Conner's Blog

I’m not posting tomorrow, so here are five things I’m thankful for.

• Old friends, I don’t see many of them enough, but when we do get together it’s like we have been apart for a couple days, not the months that is sometimes is.
• New friends, many of whom I met this year, I can’t say enough about how much fun I have with them..
• Minneapolis, this city has stolen my heart.  I love the skyline, the parks, the people, the music, the….
• Family, another group of people I don’t see enough, but I love you all and wish I didn’t live so damn far away.
• This never ending fall.  Actually, it looks like it has ended, but wow, this was a November to be thankful for.

Finally, I’m thankful for everyone who reads my scattered thoughts.  I don’t know why you do such a thing, but it makes every day a little brighter knowing you do.

Have a fabulous Thanksgiving everyone.

It is no secret that I love social media and the Internet.  Twitter and this blog are my playgrounds, with a few dashes to Facebook added for seasoning.  One thing that amazes me is the fact that people still think social media is going to ruin interpersonal communication in the real world.  This makes me cringe every time because the exact opposite has happened to me.

My love of social media really began during the political conventions leading up to the November 4, 2008 elections.  I didn’t have any friends at the time that would watch the speeches with me, so I logged onto Twitter and was suddenly bombarded by hundreds of people talking about what was happening.  The best part was that not only was I interacting with others watching from afar, but also getting first hand accounts from convention goers.  At the time, I had no idea how much of an impact Twitter would have on me, I just was having fun bashing politicians and discussing the issues with real people scattered all over the globe.

I believe it was sometime in January or February when Art and I had a conversation on Twitter and made a decision to meet at the Herkimer for happy hour.  Art was the first person I met who I had known exclusively through Twitter before meeting in real life.  Though he was not the first person I had met through the Internet, (I had joined a few meetup.com groups previously) he was the first person I met through an online social network.  Since then we have remained good friends.

Of course Art was just the beginning, in the last year or so, I’ve met a lot of people because of Twitter.  Some I met because they knew someone I met on Twitter, others I met only because they were on Twitter.  In fact, at last count, my In Real Life list has 89 members.  Some of these have only been meetings in passing, but many of them have involved fun times, great conversations, and a few have become close friends. Add at least a dozen people I’ve met who aren’t actually on Twitter and my social circle has been expanded by over 100 people just because of a little box saying “What are you doing?”

What I’m trying to say is, if anyone says our Internet connected networks are going to ruin our personal lives, destroy our ability to communicate, or stop us from meeting new people, well, they are crazy. Unless you are already an introvert and do not enjoy meeting new people, interacting online is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to social media.

Until recently, I had been struggling with Facebook.  I hardly ever logged on and when I did I never really felt like I learned anything useful.  I even toyed with the idea of deleted the entire account.

I could not do this though, because my family and most of my close friends use Facebook as their exclusive social platform.  This means that if I want to find out what my brother is up to or find out where everyone is going for Christmas I have to be on Facebook.  Of course, that information was there, but it was hard to wring out of the myriad of old friends and acquaintances I’ve gathered since joining.

Recently though I discovered the solution and I’m going to share it with you.  It’s simple and effective, but it does take a bit of time to set up.  The first step is getting your friends into groups.  This may sound daunting, but it’s worth it.  I was lucky to have done this a while ago so I just had to go through and refine a bit.  Personally, I would recommend dividing people up by, friends, family, co-workers, and then others.  I then created a group called PIWTKA (People I want to know about) and put everyone who I wanted to follow closely into this group.

Like I said, this takes some time but it’s worth it.  Now after you’ve done this if you look at the left hand sidebar you will see the groups listed, when you click on the group, only the news feeds from those people in that group show up.  This is a useful tool in itself, but I discovered a way to make it even better.

First you have to click the more button below your friend’s lists.  Then you simply click and drag the PIWTKA group to the top of the sidebar, drop and abracadabra, every time you log into Facebook, you automatically only see those people you really want to know about.
Hopefully, this makes your Facebook use more enjoyable, I know it’s done it for me.  Oh and while you’re at it, why don’t you add me as a friend, I may even stick you in my PIWTKA group.

This has been going around Facebook and I got tagged.  Decided I could use it as an excuse for a cop out post since I cross post to Facebook.

1. I have a really weird fear of lakes, it’s completely irrational and I can overcome it, but I sometimes panic when I drive over them, am in a boat, or swimming.
2. I used to read a ton, so much that I remember my mom telling me it was a problem because I wasn’t helping out enough around the house.  Now I barely read a book a month because I spend my day reading news and blogs online.
3. I graduated high school with 6 other people, I’ve only talked to 3 of  them in the last year.
4. I’m terrible at keeping in touch with friends, and I’ve lost touch with some really good friends because of this.
5. I love trying new foods, and will try almost anything.  Still, I will not under any circumstances try Lutifisk or Rocky Mountain Oysters.
6. I’m not very close to my two brothers, I love them both but we’ve never been really good friends.
7. I enjoy my alone time, though occasionally I will just have to be around people, regardless of whether I know them.
8. My taste in music has gone through a complete metamorphosis in the last year.  Few of my friends have heard of my favorite bands.
9. I’m intensely shy if I’m not in the right situation.  One on one or in a place where I’m surrounded by people I know me I will talk to anyone.  Outside of those situations I’m a nervous wreck.
10. I could spend all day in the right bar talking to whoever sat down next to me.
11. I have an amazing group of friends from college who all live too far away from me now.  Even the ones that live 30 miles away.
12. I love dogs, when I go to someones house for work I hate when they lock up their dog to protect me.  I’d rather get slobbered on.
13. I have a horrible tendency to start projects and quit when they get boring.
14. I love to argue and will choose the opposite side just to debate a topic.  I’ve learned more about the world doing that then through any book or class.
15. I’m an amateur photographer, web developer, programmer, writer, cook, and 101 other things.  Someday I’ll be a professional at something.
16. I joined the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra board this year.  I’m hoping it broadens my musical tastes.  And no I don’t play.
17. I can cook an egg anyway you like it if I have the right pan.
18. Speaking of pans, my good kitchen tools are more important to me than my car.  If you ever want to get me upset scratch my omelet pan.
19. My weakness is good beer.  I don’t have a favorite and could spend the day trying new brews.  Nothing annoys me more than a bar who serves Amber Bock as their dark beer.
20. I quit piano because it wasn’t cool, and recently I’ve started to regret it.  Someday I’ll pick it up again.
21. I used to serve but unlike most former servers I don’t tip well all the time.  I took my job seriously when I did it and never felt right about getting tipped well when I did a poor job.  I’ll tip more than anyone at the table if you impress me.
22. Sometimes I just give in an eat a whole large pizza.
23. I’m terrible at getting dates, I never get around to asking because the conversation is too interesting.
24. I’m conscious of where my food and my drinks come from, other than that I just buy the best product I can regardless of where it was made.
25. I still get really excited when I see a new comment on my blog.  I would rather get two new comments a day than get 1000 hits.

The Internet is a wondeful thing.  Everyday, millions of people launch a web browser, go online and consume information in vast amounts.  They socialize using e-mail and post to their friends walls on Facebook.  But the web is becoming so much more and I want to point out a few tools and site than everyone should use.

The point of these sites is to utilize the web as a social medium instead of a consumable product.  Learning to comment, communicate, and participate is not only fun, but you will get a much deeper experience every time you log on.

Let’s start with my current favorite web app, Twitter.  When you first sign up, you are presented with a box asking the question “What are you doing?”.  Looking at this you would think Twitter is like Facebook status messages.  It is so much more than that though.  The best way to learn about Twitter is to watch this video. I use Twitter for many things: I keep up on the latest news, discover interesting websites, follow games, get fantasy football advice, connect with people who share my interests, and get questions answered.

To get started with Twitter, sign up, and start looking for people to follow.  Start with me first.  I go by the name sloped on Twitter.  View to my profile and click follow.  Now you can see my updates on the public tab.  I also recommend doing a search for your location using the search box on top of the page.  It’s a good way to find local users to follow and befriend.  The last place I am going to recommend is twitterholic.  This site shows the top users on Twitter by follower.  There is a good chance that if someone has many followers they are doing something interesting.  Try following a few of them and see what you think, you can always unfollow if you aren’t happy with their tweets. .

The next app that I am going to recommend is Google Reader.  GoogleReader is an RSS reader.  View a quick introduction to Google Reader here.  For those of you who don’t know what RSS is, this video is a must see.  What RSS does is allows you to pull content from a variety of sources across the web.  There are many different readers available, but the benefit of Google Reader is the ability to share items you find interesting.  This allows you to push items to your friends using RSS to, allowing them to read them at their leisure.  It is a much more productive way of dealing with information then emailing your friends and family links.  To subscribe to my shared items on Google Reader go here.

The final social service that I want to talk about is actually a service many of you probably already use.  During the recent site redesign, Facebook released a great new featured called import.  Import allows you to take your activity across the web and put it on your wall easily.  As you can see you have a variety of options as to what you can import.  I currently import my flickr photos, blog posts, delicious bookmarks, last.fm songs, and google reader shared items.  This is a great way to keep your friends and family up to date on what you are currently interested in.

This feature is what convinced me that I liked the new Facebook design.  Though it is different, I think the inclusion of options like this allows you to share more with your friends and family. 

The beauty of these tools is that the more you use them the more content you start to get from other users.  I have cut down my feeds in GoogleReader as I use Twitter more. I find more interesting content from the people I follow.  As more of you friends on Facebook begin to share more content you discover more information, more songs, and see more of their photos.  Add in the multitude of discussions you can have and suddenly you are not only more informed but you are finding out things about people you never would have before.