First and foremost this post is a lesson to myself. This evening I had just finished writing out a nice long post on customer service and promptly knocked the battery out of my netbook and lost the whole thing. I was beyond frustrated because I have been feeling VERY guilty about not posting much on my blog recently. I was angry, very angry with myself.
I could say that there are a lot of reasons. Of course I am busy but that really isn’t an excuse. If I am going to be honest it is because I am relatively uninspired at this moment. I have lost some of my faith in the power of theatre. I spent several days last week catching up on my fellow bloggers great work this month. My Google Reader feed had hundreds of posts that I delved into. I was amazed by the in depth examination of Outrageous Fortune, intrigued by the discussions on diversity, and happy to see some really great thinking about where the arts are during these continuing troubled times.
I started several posts and maybe some day I will finish them, but I just couldn’t find the inspiration to say anything at all.
Of course while I have been quiet on the blog front, I have kept up with my Twitter-stream and been reasonably active on Facebook (partly because as part of my job I am regularly on both). There was a point last September where I failed to do even this. Let’s not even discuss my months of ignoring Linked-in, plaxo and others. Didn’t I sign up for a Tumblr account a while back?
Failed – pretty strong word. Blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. – come on are these really important? Actually they are. For almost two years these have been the tools I have used to research my field and others; to build my network; communicate with friends and peers; to share my options and theories; and most importantly to challenge my own thinking and ideas. This has been more than important it has been vital to me surviving one of the most difficult and challenging periods of my life and career. It was through social media that I created opportunities and kept my hope alive in myself, in theatre and in the arts.
So what does my silence mean? And what does it say? Is it what it says what I want to convey?
It took a lot of soul searching to realize what it meant. I don’t say I am uninspired lightly. I am very lucky at this time to be working on handful of projects. The main show that fills most of my days (and nights) is a joy; it keeps me going. The people I work with from the actors to the crew to the writers to our producer are amazing individuals who I learn from each day. They are certainly inspiring.
So why when I sit with my computer am I at a loss to say anything?
I have already said my fellow bloggers are doing fascinating work. There are a lot of great shows on the boards. There are endless news items that I have thoughts and opinions on so why and how can I say I am uninspired? Is uninspired the right word? Even I am not sure. While I am sorting it all out, I have to wonder how is my silence interpreted. I am human so I wonder. I am human so I care.
I can’t help but think that it is interpreted as I don’t have anything to say, that I don’t have opinions or that I don’t care. Perhaps folks think I am busy, perhaps they think I just gave up on the blog. More than likely folks don’t care.
Needless to say this is NOT what I want to convey. What I want to convey is how frustrated, worried, even scared I am. What I want to say is that I want to be inspired, I want to have faith the the art form that has guided me through so much — an art form that at times has left me breathless, at times has challenged my thinking and at times that has provided me with so much strength.
Well, if you are still reading I am sure you are thinking what the heck is the point of the post. “We get it Jodi. You have writer’s block. You need a bit of a pick-me-up. It happens to the best of us.” Maybe a few of you are even thinking “Don’t worry Jodi we will be there for you when you get out this slump.” (I sure hope you are).
But I am lucky. I am individual. I am my harshest critic and it is likely that I always will be. The reality is that when I start writing again, eventually folks will come back or they won’t, maybe some new folks will find me, but I am really writing for myself as much as I am writing for anyone else. Right? I hope so?
What about organizations that go silent?
I did a quick search on my own blog (it helps to do that sometimes) and I noticed I had addressed this exact issue regarding Twitter inactivity in July – it even had the same title I had given this post originally (so much for new thinking). At the time, I was following over 1000 accounts and I was trimming inactive twitter users. And trim I did. In that post I discussed the lost opportunity for building a relationship. Certainly this is a big concern. (In that post, I even called out three accounts that were shocking to me in their neglect).
Now I still follow a lot of theatres and a lot of shows on Twitter. I am a Facebook Fan of an equal amount (many of them the same). I follow Opera, Dance and Music organizations. I spend many a sleepless hour looking at the websites of these entities. So out of curiosity, I went through the 635 accounts I now follow on Twitter (I told you I had trimmed a lot) and I was shocked at how many organizations still had not tweeted in months. (There were plenty of individuals too). I was amazed because Twitter has received so much publicity and fanfare over the last 8 months. There were many organizations that had started an account and tweeted for about a week and then nothing. So I went to their websites and was shocked to find on almost every home page a link to “follow us on Twitter.” Over on Facebook were lots of fan pages with little to no information, but back on the websites the old message “become a fan on Facebook” was front and center on the home page. There were also lots of out of date websites (In this day and age? Really?).
I can’t help but think organizations or shows that are saying nothing create a huge misconception that they have NOTHING to say. Forget about the relationships that are being harmed, if you don’t have something to share how can you even start a relationship. Now I hear the folks screaming, “Jodi. we build our relationships with our work, with live and personal relationships. Social media is just a tool. A tool we can use or not use.”
Well, you are right. Social media is a tool. It is a method of delivery, and you are right, for now. But, it is slowly beginning to transcend being a tool and method of delivery, it is becoming an experience in its own right. But even this doesn’t matter!
What does matter is if you are going to ask people to enter the conversation (to follow or fan you) then you have to talk. Silence in this case is deadly. Which means, inspired or not, you have to keep up your end of the conversation.
Yes, it means that even though I am an individual, I have to keep up my end of the conversation, because even though I may be writing for myself, I am writing to have a conversation, and I owe it to myself to honor that. Just like you owe it to your organization to be active or delete the account, streamline the website if you can’t keep it up to date or at the very least don’t ask people to follow or fan an dead account!
As a footnote - I have to say there are a lot of organizations doing amazing things with social media. MANY more than those with lapsed or inactive accounts. I have written about and complemented many of them – Writer’s Theatre, Hartford Stage, Steppenwolf, MCC Theater, Denver Center Theater Company, Northlight, Rude Mechanicals, New York Theatre Workshop to name a few and that’s just the theaters. There are a lot of folks you can learn from – just follow or fan them or spend you sleepless nights on their websites!
