Just Being True to My Blog Name

Just a warning, this is me rambling on a bit about technology and social media. No photos to share with it. I don't feel it necessary to throw in a random picture not related to what I'm talking about.

I've been making some design changes here over the past few days. Finally, I conquered making a graphic with text using Microsoft Office. PowerPoint, to be exact. I don't own any sophisticated software for graphics (and honestly find it dull to sit in front of a computer tweaking little things), nor do I edit my photos at all. Seriously. Maybe some people can tell they are untouched and I certainly can tell when a photo has been put through Photoshop. I do my best to take a great photograph from the start. I take photography very seriously, so much that I do study the light and do not shoot if I know the images are going to be too contrasty. Photography, after all, is the science of light and knowing how light works through a camera will make taking a photograph a more pleasant experience. Maybe that's just me though. Anyone else skip the editing in favor of taking a quality shot in the first place?

Another thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is the use of social media and how it relates to the way I want my life to be. I love having a blog where I can share parts of my life with whomever wants to read it and also interact with like-mined individuals. One of my goals with this blog is to meet new people who do the same activities as me. I am bad at commenting back on other people's posts and am trying to remedy that. Instead of saying to myself, "Hey, that's awesome/That's a great idea!/Sorry you are having a bad day/Etc.", I should be throwing that out there. So, if you comment here, I do try my best to get back to you by e-mail. Feel free to respond back too!

What prompted my train of thought was the recent changes to Facebook. I know I don't have to go into detail there, as I know many of my friends on that site are not happy either. I am close to getting rid of my profile because of the oversharing that they keep trying to shove onto their users. Even though I share my creative life here, I don't talk much about what is going on in other parts of my life. You won't hear about a fight I had with Chad or a friend, a bad day at work, or even a compliment someone paid to me. I won't post much about my cooking because that's not what I intend to make this blog about. I do a lot of cooking though, and could share it, but I need to have a focus here. There are plently of great cooking blogs out there so I don't feel bad about it.

So privacy is a huge factor for me. I've also found I don't need to constant updates on mundane details. That's one reason why I quit Twitter after trying it for a few months. But, on the other hand, Facebook can be a place to promote my work as well. This is one reason I'm keeping my profile up, but not logging in very often. It was interesting though that in one of my classes the professor prompted this question to us: "Have you ever purchased something from a company that you found first on Facebook? Or, do you become a fan on their site after solicitating their services/buying their products?" I honestly can say that I am only fans of businesses that I already shop at and have not purchased anything after hearing about a company on Facebook. How about you? She stated that at a technology conference she was at where they discussed this, most companies found that they didn't generate much extra business from using social media.

I may one day soon just quit them. Each day of pondering this a bit makes me convinced that if I just keep doing what I'm doing, and producing the things I dream up and sketch out, that I will get my name out there.

Don't worry, I am definately not going anywhere from here. If you made it through my rambling (sorry, late night thoughts mixed with too much coffee), feel free to share your thoughts on this topic. I will be back later in the week with some updates on projects that I have going.