Just Full of Ideas by Cayusa

I just finished reading my social media in Government colleague’s Steve Radick’s latest blog post. As per usual, his posts trigger deep thought and a loquacious response on my end. First I would like to say I just started reading “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell. It was a gift from my mother who loves thrift store shopping and came across the book. In fact my mother has supplied me with a great deal of good reading when it comes to Government and change (thank you MOM). Her great finds and the people I speak with daily continues to shape my knowledge and opinions of Government 2.0 and where it is and where it is going. Those of you whom have heard me speak, you know I am not fond of the term/meme Government 2.0. But as it is what I apparently live my work-life balance in, I cannot escape it … but that’s another story, another post, another time.

Here is an additional point I would make (based off Steve’s post): It is not only who you know that makes the domino fall, but the right momentum to get that first push. If you do not have substantive information, poignant thought, or a new look on an old way of doing things: all the connectors in the world will expose those weaknesses faster than you can blink. With fact checking at the tip of our fingertips, it is easy to find out if you indeed are the SME or you’re just a johnny-come-lately. In terms of Government 2.0, we saw this first hand when if you watched the Presidential debates on CurrentTV where they infused twitter hashtags #current #debate08 and others to respond to the candidates and fact check statements made. In fact when searching Google for the term “debate fact check” the number one site returned appears to be a “nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters” according to their “about page”.

Of course this point of this post is not directed at Mr. Radick, its supplemental. This is just something I thought I should mention, as our digital exhaust becomes our street cred and virtual resumes its best to wear your colors on your sleeve and be who you are and not inflate who you are not. You can build your personal brand to have name recognition and thousands of contacts via social media websites.

For example, I recently went to a meeting in which the person I was meeting with had his people do research on what I can only assume was my digital exhaust from my expertise on social media. They asked me questions based on my “digital resume” and were impressed with my speaking engagements.

But none of these contacts will give you the return on investment you desire unless you deliver first. Why do you think twitter is so effective on finding out the spammers and fake accounts? I know when I get a friend request, be it twitter or facebook, I check who they are friends with, what do they tweet/talk about and what is the value of that connection to me? If a person is doing all the following and not being followed and posting jibber-jabber, we can feel confident it is something we should not waste our short-attention spans. I mean we have enough FOMO and HOLI to deal with, right?

Its not that I am an elitist or think of myself too picky. I follow a great deal of you on twitter and vice versa, compared to some of my colleagues. Why? Well because of the time of our connection I made a brief inquiry to the ROI for the both of us. So going back to the debates and election, when it came down to it, you most likely voted based on your mutual ROI between you and the candidate. For the country en masse, it was President-Elect Barack Obama.

So when you are making your connections, think about what the ROI will be for you and them? Are you just trying to get high numbers or are you more concerned with the content and message you produce?

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In an earlier post last week, I talked about suffering from the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). A colleague of mine, The Doyen of Intellipedia – the US Intelligence Community’s classified wiki, Don Burke mentioned to me that he had read my blog, but it wasn’t FOMO he was suffering from, it was HOLI: The hatred of losing information.

I have to agree with him that HOLI is a subset of FOMO. While the fear of missing out is more encompassing to to what’s going on at work, on the television, the news, on twitter, out at a social meetup, it is the hatred of losing information is a big part of that. The knowledge gained when we participate on a collaborative site, watch the news, tweet on twitter, or meet in person is astounding.

The Doyen let me know he hates to see information disappear, information lost when there was an opportunity for it to be captured. I agree. That’s the very thing that Intellipedia is doing for the Intelligence community. The knowledge of government, contractors, and other qualified users dispersed around the world being shared on a wiki that anyone can contribute.

It’s very easy to get wrapped up in wiki-markup and esoteric solutions for me. Many a night I enjoy working late as there is time for me to think and play with code. (I am sure many other code-geeks out there know what I am talking about). To me it is fun, fun to see a solution come to life that can effect massive change. Sometimes just 4 lines of code can make a big impact. Those are the time I really smile and get uber-geeky about my work. But then there are times the solution just doesn’t come, so I go to Starbucks or just have to call it a night and come back the next day or next week to it. We can’t expect to know the answer if we get too in the weeds.

Another colleague of mine who I was chatting with today online was commiserating with me about all the projects we juggle and body aches we suffer as we get older. His quote was “Our passions can easily be interpreted as Obsessions“. Even not having a significant other in my life, I know my family and friends can see this about me. My best friend asked me days in advance to go to karaoke last week, because he knew if I didn’t put it on my Google Calendar, then I would just stay in the office and work until I got hungry enough to come home.

Family matters – As you might have read from my tweets and my blog, I have been getting more involved with the church. Which connects me more with family. I feel good when I participate in church functions because my family has been with the church since before I was born and my pastor knows me not only by name, but what I do for a living and what I want to do with my career and life. I was even the first to volunteer for the Chili Cookoff we had this past Saturday and I did come in Second Place. (Dare I share my winning recipe with you all — nooooo like my votes, it will stay a secret).

Going to church and my mother coming down on the weekends gives me time to spend with my ailing grandmother and youngest brother. She’s been suffering from extremely low blood pressure among her other symptoms of her condition. She used to be able to outlift me when we would go grocery shopping. She’d grab the 50lb bag of dogfood because I have a bad back. Now its a good day when she can leave the house. Spending time with her I can see is good medicine, it lifts her spirits. Now that I could never do from my office.

My youngest brother and I have an age difference of 14yrs so much of his life growing up, I was not there. This is something I am working with him on as he has Aspergers and I learn his idiosyncracies. He doesn’t like chili or spaghetti, but he loves to cook and grill. He’s 18 and just graduated from High School, so he spent time living with me this fall and now he comes down on weekends. He is a big help around the house and I have been teaching him how to drive. I am proud to say he just did his first round-trip from Pennsylvania and back this weekend. He beat that new game on XBOX “Deadspace” in less than a day.

He’s not with me now in the house because I haven’t been able to spend much time at home as I juggle all my work responsibilities. I sat him down and told him he can come stay with me again in the future, but right now I can’t do much for him to help him get a job or education when I am not at home to help. He is scheduled to get his license soon and that should help out tremendously. Maybe then I could have a driver? I keep saying I need a personal assistant.

Anyways, back on point to this work-life balance, I know we all are trying to find it in our lives and what might work for others, does not work for all. With the openness of the web and new tools for collaboration and communication coming out every day it seems, we can’t know or share all the information. We will miss out and we will lose information. But now, we don’t have to be the only one who knows, goes, and shares. We can work together.

I hope reading my experiences let’s you know, we can’t be expected to do it all at 100%. I mean, even Barack Obama doesn’t do the dishes and Michelle Obama never slept at his DC townhome while he was a Senator. But they have identified and verbalized with each other what their priorities in life will be once they move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Obama is going to work on the Economy & hunt down Al-Qaida and Michelle is going to work on being Mom-in-Chief for the first year. (You can thank 60 Minutes for this knowledge tidbit)

My final thoughts are that time spending with loved ones is time always well spent. I think we should take a moment to remember that as the holidays come around.Be thankful for your health, your loved ones and for the passion that drives you.

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