Sharing Has Meaning
I gave a 7 minute talk yesterday about Social Media. It was a challenge to prepare this talk because of the fact that it is a topic that not only has become very popular, but there is quite a number of things that you can talk about in regards of the stories that can be told as to Social Media in action.
I wouldn’t like to describe the presentation here although that would be a good topic for another of my writings. But what I’d like to say is that even for me, after giving this presentation, what hit me the most was the concept of sharing.
More Value When You Share
Think about the possibilities that there are when you create something with a group of people and the (narrowed) possibilities when you create something on your own. Yes there are times when it is a challenge to communicate with others and to agree on something that is important for a project to move forward.
Sometimes the hidden lesson that is behind doing something in a group is not the end result but how you are able to collaborate, to work as a team and to find the best way to communicate ideas, concepts, experience, knowledge, feelings and intuitions (if you will).
It is amazing how something can be greatly improved just because someone decides to share and enable others to contribute and be part of an evolving solution, service, product.
This makes me think about Open Source, and how some people have even used software that has been created by the many, for the many. Take Moodle for example. A Learning Management System that has rapidly evolved and grown to be a pretty mature and solid solution even for many universities for creating online courses.
There is now way that a peace of software were to be where is now if it were not for ability to have other contribute to it.
Sharing Experiences
A few months ago I was in Mexico City. A friend of mine let me have his rental magnetic card for using the shared bicycles called EcoBici. You basically slide the magnetic card which is a yearly membership of around $40 dollars, pick a bike, and you have 45 minutes to put the bike on another station.
This is a another example of sharing something in a way that has benefits for everyone. It reduces pollution, allows people to exercise and get transported, etc.
I remember that at the end of my visit, I was able to connect with my friend because of the fact that he uses the bikes all the time, and I had my own experience which allowed us to have a moment of conversation about it and we agreed on certain things that we both experienced as we used the bikes.
Sharing Is An Art
I’ve been pondering more and more these days about the different layers that there are as we share our lives with others on a daily basis. I am convinced that the best way to share something is to find the right way to communicate it. It does not matter if it is on the phone, visiting someone in person, or on Facebook. What really matters is that we find the right moment and the right amount of information so as to share it in a way that it makes sense for others.
I could have talked for 7 minutes yesterday in a very “technical” way just because I have felt passion for Social Media for many years. Yet, I am pretty sure that many on my audience would have been counting the seconds for the (boring) presentation to finish.
If there is anything you want to share with others, there is a great benefit in giving some thought to where others could stand and what would be the perspective that others potentially see about what you want to share.
Now I am more careful when someone asks me about Social Media because I have realized that the fact that I’ve experienced it since the beginning of it, that does not mean that others have been there.
So there is the art of sharing, finding the right amount of information and infusion of passion when communicating about something with someone so that you can spark interest, create interaction and conversation and perhaps inspire to take some action, what ever that action that may be.
