Chillin' with Facebook: Making Meaning

Egged on by several colleagues at Digital Railroad, I recently created a Facebook account. Having dabbled previously with MySpace and Second Life to little effect, I had low expectation for the amount of engagement I would have with the latest social networking craze. Boy, was I wrong.

Not only am I engaged, but I am having F-U-N! And while I certainly do not see as many of my business contacts roaming on Facebook the way we do on LinkedIn, the ones that are there are also having fun and creating opportunities to connect about issues that are of both personal interest (tastes in music, books, games, photos etc) making the interactions we have in our professional lives that much richer.

As humans it has been said we are nothing more than meaning making machines. In our warp speed transactional world where the lines between work, play and family are increasingly blurred, Facebook may very well be the 21st century's answer to help us, if not create, perhaps sustain, deeper connections with those we find empathy and with whom we wish to discover meaning.

That's progress.