Richard Reeve Archives - Successful Blog

Thanks to Richard Reeve for supplying today’s guest post.

Richard Reeve is an administrator at the Family Foundation School, a
candidate for Analytical training at the C. G. Jung Institute of New
York. He blogs at Catskill Cottage Seed.

“And the Master said unto the silence, “In the path of our happiness
shall we find the learning for which we have chosen this lifetime. So
it is that I have learned this day, and choose to leave you now to
walk your own path as you please.” Richard Bach, Illusions, pg.23

Liz recommended Bach’s book to me last month when we shared a coffee
at Blogworld. The tale that emerges from the soil of that Holyland
called Indiana has much to offer folks committed to creating content
streams in the new media.

Social Media gives us ample opportunity and leeway to play. Our
activity, the specifics of our various moves (all of which can be
boiled down to this simple fourfold way: search, save, post, ignore)is
a useful way to think about our social media practice.

But what do we do, those of us who have found our commitment, if we
are looking to deepen our practice:

Identify your passion(s).

Often folks are in the ballpark of their interest, and if we take the
analogy seriously, they might even have season tickets. The goal here
is to get out of the stands, put on the “uniform” of the player, and
step up to the plate. Or perhaps one needs not to pick up a bat, but
instead the ball and walk out to the mound. The point I’m driving at
is simple. There’s a huge difference between being “around” your
interest
And going out onto the field of your passion and being a player in the game.

Consider typology within your audience.

By this, I’m picking up on the marketing technique of having a
customer profile, but trying to push it a bit further along the lines
of psychological typology. Producing different types of content for
different types of people leads to a surprising range in the content
one produces and/or shares. Thinking types have a very different
appetite for information than the feeling types. The same can be said
of intuitives and sensates. Exploring these preferences in others can
open options you might not have otherwise considered.

Avoid ruts at all cost.

Invest in rut insurance. Anytime I’m struggling with my practice I
review this imaginary policy which states: nothing will be lost if one
lessons one’s frequency of participation, takes a hiatus, or stops
using any of these tools.

Be an individual.

We add more by walking through the world in our unique way than by
copying anyone else. I dare you to live this fact through your
participation in social media (just as Liz did with me by suggesting I
read Illusions…

…and wishing you, Liz, the speediest of recoveries.

Guest Post by Richard Reeve

Social media intrigues me on many levels, especially as it relates to those platforms which have chosen to publish publicly. The poet Charles Olson predicted a day would come “when the private would be public.” I think that day is dawning.

If you are doing business within social media, what I have to share should be useful. If you think you’re not doing business in social media, I’d like to challenge that notion. I know, I know: “where’s the profit? show me the ROI.” Coming as I do from an arts background, I’m quite comfortable seeing engaged and talented folks not turning a dime from their activity. None the less, to call their work a hobby is both disrespectful and untrue. They are producers. No matter what you might take away from your social media experience, including the dollars that many are already realizing, you are also a producer contributing to the front edge of the largest data bloom in history. It’s a collective business you’re engaged in, and whether you realize it or not, you’re playing your role quite nicely.

Then you might protest: “But isn’t social media just today’s version of the chat room?” Unlike the proto-social media chat room experiences, your activity across platforms like blogs, twitter, and friendfeed allows for public access, and at least in theory, forever. You’re never replying solely to the person you are replying to, nor even to those currently in your network, nor to those currently on-line. Take for example this post I shared about a NASA website. It guides you to locate the space shuttle going overhead from wherever you live. Now I posted this over a month ago and through search it remains both fully functioning and as useful as the day I wrote it.

My experience has been that communities arise around content clusters emerging in the data bloom. While these clusters often have a personality shepherding the interest, it’s the shared interest in the content that aligns everybody. And shared interest eventually creates opportunity for the liquidation of social capital. That being the case, it’s through contributing to the data surrounding your interests that you are building the potential for your business.

The poet Robert Creeley wrote that “form is never more than an extension of content.” Social Media allows content to extend in previously unimagined ways, carrying the details of our commonplace lives, our deepest interest and our wildest aspirations into digitalized perpetuity. And that’s serious business, no?

—Richard Reeve
Image: flickr –International Space Station
_______________
Richard, aspiration means breathing toward. I hope that’s where we’re headed.
Thank you for this and everything you contribute.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!