Social Media is good for your career bla bla bla bla… sorry but I just don’t want to rehash this topic the same way it’s been done 1 million times before me. Instead, I want to talk about that little hole in us that social media fills. Not a scary little hole, just the one that reminds us that we’re still everyday people in a fast moving online world.
As a consultant I work alone the majority of the time. Sometimes I get the awesome opportunity of meeting up with peers in this line of work locally, but that chance is few and far between. You would think that such a small landmass would bring us all closer, but it just never works out that way I’ve noticed. Nearly 1 million people on this island alone, and we just haven’t formed up a collective of professionals who meet up regularly. tsk tsk….
It gets boring. It gets tedious. It gets a bit frustrating too. Part of you misses talking with others around you who understand what you’re saying, but you just don’t miss office politics so you know you can’t go back to the 9-5 office world. Don’t blame ya, that place sucks.
Twittering In The Dark
As I type this, the sun hasn’t even come up yet, but that’s just a typical workday for me. I wake up early as hell, drink some insanely strong coffee that could strip grease off an engine block and immediately start catching up on my emails, analytics, feeds and tweets.
Getting yourself in the know first thing in the morning is a pretty good way to be able to get a conversation going or perhaps just follow up with your friends on twitter and see how they’re doing. Recently, I’ve been getting really hooked on Twitter thanks to the Firefox plugin Yoono. I used to think that Twitter was useless, but I’m glad that I’m wrong on that one. I have to admit that I’ve greatly enjoyed communicating with people I haven’t talked to in a long time or that I have only observed from afar.
Guaranteed Entertainment
I think what I’ve enjoyed the most out of this is knowing that there are other people out there slaving away at work or in their home office just like me, just feeling the need to randomly pop their head up from working and to just say something… say anything.. for the reminder that they’re not alone. It’s really too easy to disconnect from human contact of any kind when so much of your time is spent in front of a monitor all day.
But when you get bored, you can always get some entertainment value out of people. I can open up twitter and at any time and find myself chuckling over Lisa and Susan razzing each other at work, or Suggarrae threatening Michael Gray with bodily harm (always place your money on Rae for that fight), Robert Scoble being 100 places at once and still shooting off rapid-fire tweets, Shana Albert trying to be full time Mom/blogger/Social Media maven (much respect for her ability to juggle)… it really goes on and on but it’s always there for you when you need it. You can stop your friends at any time and just say hi and it’s (usually) appreciated.
Conclusion
Not once did I want to start in on the benefits social media has for your career. That subject has been exhausted more than a 3 logged dog on a treadmill, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that being a social person is good for you emotionally. Unless your like Charles Manson. Then I don’t want you to make friends.
If you haven’t taken the dive into micro-blogging, then maybe it’s time you take the dive. Get started, come introduce yourself to me and lets get a conversation going. It’s not like any of us really want to work while we’re at work anyways 
