After landing in the Middle East - in the beautiful country of Oman - some might think that my stories of adventure should be over. You know - but the mundane aspects of life sorted, find a house, get settled into the daily grind of 30 degree heat, beach, sun, sand - you know the tough stuff...
However - this week sees an exciting event in my life - with my first “guest blog”. For someone who spent the last year blogging about our world travels, and then the past few months just writing about my interest in the sports world - this was not an aim as I set out - but over the time I have been learning about the USA - I have met some fun and interesting people online.
In honor of the fact that my blog will be appearing on someone’s else’s website - I thought I would introduce you to a few of the folk I have come across - and tell you how I managed to end up with a moment of Internet infamy!!!
So - having landed in USA after our world tour was over (sniff sniff) - I found out that my sister-in-law was a big Twitter user (she is a future ‘big cheese’ in Hollywood with some great movies out and in the pipeline - follow her here). In discussion on the topic - she explained how beneficial it was to learn about stuff of interest to her. My prior knowledge (despite having signed up early - I follow everything that is ‘in’ of course) - was pretty poor - so after this introduction - I decided to do some digging of my own. (I also decided to try and chase her to 100 followers - her stated aim at that time.... sadly I was about a week after her - so 1-0 to Amanda).
Whilst my core interest was (and is) sports - what I soon found was that there is a sub-culture (probably not so ‘sub’ to be honest) of folk who use the social media options in a very prolific and effective fashion. SM experts, Marketing experts, PR experts, Spin experts - there is mileage to be made online - and I felt it was another area for my to learn about.
So - you follow the information chain - and after popping in on some bloggers my first big step was to make a few comments on other people's work. Margie Clayman was kind enough to reply to one of my posts - ending in the writing of a Blog piece (on my own site - about Social Media and Snow White - look it up!) - so I start following Margie (who writes from really charming stuff) - and watching who she was following / commenting on.
My own personal ‘7 degrees of separation’ (it’s actually a lot less online - you can now be connected to everyone in 1 go - just ask Lady Gaga or Justin Beiber) - then took me to Gini Dietrich - who was the first person to open my eyes to flat out niceness (she introduced herself with the words “you are becoming one of my favorite commenters” - I did not know what I had done - but I was chuffed that someone with such online gravitas was noticing).
And then a few short weeks later - after I again posted some glib comment on one her Spin Sucks blog pieces - Gini challenged me to write a blog for her - BOOM! - I had not expected it (you never expect the unexpected someone once said).
So there was have it - from Amanda to Margie to Gini to online superstardom (minor category). My new job, the timezone, and the less than perfect wifi connections are going to keep my blogging levels down (though I plan to continue) and my tweeting days will be dramatically reduced - but I enjoyed the journey and I hope that I will continue to build relationships online - especially now that I am a long way from past homes where the internet allows them to continue.
Why not jump in yourself - it is sure to be an adventure!!!
Thanks to anyone and everyone who has contributed (you don’t know who you are!) - if you want to read my moment of Blogging immortality - then head over to Spin Sucks website - It goes live on Tuesday.
No pics on this blog - download / upload speed is going to be a problem methinks...
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