Raul’s 2010 in review: Social Media and Blogging (January to June)

January 2010

In early 2010, I made a conscious decision about my digital identity: I kept my professional (academic) and personal (social media/consulting) identities separate. This was an important decision as it allowed me to focus more on increasing the number of people who identified me primarily as an academic. Guided by my 2010 manifesto, I decided to try to re-integrate myself. In doing so, I sought to present the world a bit more with my academic world. I started sharing stuff on my Twitter stream that was directly associated with my academic activities, and I think it has paid off. People seem to have stopped thinking I’m *just* a blogger, for the most part, and assuming that I do the event-circuit “professionally”. I also had the pleasure of meeting Julien Smith, co-author of a best-seller with Chris Brogan (Trust Agents). Good times.

February 2010

I struggled and shed tears over my initial decision NOT to cover the Vancouver and Whistler 2010 Olympic Winter Games. I had already realized that if I was going to do justice to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, I needed to do A LOT of coverage, and I wasn’t prepared to do that. Teaching 2 completely new courses, doing 3 consulting projects, coaching 3 clients and on top of that, covering the Olympics wasn’t in the cards. But then Jose Gonzalez (then with Tourism BC) started approaching me with access to several venues, events and Olympic houses. I could not say no, at least not to Jose, who has always been kind to me. Also, representatives from the Government of British Columbia invited me to numerous events associated with the Pride House (the first time ever GLBT athletes had had a safe haven to socialize, etc. in the normally-too-straight-for-coverage Olympics – as of 2010, the only openly gay top Olympic athlete was, to the best of my knowledge, Olympic diving champion Matt Micham. I am proud to say that I think was the only mainstream blogger who covered the Pride House and associated events. I did also cover numerous Houses and other events. In hindsight, I am proud I rose to the challenge and covered what I did cover of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, even under the amount of pressure I had of my day job(s).

March 2010

2010 was the year where I decided that I wanted to further the field of social media. I became tired of the “social media snake oil” and began thinking about the areas of social media where I would focus solely. I write about food, travel, theatre, dance, arts, environment, politics and public policy, non-profits. But I don’t do projects in all those fields. My social media consulting is limited to non-profits, technology in education, and social media applications to environment and public policy. Two of my best posts to date were those where I thought in-depth about the future of friendships within social networking platforms and whether they eroded friendships and whether our collective social mind-melding was more detrimental than positive.

I became a volunteer with the Social Media Club Vancouver, as I indicated above, because I wanted to further the field. I am no longer a volunteer because my time commitments are too many, but I love this group and I will do whatever I can to help its growth. I also had to remind the eternal social media “strategists” that strategy is totally different from tactics. I was also invited by my good friend Tris Hussey to give a talk on Social Media in Politics and Public Policy at BCIT. Good times.

April 2010

I liveblogged my first wedding, that of Tanya and Barry Desrosiers. I have liveblogged MANY events, but the most important of them all has been Tanya and Barry’s wedding. Why? Because I helped them share this wonderful milestone with the world. And more importantly, because I was a part of it. My blog also turned 4 years old in April of 2010 and my party was hosted by my good friends at The Network Hub. I am already planning the big party for my blog’s fifth anniversary. I also had the opportunity to go head-to-head against Malcolm Gladwell after his F5Expo keynote and rebuke his arguments with empirical evidence (Gladwell argues that social media doesn’t cause revolutions and is rather critical of it, despite not actually using the tools). Good times. I spoke with him afterward and found out he doesn’t even know who is managing his Twitter account (he said probably his publicist). Not surprised.

May 2010

I finally did it. I finally got not only one but TWO panels accepted at Northern Voice 2010 (and I also live-blogged part of the conference). Both panels (one on social media and politics/public policy and one in social media in higher education) were well received. Thanks so much to Andrea Reimer, Ian Capstick, Tanya Twynstra, David Eaves, André Malan and Tris Hussey for being in my panels and speaking along with me. Thanks to Brian Lamb for pushing me forward to submit a proposal despite the fact that I was reluctant to pitch Northern Voice again. I participated in the first-ever Freelance Camp Vancouver (organized superbly by the team at The Network Hub: John, Minna, Yvonne, Jay and myself). I also spoke at WordCamp Victoria 2010 on blogging on WordPress for professional and personal purposes.

June 2010

June 2010 was a blur to me, in all the different ways a month can be a blur. Teaching, grading and submitting grades for 2 entirely new courses was really exhausting. But luckily, my Mom finally accepted my invite to come to Vancouver and we had a phenomenal time for a solid five weeks. We travelled, wined, dined and talked as much as we had never had a chance to do. She also got to meet many of my social media community friends. I reached the 2 year mark as the organizer of the Vancouver Blogger Meetup. I also continued to ponder about the future of social networking platforms, particularly Facebook and the constant struggle to protect our privacy.

So this is what half a year in social media looks like for me. I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what I have done in travel, arts/dance/theatre and food! But you will read those posts, eventually, I promise!

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