Say It Ain't So

January 22, 2018 by jon manning in 2017

You can say whatever you want, whenever you want, to whoever you want.

Go look at your Facebook feed. You can say whatever you want and there is little to no recourse for saying something wrong, offensive, or polarizing. You might get some rough comments from people polarized the opposite direction as you. You might get affirmation from people who agree with you.

But either way, you can say whatever you think to be true to a community of people who have decided they want to be your friend.

Is this really so different from two thousand years ago sitting around in the local city gates or town square and talking about the politics of the day? You could say whatever you want then too.

If you walked up to the conversation and someone didn’t want to hear what you had to say, they could walk away. But I am guessing people still sat around and agreed with their counterparts and objected against the other side.

The only difference I can see today is scale. Facebook connects us to more people than before. Today we are responsible for what we say just as much as we were 2000 years ago. And the same as 2000 years ago, the guy who thinks the earth is flat was not persuaded otherwise over the campfire or the Facebook post. Nothing any of the round earth people said ever made a difference. Why would they be persuaded today?

Should you post the next opinionated Facebook post? Should you gush your opinion into the comment section of your friend’s political post? Should you really post that? Should you really?

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Getting Gremlins Wet

January 12, 2017 by jon manning in 2017

I was cruising Twitter recently and I saw one of the “internet famous” people I follow make a comment to someone else to “F… off”. This, being someone I respect, I looked into the conversation. Knowing some of the details and life experiences of the famous person. I understood why they felt the way they did. However, I was deeply saddened to see what they had done.

I was sad to see them treat someone else like this online.

I was also saddened because he “poured water on his gremlin.”

They amplified the message of the gremlin who was attacking their point of view and their stance. Any time we interact with people who are bringing a contrary drive-by commentary from the other side of a keyboard. We are “getting our gremlins wet.”

[If you are not familiar with the movie, you might consider seeing it (IMDB | Wikipedia); in short, when you get a gremlin wet, it spawns other gremlins.]

When we reply to our gremlins, we are inciting other people to interact with the message of our gremlin. We are inviting other people to see what they are saying. Especially when it is not a message we endorse, we are amplifying their message. When we interact with them, we are making them stronger.

Truly, gremlins have one goal.

Yell louder.

When we interact with them, we amplify their message.

When someone presents a contrary message to what you are presenting, you feel like you just absolutely HAVE to respond, and you are worried they are a gremlin, offer them the opportunity to take the conversation private. Taking the conversation private offers a safe place to have a healthy conversation. Gremlins do not take you up on this offer and they think they can change your opinion 140 characters at a time.

A constructive human being will take you up on your offer to take the conversation private because they generally care about you and want to have a productive dialogue on the topic.

How do you respond when someone attacks you on Facebook? How do you treat people who post about controversial topics online? Are you trying to change people’s opinions and beliefs with strongly worded posts and comments social media?

Staying Dry

–JT

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Filler

May 12, 2016 by jon manning in 2016

I was sitting on my couch wondering what to do next. So, I picked up my phone and checked twitter…nope, zero tweets behind. Popped open my email, nope, zero new emails. Popped open Clash Royale, nope, nothing to do there.

…nothing I can think of to do.

…nothing truly, needing done.

…but I am always doing something.

Literally, even when I am sitting wondering what to do next, I am doing just that. I am wondering what to do next is doing something. I will always be doing something. How well will I choose what to do? How well will I choose how to spend my time and not allow twitter, email, or Clash to choose what I do?

If I do not choose what I am doing, someone or something else will choose for me. I will be riding along on the rails of someone or something else.

I need to choose how I spend my time not let myself be told by technology or other people. I choose what fills my time and I choose to spend my time doing something that matters and adds value to me. Or I can decide to fill my time with whatever is close at hand.

Just like the food I eat. I eat what is at hand and what is easy. When all I have around me is junk food. I eat junk food. When all I have around me is quick media and cheap entertainment. I spend all my time on quick media and cheap entertainment.

How do you spend your time? When was the last time you assessed how you spend your time? Where are you choosing to spend your time? Where is someone/something else chasing for you? Who will help you use your time better?

Choosing,

–JT

Are You Not Entertained?

December 06, 2015 by jon manning in 2015

Someone recently posed the question to me, “What causes your generation to be connected to something?” Essentially, they were trying to figure out how to advertise to me. How to connect to me as a brand or a business.

How do they advertise to me? How do they sell me something? How do they become my resource for sales and purchases?

Simply put, “What do they need to do to sell to the iPhone generation?”

I was a little off put and realized, they needed to connect to me by connecting to me. They needed to tell me a story. They needed to bring me a message worth taking in. They needed to connect me to the story of their brand.

We jokingly talked about how my generation and I could so easily pick up our phone and seemingly tune out a conversation with four or five other people who are all talking.

I pointed out about how picking up our phone was not tuning out a conversation with four or five other people. It was choosing to engage in a conversation with the 300 people on the other end of our story.

While I might be connected to a conversation about the weather, the annoying neighbors, work woes, or the funny thing a pet recently did. As soon as I pick up my phone I have real peoples’ stories to join.

To read.

To watch.

To engage with.

All of a sudden the surface level conversation about the weather is trivial when compared to the content online. The content of seeing a child take their first steps on social media or the content of the guy I know going through a depression and expressing his angst. When I compare the content linking me to the family who donated all of their Christmas gifts to the needy to someone else’s work woes, I find myself more interested in the family making a difference than the same sad story about work woes.

I do not think I am justified to pick up my phone as if I have found the social trump card.

I do think I am expected to be worthwhile in conversation. When I am in a conversation I am leading, it is my job to be worthwhile content. I need to be digging into the conversation and making it worth everyone’s time sitting around the conversation we are having. Is the content I am providing in this conversation more interesting than the weather?

The weather happens to everyone, when is the next time you are going to talk about how you happened to the world around you? When you are in a conversation are you contributing something worthwhile?

Quality Content,

–JT