My Web 2.0 mantra: ease of use, ease of use June 17, 2008

So, I followed Chris Brogan’s advice  on personal branding tactics and set myself up a profile on Technorati to build my ego searches for my blogs. 

Maybe I should not have picked the day I’m scheduled to deploy a new portal to embark on any new social media activities, but I was intrigued by Chris’s list and wanted to start working my way down.  And besides, as anyone knows, the final piddling tasks related to portal deployment always have to do with fixing mundane content management issues (in my case, realphabetizing an entire directory of practitioner biographies) so I needed something else to distract me momentarily besides gripe about my day on Twitter.

I have to say setting up my profile on Technorati has been an absolutely frustrating experience.  I had to verify my email address three times before it would recognize me as a user, and for some reason I cannot fathom, their application has yet to validating my authority for this blog!  Oddly enough, it had no problem validating my Dragonfly Reiki site, even though both of them are on WordPress.  I don’t know if that’s an issue with Technorati or WordPress, but it concerns me. 

I’m a busy woman.  The key to social media for me has to be speed and ease of use.  I should be walked through set-up of my profile first thing.  If I have to go back and hunt around to find my profile to edit it, that’s a bad sign.  If the site doesn’t even recognize me after I’ve validated my identity three time using the code they’ve given me to do so, that’s another bad sign.  I’m more patient than most people but in order for me to sing the gospel about social media to friends, colleagues and the practitioners at my job who use the portals I manage, it has to be quick, easy and seamless. 

Now, back to alphabetizing. 

Here I am. Finally. June 11, 2008

I admit it, I’m a late entrant into the blogosphere.  Given my natural penchant for electronic communications – email, text messaging, message boards – you would have expected me to have started blogging a long time ago.  I can’t really say why I was reticient for so long, other than perhaps my fear of facing the web equivalent of old-fashioned writer’s block – the empty white “Write Post” box waiting to be filled with something interesting, witty or engaging. 

I do have another blog, which is part of the website for my Reiki business, Dragonfly Reiki, but posts there are infrequent and geared more towards sharing insights gleaned from my Reiki practice.  My intention for this blog is broader than that.  Part of my motivation for this blog is to participate in the Special Libraries Association 9 week challenge to educate myself and become more proficient in using a variety of Web 2.0 technologies.  This is essential for my career as a corporate intranet portal knowledge manager, but also because I think the various ways we can connect with each other, share information/knowledge and build community is exciting.  The corporate enterprise typically has been slow to adopt these technologies, but interest and investment in them is building, so I have some catching up to do. 

Granted, I’ve done OK navigating through the social media/Web 2.0 sphere without even investing that much time or energy.  I’ve had a Classmates profile for years (which is now heating up because my *gasp* high school 20 year reunion is this year) and have had a Facebook profile for some time too.  Also del.icio.us and Twitter and FeedDemon…  I have to thank my husband for this, because his energy for diving into new web technologies far exceeds my own. 

I don’t intend for this blog to be focused on analyzing the social media/Web 2.0 universe. There are plenty of people and sites out there who understand more and do a fine job of disseminating that knowledge.  My blog is intended to focus on my life and the things that are of interest to me, while also testing out all sorts of cool tools and functionality. 

This is gonna be fun.  (For me, at least!)