I have been on leave this week helping out at home whilst my wife recovers from an operation. It has been interesting staying in touch via the various methods i have available: blackberry email, phone, text, instant messaging, twitter, facebook, linkedin and my blog. What has been most interesting is the glimpses into peoples lives that give you just enough information to feel connected but not too much that you feel your space is being invaded by the various means by which we can all stay in contact.
It does raise a question around, how much information is considered to be useful to people and should we only share information with people in the context by which we have connected ourselves.
So for people who i have connected as friends i am happy to share a particular kind of information compared to those people who i classify as colleagues or peers. For me personally i would consider all those people i connect with a friend and if you know something i should know then i would love to think you would share it with me.
Am i supposed to be using different tools for different groups, if so that doesn’t seem to fit my life as i am finding that i use each one in different ways depending on the nature of communications not the audience or group i want to connect with. So it almost forces me to either share too much or not enough information to make my contributions valuable to others in the medium. This is why i have chosen the chinese proverb “If you don’t want anyone to know, don’t share it.” as the title of this post.
I guess for now i am going to have to learn as i go, unless someone knows the unwritten rules about this kind of stuff?
Over the last week or so, i have been thinking about the future and how i can use different tools within my council to help facilitate change and better ways of working, but i need to remember that i can do things now, and i am by starting and using this stuff myself.
Another chinese saying “yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift, that is why they call it the present”
A journey through life - Carl's Notepad 