How do you define the collaborative potential in social media?

Krater

Guest Post

by Kerry LeVasseur of LeVasseurCreative and MyLifesDesign

(Kerry is President/CEO of LeVasseur Creative and MyLifesDesign. You can follow her on Twitter @mylifesdesign. The following post developed out of an exchange after reading her call to collaborative action on her web site.)  

I have been involved in Internet Technology for a long time. I started when I chose a related field, Imaging and Digital Art, as my BA at UMBC. Then I continued after graduation, getting a Web Design position as my first job. Following that I took a position at Lockheed Martin where I was a member of a very talented and collaborative team that built web applications using open source technology.

All of these experiences have shaped my views on collaboration and technology, and more specifically how I define the collaborative potential in social media. Over the years, I always scanned the web for interesting emerging technologies, and enjoyed following my friends on their blogs, on MySpace, and on Facebook. However it was not until this July, when I found Twitter.com, that I took an active role and began participating in online social networks.

The person who followed me on Twitter and made me realize its potential was jewelry artist @miriamdgrafer. I saw how she was using Twitter to promote herself and to make friends. She was doing this while she made jewelry and ran her business from a boat she lived on with her husband for half the year. I found her bio very interesting, and ideas about how I could use Twitter and other social networking tools began to grow. 

I turned a business I “soft launched” years ago, MyLifesDesign.com, into the real thing after being inspired by a woman who I don’t even know. And I was propelled forward by the kindness of other business owners, from artisans, soap makers, and “hand-made” style crafters, to gallery owners, business networkers, and bloggers. I have also launched LeVasseurCreative.com as a way to begin my business, while I work on building the MyLifesDesign.com site.

So back to your original question, how do I define the collaborative potential in social media? I believe that social media by its very nature is collaborative. From the people who join each other on MySpace and post comments to each other’s pages, the bloggers who post about what they know and love, to the most concentrated form of interaction that I have found, Twitter.com. It is all collaborative, because people are talking to each other using the social media venues, and sharing their ideas or bits of their day. It is all relevant to someone, and the people who use it best are those who inspire others, even if it is just one person.

I see the next step in social media being how it is organized, from the networks of friends on MySpace, to the networks of business people on LinkedIn. There is a huge potential here not only for collaboration via social media, but also for people to organize with others to create positive change in their communities. I see collaborative online social spaces, like Twitter.com, providing a venue for people who share common goals to come together. They can follow each other, and set up volunteer activities out in the physical community, as well as setting up knowledge sharing activities both in the physical world as well as online.

These are exciting times, and I am happy to witness what can happen, and to play a positive role where I can.