Who Owns Your Stuff . . . ?

I have been thinking about mortality and my stuff lately.

 

As some of you know, I post a fair amount of thoughts, questions, links, and other information on various online networking sites, most on teaching, learning, leadership, and workplace behavior.  Some of these are true gems and others are really not worth much.  Most are somewhere between the two extremes.

 

Now I might die someday.  Everyone does, eventually.   So the questions bugging me of late include: 

 

“When I die, what happens to all my online stuff?”  

Mark All As Read . . .

Finally . . . A Ray of Hope for my Reading List:)

 

I subscribe to around 65 blogs on leadership, learning, communication, thinking, and a few other odd topics through Google Reader.  In addition to that group, I also have email subscriptions to probably 20 or 30 more blogs on roughly the same subjects.  I add as many as 2 to 3 subscriptions every week.

I like to be informed . . .  well informed . . .  in many areas.

However, I also like to sleep, watch quality television, have an occasional quiet meal with my wife, play with the grandkids, and just hang out. 

These  two things can sometimes be counter-active.  Maybe you have experienced this dark side of our online world.  So much is available that we have no excuse for not knowing much . . . except that life is not JUST about knowing, sometimes it’s about doing and feeling, too.

So Google has given my this great function.  I can scan the list of blog titles for each folder and, if I see nothing that catches my eye, then ZAP!    Problem solved.

“Mark All As Read” is like a magic pill – you feel better instantly upon taking one.

 

However, I do see two “small” issues with my new best friend:

1)  Deciding based on a title alone can result in missing good stuff.

I sometimes inadvertently subscribe to the same blog both in Google Reader and through my email.  In my email system, I am more likely to scan the blog post before deleting, and not go just by the title of the post.  On occasion, I have been pleasantly surprised by content that I had already deleted from Google Reader. 

Sometimes we miss the good stuff by being efficient.

2)  What is the real goal here?

Is the problem that I need something to help me get through the massive amount of mostly useful and interesting information in all my subscriptions or am I dodging a much more important question.

Do I really need to follow every person who catches my attention in a number of somewhat distinct areas?  Now we have to discuss the relative value of specialization versus broad competency.   

Sometimes we miss the important stuff by being thorough.

Maybe that “Ray of Hope” was just Spring trying to shine through in the Heartland . . .

John

Sorry . . . It’s REALLY NOT Personal

To my Twitter Followers:  I am going to clean out my Twitter Lists this week.

The Background:

Twitter Lists are a sometimes useful application that allows you to group those who you follow into categories to suit your needs.    When you add someone to a List, their tweets show up in that list.  This puts tweets with some common denominator at one time in one place, which makes them easier to check.  It’s about saving time and being organized.    Yeah, right . . .

Some of my more valuable lists are “Communicate“, “Leadership” and “Teach-Learn“.    I have many others and I now realize that I have muddied the value of some of my lists by putting too many people into them.  When you follow many people, it’s hard to see the tweets that you were looking for in the first place. 

I will also admit to a childish wish to crank that “Followed By” number up there as a driver of my behavior.

Some of you may think that I just need a more advanced application to better handle all this.  Nope . . . that recognition is why I am doing this.  I do not want to use applications to handle my online life ~ that is my job.

I used the rule that “If I decide to follow someone, I have a reason“.  Sounds logical, but I did not account for my tendency toward ADHD.  Soon Everyone was on some list and since I wanted to follow many folks for many reasons,  I wound up with a lot of lists with a lot of people on them. 

 In the untreated ADHD person’s world, “Focus” is THE real F-Word.

Lessons Learned:

When you try to include everyone who is of interest, you end up including everyone.   You cannot really set up any type of meaningful connections with everyone.    Lists should help you manage your social media life, not complicate it.

Like I said, it’s nothing personal  . . . it’s just me working on my faults.

Trying hard NOT to do everything at once in the Heartland . . .

John