I love social media. Really, I love it. I loved it when I found out there was a discussion forum dedicated to my car back in 2000. I loved it when I had been participating in that forum enough that I popped the hood of my Eagle Talon and had the engine sitting on the ground less than three hours later. And I love it now, when I’m meeting new people around the world on Twitter or through something I write here on the site (in addition to my continued automotive pursuits). As humans, we crave that interaction. Man would rather starve with a friend than eat alone.

What I’ve noticed lately, though, is that there’s a whole lot of social media dedicated to talking about social media. Maybe it’s just the circles I’m traveling in right now, but as much as I like the material I’m reading, it’s all about blogging to monetize your blog or how to use Twitter as a marketing tool. Hey, man is a social creature, but man’s got bills to pay and man wants to be loved by as many people as he can. It’s the nature of the beast, just feels disproportionate to me.

Mine?

There isn’t a doubt in my mind that there are clusters out there where people are using social media to discuss subjects other than just how to use social media. I just wonder what those of us who are so busy evangelizing each other on the brilliance of what we’re already doing could be doing to share some of our interests beyond the white hot arena of (here it is again) social media. I am here for the conversation. I want more.

The first step in effectively using all this wonderful new social media technology to do something other than talk about wonderful all this new social media technology is would be to find those fresh new voices out there in the digital community and, rather than tell them all about how wonderful social media technology is, listen to what they have to say about something else for once.  Pass the mic?

I’m going to see if I can’t find a way to immerse myself in something entirely new to me. I’ve always wanted to know how to do something other than slowly kill a bonsai tree, so I’m going to try to use what I’ve learned from (do I really need to mention it again?) to get started on the path to bonsai enlightenment. Think of it as a fresh take on green technology.

!= BANZAI!

In the glovebox:

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