It's been a busy April for me. Been doing a lot of networking, presenting, some travel, and living with lots of changes. All in all a great thing - because most of it was related to two of my favorite things in the world:
- Social Media
- The MS MVP program
It started off great when I got my renewal notice April 1st. I love April Fool's anyway, but knowing that what I do is seen and recognized on that day makes it very special. I am once again a OneNote MVP.
In the first two weeks of the month, I presented to ASCii - one of the two users groups I belong to. Topic? "Media, it isn't just for kids" Both presentations went very well. Got to show off a huge number of sites to some people who had never seen them before. As always, the twitterverse was willing to help out and made sure the people at the presentations saw how they use it. Great fun - tiring, but great fun.
The day after the second ASCii presentation, I was off to Seattle for the 2008 MVP Summit. Summit started with something new: Open Sessions on topics suggested by MVPs and selected by the attendees. Guess who did two? Yup. You got it. Social Media and Peer to Peer Support. The room was pretty much full both times. Great conversations were had, lots of new links were shared. Everyone learned. That's the way it is supposed to go.
At everyone of these presentations, one question kept popping up: How do I find the time to do so much Social Media interactions? I never quite know how to answer the question. Social Media comes as easy to me as breathing. I don't find time to do it, I couldn't not do it. It ranks up on the list of things without which Kathy dies a bit. Writing is there too. My need to communicate and share is part of what makes me tick. I also know that social media seemed an obvious fit for my life from the first time Betsy Weber introduced me to Twitter. The people I have met through Twitter and Facebook and Spock are who keep me going. But there is more to it than that.
I live far away from my parents and my siblings. Social Media gives us a way to stay in touch even when we can't connect directly. I always have a Scrabulous game going with my mother. She knows that I am alive and well as long as I am playing. I know the same about her. When Scrabulous had their big outage earlier this year, it drove us both nuts. My younger sister is on Facebook. She knows I check on her regularly. She also knows she can ping me there and reach me.
I have made many friends through these sites. Knowing Susan Reynolds has changed my life. I would never have known her without Twitter. The people I have met through PodCamp AZ change my life all the time.
And that raises another thing that happened this month: We pulled PodCamp AZ off the back burner and started really organizing and planning. The dates are November 1 and 2, 2008. If you want to speak, let me know. I'm coordinating that part. Just another way social media impacts me.
A month of Social Media. And it ends on a high note today. I got a postcard from ToJoSan. He is working to help people in the social media world get together in real life. If you aren't yet reading his blog, The Broad Brush, you should start. I also got to connect SpiderWebWoman up with Community Credit.
Then, through a Facebook and Twitter connection, Daniel Johnson Jr., I found the social Media link of all links:
Go2Web20.net
Imagine that - a page of links to all the social networks that they know of! Community overload may be happening here!
That was my April. And wait until you hear what May is bringing!