Politics and Social Media

I don't do politics here.

Unless you count The Daily Decompression just above this post.  I use Utterz for that, and I'm willing to bet more times than not that it is political.  It's a passion of mine, I find uniquely important, and I want to get my view across.

I have been working towards taking my political interests and pushing them further in the social media space.  Not in the sense of pushing my political views, my candidate, my issue, etc.  Rather, the work ethic I take to my political interests.  How I started with the base idea that I don't know about a subject just because I heard a few people talk about it or I saw the NBC evening news.  (Ha ha ha...like anyone watches NBC evening news anymore!)

I learned about politics, and solidified my belief system (and still do!), by studying, reading, comparing, researching, going back in history, taking time to think about the subject, recognizing when I am in over my head and then going to experts and more research for clarification.

In learning social media, I have taken the same approach.  I know nothing, now what.  Now, without being too self-effacing, maybe I know a bit more than nothing, but there's still so much to know.  So I am studying, I am reading, comparing, researching, going back in history, taking time to think about the subject, recognizing when I am in over my head and then going experts and more research for clarification.

The beauty of this space; this wide open panorama that no one owns or controls, is that no one - I say no one - can stop the learning process.  The idea of expert is solely in the eyes of the one bestowing the accolade, not the one who self describes in that manner.  The idea of expert, on a more granular level, is the one who helps you understand your issue, helps you get to that next level, gives you that jump of excitement, can help you find your own inner confidence to move forward on whatever subject or product you are working on.

And that's why I don't (try not to is more like it) do politics here.  Social media is about a unifying message, a singular soul, that is different for each person and each group that naturally has a gravitational pull towards each other.  Yet I am not so naive to believe that politics does not exist in  social media.  Who has the most followers, who speaks at the most events, who do you want blogging about you or your company?  The politics do exist - the ones who want to be in charge, claim control, dictate norms.  

And they are in charge, do claim control and can dictate norms - if I let them.  I take that back.  If we let them.

Tony