With the social networks

One hour, many networks: I seeded yesterday’s declaration across my footholds in social media.  Updates to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and App.net pointed to that blog post.  I also used the old-fashioned email network to share the news.

And the response was tremendous.

Comment after comment came, starting one minute after I posted the first tweet.   They appeared on this blog, in multiple forms on Twitter (public and private updates, plus messages), in personal emails, Facebook comments and direct messages, Gchat. Expressions of support, offers of advice, questions about operations, observations about higher education and technology, and, delightfully, inquiries concerning services all roared in.  This torrent of responses offered a snapshot of social networks in operation, a glimpse of the dynamics of collaborative thought enabled by the Web.

Moreover, it was incredibly sweet.  Many thanks, my digitally mediated friends, for your kindness.  Your rapid generosity is a fine show of support, and validation.

This is a heartening sign for my new enterprise.  I’m doing this work as if the Web mattered, assuming the open Web is essential to its everyday operations.  I want BAC to be Web-first, energetically inhabiting the social media universe.

A rich, deep forest. Spotted in Maine, as I drove today to give a talk tomorrow.

I carry this experience and these thoughts today as I drove across New England, from my Vermont home to Maine’s Colby College, there to address a Maine Academic Libraries event.  I was going to speak on the power of social media for academic work, after all.  It all knits together: public speaking, multiple institutions, networks, the affordances of technology, and the help of friends.

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