As I write this I’m.. super sick, in bed.. nice to have the laptop here with me, wish the internet connection was better… feeling slightly out of my mind.. as a result of it…

Any who… I’m thinking about social media engagement.. It’s sorta like a stupid obvious kind of thing…  but.. that if I were to get super serious about it.. this could be a key piece in getting me where I need to go.

What is this “social media” you speak of? 

I assume that most of my readers aren’t social media people.. so it might be worth explaining a little bit about this…

Basically.. social media, as we know it today.. is mostly about online communications.. perhaps focused around twitter, blogging, podcasting.. this sorta thing.. throw in your face books and your myspaces.. youtube’s, and linked in and.. seesmic and.. many other things.  

All of these things are like communications channels.. ok, so why  is communications important?

Err.. it occurs to me that I’ll never finish this post if I keep on  this trajectory…  But communications, as any good marriage counselor will tell you, is an important element in managing relationships..  put it that way. Business, as it turns out, is all about relationships.. relationship with you peers, relationships with your customers, employers, clients, coworkers.. etc.

So engagement in social media is all about these relationships.. and so obviously enough.. it’s powerful along multiple trajectories..

Basically.. for me.. at this moment.. the idea that I should engage more.. means commenting on people’s blogs, and spending time on twitter. It’s about engaging in the conversations people are having.. and hopefully adding to those conversations.

Tales of a miscellaneous niche 

Now.. off in the land of social media.. and this might not be a totally fair statement.. I think people tend to get focused on there niche’s. You start a blog on subject X, and you engage with other bloggers who are into subject X. I mean this is the way its done.. But what I think is key for who I am, and where I come from.. is to engage along multiple vectors.

I am a “follow you’re passions fundamentalist.” I believe.. we all, to one extent or another, have various interests.. I believe in pursuing all these interests..  That the path to you’re true potential lys in the development of a “whole self,” that the goal ought to be to develop all these interests to a relatively mature and sophisticated form.. in proportion to your level of interest.

Also, I believe that innovation is a synthesis of formally disparate fields of knowledge.. another words..  the more your knowledge and skills are diversified.. the more capable you are of innovation…

This is not entirely an “anti specialization” idea.. The idea is that what is you’re area of specialization is something that you define by you’re passions..  That it is a synthesis of what would traditionally be considered disparate fields.. 

For me.. much of the blog o sphere.. and the world of podcasts.. its a way to explore my interests.. learn from people who are really smart in the various areas I’m interested in…  So I think it makes sense for me to engage along the lines of those interests…  

Matt’s Interests 

Just for the record, what is Matt Interested in?

1. Philosophy
2. Psychology
3. Politics
4. Diplomacy
5. Business Management
6. Marketing
7. Public Relations
8. Technology
9. Music Composition
10. Music Performance
11. Music Production
12. Sound Synthesis
13. Music
14. Film
15. Film making
16. Animation
17. 3D graphics
18. Special Effects
19. Directing
20. Performance Art
21. Painting
22. Graphic Design
23. Web Design
24. Web Strategy
25. Social Media Strategy
26. Photography
27. History
28. The Arts
29. Human Sexuality
30. Social Sciences
31. Poetry
32. Religion
33. Theology
34. Cultural Studies
35. Mythology
36. The Military
37. Computer Graphics
38. Human Potentiality
39. Entrepreneurship 

Well you get the idea, right? I mean the list goes on from there.. 

Miscellaneous Niche Strategery

So, roughly speaking, I describe my self as a “Media Artist:” I work with different medias.. different mediums.. from sound to video to animation to painting to whatever, right?  At the moment I seem most focused on the sound part of that.. lets go make an album… etc. But clearly I see myself in broa —

A couple days latter:

Still feeling super sick, feeling like i should just post, cause I don’t have the energy to finish up this train of thought.. lol, and I don’t know where that last sentence was going! 

I think this is kind of an ongoing theme for this blog anyway.. so..  yeah.. ok, posting..

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 at 9:52 am and is filed under Media / Arts Business, blogging, podcasting, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.