Realizing Connectedness

In this cyber age, connectedness means something different than it did a decade or more ago. Definitions change to fit the culture, times, and influences of the day. I've lived long enough to have multiple definitions for the word that means having part/elements logically linked together.

One definition also relates family members as connected by blood or adoption. I have always lived by that definition. Connectedness within chemical compounds or atomic distribution is also applicable. 

Links through philosophical beliefs or theories could apply. Today we also have connectedness within the cyber world.

How connected are you? How many social networks do you belong to? How many do you believe you need to belong to as a writer for a successful brand/platform/name? Or, do you think you have to be connected at all?

The rule of thumb in the business world, whether on Wall Street, in Washington D.C., or in Hollywood, declares; you’re only as important/influential as those whom you know, whom you’re connected to. All things being equal, who do you know?

Writers are told each day that platform matters to our career paths and futures. We’re advised to join networks, make connections, so that the circle of our influence continues to move ever-outward with new contacts and their networks. (I wonder if there will come a time when everyone in the world will be connected directly to every other person on the planet, if only in name.

If that were the case, would there be any influence at all for anyone? Each person would have as much backing as everyone else. Where would that leave us?

You’re probably wondering why I began this thought path. In doing Robert Brewer’s Author Platform Challenge this month, I realized this morning how much of the process I’ve already gone through and completed.

I have my networks in place, my Facebook, and Twitter accounts active and gaining members. I have my blogs, obviously. The thing I’m waiting to learn is how I can get these networks to work for me with positive changes which continue to build each week. I’d also like to know how to use the blogs for creating my own  readership, which continues to grow. Along with growing blogs, I’d like to know how to make them as enjoyable as possible and how to get them to pay me.

I’m not thinking of huge amounts of money here. I am talking about payoffs in book sales, etc. I’m hoping the appropriate tasks come along soon. I suppose the most useful piece of info for me is how to do all I need to do without using massive amounts of time in the process. Right now, time is something in short supply around here.

While I get myself all squared away here with the platform development challenge, tell me how you handle your own platform. Do you have one? If so, what is it and how long have you been building it? What are your goals for your career and do you think your platform will help you achieve those goals?

Leave me a comment. Tell about how you’re working all of this modern writing business connectedness aspect. I’m interested in knowing what others are doing with their work and how their efforts are paying off for them.

Until later,

Claudsy

Family Separation, Disconnection, and Chaos Theory

What happens when you’re suddenly contacted by someone you’ve not seen nor talked to in 26 years? Stick around and let me tell you what happened to me.

Last week when I called my father, who’s recuperating from hip surgery in a convalescent center, I got to talk to my brother who happened to be in the room at the time. He asked me if I wanted the phone number and email addy of my first cousin, Pat. I took up pencil and paper and duly wrote down the information. Color me too  shocked to object or question anything.

It seems that she’d paid a visit to Dad that day while visiting with an old classmate. She even brought along the classmate. She’d been thinking about him recently, had spoken to her friend about not being able to contact him, and this classmate happened to be in Burger King one day to discover someone who knew Dad. In that round-about way, Pat was informed of his stay at the convalescent center.

Talk about your seven degrees of separation!

The upshot was that I now had in my possession the information to make contact possible after 26 years. The oddest part of this story, I suppose, was that this cousin had been on my mind for a couple of weeks. I had no clue why I kept thinking about her, though. Couple that oddity with the fact that all of a sudden I’d been picking up friend requests from writers from Indiana for a solid week, when I had no others before that. Now you can glimpse my need to shiver a bit.

Yep, things aren’t always what they seem on the surface, unless you’re like me, and have dealt with too many coincidences in the past to take them lightly. There is no such thing as a coincidence, in my humble opinion.

I contacted Pat, who now goes by a different nickname, by email. It was short and sweet and inviting. She responded immediately and we’ve been corresponding daily since.

We’re getting reacquainted. As we all know, people change over time. Life does that to a person. I’ve learned some things about this lovely woman that I would never have expected. For instance, she loves poetry and buys books of poetry every time she finds a poet that she can click with. She's happily used her time to garden since she retired a few years ago.

These are the kinds of things that I would have known if we could have communicated over those intervening years. We’ve lost time with each other. We’ve lost our connections. As we grow older, having family contemporaries becomes more difficult.

She is one of only three cousins of my age—within a year or so—on either side of my family. That’s a really small pool to draw from, and she’s the only relative that I know left on my mother’s side of the family. That pool just got dangerously small.

Why am I talking about all of this? It has to do with recognizing how fragile connections and communication really are. It focuses one’s attention on those bits of self that have been left behind; bits that impacted other people that one never expected. And, it allows for more examples of those seven degrees of separation that Chaos Theory is always shoving down our throats.

Remember I said that Pat loves poetry. I sent her a link to some of my published poems on the Soft Whispers site. She came back to me expressing her pleasure in a specific poem and told me how much it reminded her of her favorite poet, Gwen Frostic. She told me that she used to go to Gwen’s studio each year to get any new books of poetry that had come out since the last visit.

Now I’d never heard of that poet, but I remedied that with a Google search. Though deceased now, Gwen became an instant favorite of my own, as well. Look her up and see if you can figure out why. Her books are also still available on Amazon. Somehow I can see an order in my future.

I discovered a new poet, introduced to me by a cousin long estranged, reconnected with a much forgotten past, from a place I hadn’t lived in 26 years. I think that’s a good week’s work, don’t you?

I’m just trying to figure out what I’m going to discover this week. Until I find out, take care, all, and may blessings litter you path through life.

Claudsy

Why Does It Make Us Crazy?

Those of us who live much of our day on a computer know the kind of frustration that comes with the inability to get on it and work.

This morning BJ and I were working away on our computers after putting our time in on laundry.

We had one of those “blink of an eye” power glitches” that’s so fast a person isn’t really sure if it happened. I was on me wee laptop. BJ was on her desktop. I had no problem with mine. She came up with major problems on hers.

She rebooted and knew that all was moving along, except for one thing. The monitor didn’t return to its former colorful glory. Its blank screen stared at her from across the desk, daring her to fix it. She thought it had blown its power cord and had no spare for it in the house. All the spare cords are in storage in the garage.

She turned to her laptop for solace. It came humming to life, awaiting her every whim. Her first whim was connection to the net. Alas, she was doomed to yet more frustration. Her laptop couldn’t find a server, a link, a connection, or the driving software that had been there for over 18 months. The software programs had mysteriously disappeared.

I downloaded the software from my desktop onto a flash drive. We uploaded it to her hard drive, and waited. No dice. It didn’t recognize any kind of authorization. We’d slid back behind the starting line yet again.

Speed dial still worked on my cell phone and before three rings had passed I had Best Buy on the line to enquire as to the price of a new power cord for her desktop. We could pick one up­--we had to go to the store anyway later—for a mere $15-30.

By now we were used to that slide back to square one. Sorry, there is no budget for a cord. Another doomed attempt with the laptop gained no ground for her. We sat in the living room, individually thinking through where to begin again.

A bright shining glow formed above BJ’s head. “I’ve got one more thing I can try,” she said as she rose and headed for her bedroom. Naturally I followed.

When I got there, she beamed at me. “It worked.”

I looked at the monitor and saw a colored patch in the center of the screen. “I plugged it into a different socket in the power strip,” she said with enthusiasm. “The power surge must have blown just that one socket.  It’s all better now.”

She works as I write this. Two pieces of advice from this new experience of ours:

1.      Surge protection strips can lose a single socket from a small power glitch, so try another socket before beginning to pull out your hair, and

2.      Never get between a photographer and her access to Photoshop when she’s working.

Most of us have encountered such days. Ours had a happy ending, fortunately. It didn’t cost any money—also a good thing. In all we lost nearly three hours of working time because of it. And blood pressure pills take time to work. Mine should be kicking in sometime soon. We can finally concentrate on productivity.

That’s been our day here in the North Country. I wish all of you a cool evening. We were supposed to get to 82 deg. today, but I don’t know if we’ve made it. We had a slight cool front come through this afternoon. We might make 85 deg. one day by the end of the week. It’s in the 40’s and 50’s at night. We did have a t-storm about 4 am this morning.

So, why does such an experience with our computers make us crazy? Is it the frustration of no long being the master of the machine? Is it the fear that BIG BUCKS are going to be needed to fix it? You tell me what you think it is.

Until later,

Claudsy