduating class only had 35 kids…very few indeed. One of my best pals back then was a dynamic young woman named Johna. For 20 years, she and I lost touch. Then recently, through the use of linkedin and facebook, we reconnected. As luck would have it, we found ourselves in the same city at the same time and we both had time for a dinner. I went with some trepidation–what would it be like to see someone whom I had not talked to in 20 years? We really used to be best friends when we started college, and then our lives drifted.

Well, suffice it to say, that our experience of meeting again was a magical experience of reconnecting. We both concluded that this was the right time to meet each other…and how curious to see how in 20 years our paths had at times been parallel and at times not, but we are in similar good places in our lives now.

So, to those of you out there reading, what are you doing to use social media to reconnect person to person? How is the experience for you? I’d love to hear!

Life is amazing! Live Well.

Anna Grassini
www.lifeinbalancecoach.com

Social media for business…the old and the young

Thanks to Jill (see her cool blog at mysolis.com )or pointing out in a comment to my previous thoughts that the stuff of web 2.0 can be great for business. I completely agree with her! There are new opportunities for people to use Facebook, Twitter and the like to provide useful information–and, no, what you had for lunch does not really qualify…but maybe a cool new lunch place would! Yet, I still see people, especially older ones, that resist the technology change.
I wonder, moreover, if the arrival of “wiser” folks on Facebook will make the younger ones migrate to other “hiding places”! The recent story of the person who twittered about her new job offer at Cisco (as published recently in a NYT story) and presumably lost it before she even started is currently making the rounds on the internet….and is a reminder that the young users could teach the old folks how to use twitter, and the older folks could use the young ones what are appropriate limits !!!! As usual, everyone has something to offer–if we just remember that we all have our strengths!

Life is Amazing! LIve Well.
Anna
lifeinbalancecoach.com

More thoughts from a Facebook Newbie

So I have been doing more reading and thinking about the new “social media”…especially relevant after my recent arrival on Facebook!. According to a NYT story on the Austin Festival South By SouthWest, folks attending the most successful part of the festival are not musicians…they are people dealing in the new media!!! Says the NYT, however, that the folks creating content seem too busy to have time to consume it! And in any case, I wonder…what does this content really mean? Do I really gain from knowing that my 21 year old nephew is “stoked” about an upcoming weekend of sports? (Which, in my old fashioned mind, might mean simply a weekend of watching too much television!) What about the old friend who thinks Florida is too pretty? What am I gaining here? What is the content?
It feels to me like I am entering a whole new culture. But the question for me is, does the connection pay off or does it simply mean a huge loss of privacy? What do the young people out there think? What does it mean to be truly connected?

Life is Amazing! Live Well.
Anna

http://www.lifeinbalancecoach.com

Using virtual reality to reconnect to the past

At the urging of my young Italian cousin, Luisa, I have recently joined FaceBook.   I have been on LinkedIn for a while, thinking of it as a professional network.   The function of LinkedIn has been to reassure me that as I face a huge transition in my life, there are people to whom I am connected–and that those bonds will follow me wherever I go.  But what does FaceBook do?   My husband John asked me “do you like it?”  The answer is…I don’t know yet.   Clearly, it makes me notice the difference between being old and young.  There is a whole new lingo to learn (really, what does it mean on FaceBook to tag someone? To poke them?) and then there is a level of discourse that does not really conduce to deep conversations.   I still have to find my way around it.  

Would love to hear what other people are getting out of these social networks and how they use them….

In the meantime, I remain confident that 

Life is Amazing! Live Well.

 

Anna 

http://www.lifeinbalancecoach.com