Thursday, April 8, 2010

Statement Of Purpose & Dedication




Given my relative youth in comparison to the other officers of the company, a Myers-Briggs certified inability to execute repetitive tasks, and my compulsive need to be funny, I was tasked to manage our social media presence as well as cultivate a social media plug-in for our services. My interest in the phenomena made me excited about the opportunity. While equipped with a few preconceived notions about various social media platforms, I tried to begin my education with an open mind.

As I approach the 1 year anniversary of my employment at 3D Virtual Events and what I know now to be my toe dip into the constantly evolving social media community, my only conviction is that I understand less about it now than I did with solely my preconceived notions.

However, my experiences and the subsequent realization that I hope drives entries to this blog is that our definition of community is transitioning from the real into the virtual. With each new user ID, we as individuals become denizens of a community whose requirement for citizenship is nothing more than a valid e-mail address. In return, we are given the freedom to engage IP addresses across geographic, ethnic, and religious borders. A freedom that allows us to portray ourselves not as the people we really are, but as the firewall protected personas we want to be.

So while we are trimming our autobiographies to 160 characters and carefully selecting our profile pictures, we are not just leaving out possible arrest records or unflattering candids. Also left out is the trust that can only be built when we see it, hear it, or touch it ourselves. A trust that without, will leave us incapable of genuinely feeling connected.

The purpose of this blog is to explore how technologies both hard and soft are enabling the transition into virtual communities and what the human experience may have gained or lost as a result.

I will also try to be funny.

To conclude, I would like to dedicate this blog to Professor Patrick Riley who inspired my passion for the relationship that exists between individuals and their social environments. While at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I was privileged to be a recipient of both his incredible knowledge as well his enthusiasm to share it with others. While not pretending to have any Tuesday's With Morrie-like relationship, my appreciation for the perspective he has given me warranted, if not a New York Times bestseller, TV movie, or Broadway play, at least a blog dedication.

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