Shouldn’t it pause our hearts every time we think of the power we possess, in having access to the miracle of technology, especially in the form of social media?
When was the last time voices at all levels of economic reach, from the homeless to the ultra-wealthy, had access to tools that gave us all a more equal voice?
Never.
But we’re in a world where we don’t stop for the miracle painted across the sky each day when the sun rises. Or maybe it’s living at the center of the social media bubble that makes us miss the magic.
Two days ago, you couldn’t have sold me on the idea that a social media event about public health would make me realize how grateful I should be for the tech that connects us.
Health 2.0? Storytelling and public health?
Bunch of hippies are gonna to tell me to stop eating meat, right? Shoot me in the mouth.
Oh wait, there’s gonna be beer there? Ha. Never mind. Meet you after work.
Yeah, I know, I’m a foul mouthed cynic. Before you judge me, let me tell you a little about my world. See if any of this sounds familiar.
Agents of change or agents of ego
Instead of getting into a long spiel about what I do – let’s just say to do what I do well, I must dip a gloved hand into the pool of social media.
At the deepest end of this pool you have the aforementioned power to connect to people nearby as well as across the globe, lightly dancing under your fingertips.
Then at the most shallow end you have egos the size of small planetary systems that burst when even lightly bruised by the dare of critique, even when careful, constructive or merely inquisitive.
To make matters worse these two spheres are constantly engaged in a frantic dueling fandango – the waters mix. And if you want to get to the deep end, at some point you’ll have to wade through the shallow nonsense.
Which is what makes most events on the topic of social media, digital strategy, new media a crap shoot for me.
Will I end up barely tolerating my environment, learning nothing, dodging interaction? Or will the whole evening be worth one powerful, real connection that happens almost in spite of networking?
As irony’s mockery would have it, I was having some health challenges of my own, on my way to this un-conference about public health.
I’ve had a spinal disorder for 17 years that has been increasingly difficult and painful to deal with lately. Not exactly helpful for arriving somewhere on time.
It’s amazing how far willpower can take you, through pride-crushing moments of trying to hide your tears on the street as you propel your body forward, painful step after painful step.
Fast forward to finally arriving at the event.
This shit works!
I’m in a bad mood, I’m in a lot of pain, and the only thing keeping me together is the kindness of the wonderful friend who invited me.
And from the moment we came through the doors, I thought I was on another planet. For a while I couldn’t figure out why everything seemed do different, even though everything outwardly looked about the same.
Then it hit me – these people were excited.
About…. social media? Yes.
I don’t mean to imply that most social media events I go to are awful.
Most of them are at least decent. I’m proud to say I’ve been to more than a few that were sincerely about helping people.
I’m just saying that this Fast Forward Heath event was the best one I’ve ever attended. And it was more about public health and people’s stories than it was about social media.
When it was about social media, it was about using these tools to amplify your voice in concert with others to affect real, positive change that really could change things that matter in our daily lives.
Things as simple as changing what our kids have for lunch in school, in order to break the link between childhood obesity and school lunches.
Or taking the solutions we came up with to send money for natural disasters in other parts of the world, and finding a way to apply the same process to solvable public health problems we have here in the United States.
And that’s what I think the moral to this story was for me.
Remarkable coincidences
There are many times I reminisce with my friends about how great it was when blogging was new to the world and everything about social media seemed so innovative.
The thing is?
It still is. Just not in the area where I spend most of my time.
I’m thinking maybe if I want to fall in love with social media, or for my work to have more meaning, I should hang out at the fringes for a while. See what’s happening in education, public health or social good.
But here’s my problem.
While there are still so many things about social media that ought to change, it will still only be by a remarkable set of coincidences that I even hear about events like this one on public health, that honestly changed my life.
If I’m someone with my ear to the street, surrounded by people in the know and I barely hear about the great things that are happening, how is information getting to people who don’t live online? The attention is still going mostly to the mainstream events, and the things that are going wrong.
But what we’ve begun to show is that when we gather our voices together, we can make the necessary change happen. And there’s a messy intersection where privacy issues, public health and social media meet.
What if there wasn’t a train wreck at that intersection?
The very idea of it inspires me to work towards a day when word of these events some of us attend that make us feel so right, that do so much good, are at least spoken in same volume as our outrage at what is wrong.
image: ModernDope
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Tinu Abayomi-Paul is the CEO of Leveraged Promotion and a member of Network Solutions Social web Advisory Board. Her website promotion company specializes in cost-effective reputation management and customized web visibility solutions.
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