All too often we use our online conversations to reflect on what is
going awry with our lives and work online. Look at my own recent posts
here, and you'll find me griping about the latest social media misfire
or the way metrics are degrading our online relationships.
Avoiding crises and critiquing online degradation are crucial to correcting where we're going wrong. Yet as we look forward to 2012, it's just as crucial to see where we're going right.
Appreciating the moments when our online work and lives just click tells us that all this time we spend online is not a compulsion, but a well-deserved choice. And noticing the patterns in what's worked well in the past — the online campaigns that consistently hit home runs, the social networks that bring us joy after joy, the content that elicits meaningful conversations — can help us invest in the activities that are most likely to pay off in the future.
In that spirit, I'd like to ask HBR readers to share their online triumphs from the past year — the moments, experiences and tools that have wowed, delighted and empowered you. Here are some suggestions and examples to get the ball rolling:
Business opportunities: This year I joined Doug Richard in the School for Startups in Romania, and the forthcoming Web-Fuelled Business series online, which has allowed me to share social media guidance with thousands of European entrepreneurs. Doug found me through my blog, initiating a trans-Atlantic collaboration that would have been impossible without the web. What business opportunities have you discovered through social media or other online channels this year?
Transformational tools: Earlier this year, a student introduced me to Pinterest, a platform for bookmarking, curating and sharing online images. (Here's a quick overview. By creating "pinboards" for pictures of favourite web designs, image prototypes for an app-in-progress, and let's be honest, an awful lot of grey boots, I've been able to collaborate visually with colleagues and keep running lists of design inspiration or consumer aspiration. What online tool did you start using this year that changed the way you work?
Knowledge and capacity building: I celebrated my 40th birthday with a 40-day blogging project that traced the past 40 years of life online. It was an utterly exhausting and exhilarating project that deepened my understanding of Internet history, introduced me to the wealth of resources at the Computer History Museum, and transformed my own writing, thinking and even PHP skills! What online project helped you develop new knowledge or skills this year?
New or deepened relationships: In January, a Twitter friend in Boston (the extraordinary Eric Anderson, who is a Twitter introduction machine) introduced me to a fellow web 2.0 leader in Vancouver, the brilliant Dan Pontefract. Dan has quickly become one of my most trusted colleagues and advisers, in a relationship that would never have happened without Twitter, even though, as we recently realized, our kids were at one point in the same grade school class! What is the most important business or personal relationship that began or grew online in 2011?
Personal bonding: I discovered Cute Overload because its creators use (and blog about) the WordPress theme that I use on my own site. But videos of puppies and sloths have made it my sure-fire tool for appeasing my daughter when she wants to know why mummy spends so much time on the computer. Which of 2011's entertaining online discoveries have helped you bond with friends, family or colleagues?
Of all the extraordinary discoveries I made online this year, perhaps the most profound happened right here at HBR. When I blogged about the social media response to Vancouver's Stanley Cup riots, it was with great sadness at seeing my very worst fears for the Internet unfolding in my own city. But the passionate, profound and deeply thoughtful conversation that unfolded in the comments thread, and that extended across the web as other bloggers, tweeters and sites tackled the same issue, put the lie to every claim that the Internet can't support meaningful conversation. People not only engaged seriously and (mostly) respectfully online, but they were actually willing to painfully and publicly reconsider their perspectives. The fact that an online conversation could support that kind of evolution in a public debate, and perhaps influence the police department's ultimate call to refrain from social media vigilantism, left me truly awed, humbled and inspired by what the Internet can achieve.
Thanks to all the readers, commenters and tweeters who continually remind me of why social media is worth working in and writing about. I look forward to hearing about the online successes that will inspire all of us to aim still higher in 2012.
Avoiding crises and critiquing online degradation are crucial to correcting where we're going wrong. Yet as we look forward to 2012, it's just as crucial to see where we're going right.
Appreciating the moments when our online work and lives just click tells us that all this time we spend online is not a compulsion, but a well-deserved choice. And noticing the patterns in what's worked well in the past — the online campaigns that consistently hit home runs, the social networks that bring us joy after joy, the content that elicits meaningful conversations — can help us invest in the activities that are most likely to pay off in the future.
In that spirit, I'd like to ask HBR readers to share their online triumphs from the past year — the moments, experiences and tools that have wowed, delighted and empowered you. Here are some suggestions and examples to get the ball rolling:
Business opportunities: This year I joined Doug Richard in the School for Startups in Romania, and the forthcoming Web-Fuelled Business series online, which has allowed me to share social media guidance with thousands of European entrepreneurs. Doug found me through my blog, initiating a trans-Atlantic collaboration that would have been impossible without the web. What business opportunities have you discovered through social media or other online channels this year?
Transformational tools: Earlier this year, a student introduced me to Pinterest, a platform for bookmarking, curating and sharing online images. (Here's a quick overview. By creating "pinboards" for pictures of favourite web designs, image prototypes for an app-in-progress, and let's be honest, an awful lot of grey boots, I've been able to collaborate visually with colleagues and keep running lists of design inspiration or consumer aspiration. What online tool did you start using this year that changed the way you work?
Knowledge and capacity building: I celebrated my 40th birthday with a 40-day blogging project that traced the past 40 years of life online. It was an utterly exhausting and exhilarating project that deepened my understanding of Internet history, introduced me to the wealth of resources at the Computer History Museum, and transformed my own writing, thinking and even PHP skills! What online project helped you develop new knowledge or skills this year?
New or deepened relationships: In January, a Twitter friend in Boston (the extraordinary Eric Anderson, who is a Twitter introduction machine) introduced me to a fellow web 2.0 leader in Vancouver, the brilliant Dan Pontefract. Dan has quickly become one of my most trusted colleagues and advisers, in a relationship that would never have happened without Twitter, even though, as we recently realized, our kids were at one point in the same grade school class! What is the most important business or personal relationship that began or grew online in 2011?
Personal bonding: I discovered Cute Overload because its creators use (and blog about) the WordPress theme that I use on my own site. But videos of puppies and sloths have made it my sure-fire tool for appeasing my daughter when she wants to know why mummy spends so much time on the computer. Which of 2011's entertaining online discoveries have helped you bond with friends, family or colleagues?
Of all the extraordinary discoveries I made online this year, perhaps the most profound happened right here at HBR. When I blogged about the social media response to Vancouver's Stanley Cup riots, it was with great sadness at seeing my very worst fears for the Internet unfolding in my own city. But the passionate, profound and deeply thoughtful conversation that unfolded in the comments thread, and that extended across the web as other bloggers, tweeters and sites tackled the same issue, put the lie to every claim that the Internet can't support meaningful conversation. People not only engaged seriously and (mostly) respectfully online, but they were actually willing to painfully and publicly reconsider their perspectives. The fact that an online conversation could support that kind of evolution in a public debate, and perhaps influence the police department's ultimate call to refrain from social media vigilantism, left me truly awed, humbled and inspired by what the Internet can achieve.
Thanks to all the readers, commenters and tweeters who continually remind me of why social media is worth working in and writing about. I look forward to hearing about the online successes that will inspire all of us to aim still higher in 2012.
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