La Moretta

Facebook and the professional extrovert

This iteration of the Internet makes it hard to be an introvert.

I recently got woven into Facebook by a series of events and contacts. After less than a week, I deactivated my account -- it was simply too much, and I couldn't risk appearing not to respond to my professional contacts.

When I've had to research individuals on the Internet, there have been more than a few occasions when I've been unable to find almost anything on someone. At first I didn't know what to make of it in the case of someone under 30 -- aren't they all online? Now I understand that the under-30 introvert is really, really out of luck. The constant stimulation of the Twittering, IMing, texting, Facebooking and MySpacing must be exhausting for them. So if I can't find them, it just might mean that they have been able to avoid it. Good for them, except...

If you are looking for a white-collar job, people are going to expect you to have an online presence. Your absence is conspicuous, and probably to some, suspicious.

The writing is on the wall for this one.

 

I know eventually my professional colleagues (many of them extreme extroverts) expect to be able to go to my Facebook profile and put a face to the name. And I know that at some point, I'm probably going to have to acknowledge that need by creating a "facade" to put on the Internet -- giving them enough to get to know me to increase their comfort. For the moment they'll make do with LinkedIn and my static corporate Web site. But within the next six months, I'm going to need to share.

 

When that time comes, I'll do what I did with my former colleagues -- I'll share something about myself that I don't care about revealing. Back then it was my vegetarianism, enjoyment of the show  Homicide, and relatively eclectic taste in music. Now I'll have to decide using focus groups. Or perhaps I'll hire a Facebook stylist (soon to be a hot career, I'm sure).

 

Blogging is different because I write about what I want, when I want, and ostensibly this is an anonymous forum (although really you could figure out who I am with a few searches). And frankly, I'm getting pretty sick of blogging. I'm just tired of focusing on myself so much. Yes, I have opinions on many things, but do they all need to be aired?  The answer is no. But I digress. That's a discussion for another day.

National Delete Your Blog Day

The Typepad front page says that 175,000 blogs are created daily. I find that number hard to believe, and I would be very interested in finding out how many of those are human beings' blogs (rather than splogs) that are being updated regularly. However, I'm sure that Typepad, Wordpress and the like are not at all interested in having that information get out.

I have had a few subject-focused blogs before this, and once I realized it wasn't going to work out, I deleted them. I think that blog hosts should delete ghost town blogs --yes, it would lower their numbers, but those numbers are fast losing credibility anyway.

You can't phone it in

This is a very charming, easy-to-read piece from Open Salon. Admittedly the author is a ringer -- he's a staff writer for Salon.  I have had some, and look forward to having many more, conversations like this myself -- they stretch the mind and help you think on your feet.

 

In which things resolve themselves appropriately and our heroine learns a valuable lesson

I had been stressed out for about a day for several reasons --

1. Late yesterday afternoon a client had gotten in touch in a panic about possibly incorrect research results. The impact on my business would have been significant and it would have destroyed much of my credibility. Unfortunately, due to timing, I wasn't slated to get the remaining specifics until this morning. At about 10:30 last night I figured out what was probably wrong (the client had forgotten the parameters of the research) and sent an email with the hope that this would solve the problem. I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked.
2. Succotash, one of the puppies we had placed for adoption, became mysteriously ill and appeared to be hovering near death.
3. Someone I care about was waiting for important health results.

When 2 and 3 resolved themselves happily (Succotash is now eating heartily and is bright-eyed, and 3 got a clean bill of health), I was reminded of the relative unimportance of 1 (which also resolved itself happily).

I have been asked not to share any names for number three, but I can say that I am soooooooo happy -- this person is incredibly important in my life, and the world would be a lot worse off without this person.

Elsewhere

Really clever article by David Swerdlick over at TheRoot.com -- the title itself makes it well worth reading.

Click here to see it.

The Lazarus Word

My friend Ann at Technical Writer has been using her blog to write about her experiences living atop a mountain in backwoods New Hampshire. In the course of her musings, she came across swainmote, a word that has fallen into disuse, but one that she found pleasing.

This led me to wonder, is it possible to revive a word strictly by strategic usage and sheer repetition? If so, is there a word that is worth reviving?

In the course of volunteering for a pet adoption group I have come up with one phrase that appears to slowly but steadily be gaining traction in the rescue community: Party Beagle. The phrase was coined to encompass a beagle personality type that we felt was so distinctive that it deserved its own category, and I think that the clear need for this word has given it some traction. I suspect that any other word that is revived will need to describe a concept or emotion that has not previously been captured adequately by another word/phrase combination.