I have a confession, I hate tags and tag clouds. I watched TED's Jill Bolte Taylor talk,'A Stroke of Insight' and realized two important points on how I deal with information and the internet. First, I am a left handed, epileptic who suffered from a drug induced dyslexia and sensitivity to artificial light, the cat is out of the bag now. The results in my audio oriented information preferences, using podcasts and some video and a habit of listening to them outside. I also tend to use a few sites frequently and perform random searches when necessary. I know Google Reader and Delicious serve a purpose, yet they serve a certain set of people as well. My question, is system meant as a one size fits all? If I tag and filter will that make me use it more?
Bonnie brought out some points about my profiles I was not aware of from a branding perspective. She noted my attention to community and relationships as well as my passion for mountain culture and environment She also commented that my brand was closely linked to my profession and it should evolve into something larger than my job. For a long time I was identified with the company I used to work with and a year and half later that is finally starting to happen. What I am finding is the need to unwind my personal from my professional online brands and Bonnie was spot on with that assessment.
This made me re-examine the tags other people gave me: curious strength, holds safe space and thoughtful questions jumped out at me after letting them sit for a few weeks. This process is slower that I thought would be possible, I think my daughter will potty train herself by the time this makes sense to me. I am making strides and will roll out some surprises this week! One thing I did not do is create a bgi id simply because my brain is too small for multiple accounts let alone multiple personalities. 'The Avatar' makes me think of Dungeons and Dragons, which I struggled with as well and just stuck with comics. Again I stopped short of talking about characters as if they were real people. The comic fans that did made me feel uncomfortable, as if the van with traquilizers and strait jacket would arrive to take them away to a quiet place....
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Thanks for sharing Matt, and letting "the cat out of the bag". I think it was a great reminder that NOTHING is one size fits all! Different techniques are valuable to different people for different reasons. I think the key is to be able to try a bunch of tactics and see what works for you. If it doesn't work after giving it the old college try, then you can abandon it. Odds are that later on just having that experience taught you enough to be useful.
ReplyDeleteFor example, we chatted about Flock during Monday's class. A few months ago I read about Flock and was really excited to try it. I read up on all the features and finally decided to make the switch. But after a few weeks I went back to my old ways (Firefox and iGoogle). But at least I have that knowledge now, and I know what's out there. There's always the possibility that Flock could have been my new favorite thing. But I wouldn't have known without trying.
You can also use things in different degrees. I never cared about tags before, but I find that using the "bgimgt566sx" tag is really helpful! Even just being able to group items into "school" and "personal" helps me organize my time. I probably won't ever be a serial tagger. But I'm starting to see the light.
Thx Karen, great point about trying new stuff out. If I didn't I should not blog on about it;)
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