Beyond the blog

I have been blogging for about three years now. I have had some ups and downs but have kept posting but unfortunately I have not been able to sustain the time needed to look at other blogs around.  In the meantime, a lot has happened.   I try to stay up with facebook and am barely on twitter.  Nice picture above despair.com. Well, tonight, thanks to Brian Solis I have been exposed to an entire new world out there.

Brian has created the conversation prism, a graphic display of what is happening out there and how it might be utilized.   Here is a link to a clickable version in which you can see what is actually said. Someone else explains, Each category around the “wheel” represents a different type of conversation.

Although Brian’s objective seems focused on the economic importance of understanding what is happening in the social media, there are many things he is saying to which we as Christians need to pay attention! Here are a few gems, I gleaned from some of Brian’s posts.  Bold print is my own.

From one post

Perhaps most importantly, the process of listening and observing will reveal the cultures of the very communities you may wish to engage.

This is about creating and cultivating relationships with people, online and in the real world, and these relationships are defined by mutual value and benefits.

In the social economy, relationships are the new currency.

And another

Conversations are slowly migrating away from blogs and moving to micro social networks such as Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, FriendFeed, and now, Shyftr

Furthermore, new micro networks and content aggregators are allowing for comments directly in the aggregated flow or stream, which don’t make it back to the original post. And, that’s exactly where we need innovation. New tools and services that connect those comments back to the source will help create a manageable universe where people orbit the point of origin instead of creating a series of disparate galaxies of conversations around the same idea. But, I guess that’s the evolution that we need to acknowledge, the point of origin is relative to the reader and where they discover the content, not necessarily where we publish it.

And finally

As Social Media evolves, the value of online conversations is becoming distributed and decentralized. As the host of any given conversation, it is almost impossible to expect your community to discover or congregate around your content in any one given place, especially the point of origin. It’s both the challenge and the promise of micromedia and social networks. The comments section of your blog, for example may not truly represent the community response or reaction because it may thrive across other disparate networks and communities, whether you’re aware of it or not.

Indeed, conversations are no longer relegated to blogs. Nor are they limited to any one community. Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, et al, are not only online neighborhoods (or trendy tools), but they are also forums where your contacts may choose to share their reaction and thoughts directly with you instead of immortalizing those thoughts in the comments section of your blog. Conversations are not only adding layers to the original topic, they’re also more visible and influential than ever before.

Basically, conversation is moving from a very static and slow form of conversation — the comments thread on blog posts — to a more dynamic and fast form of conversation: in to the flow in Twitter, Friendfeed, and others. I think this directionality may be like a law of the universe: conversation moves to where is most social

The best conversationalists are also the best listeners. Conversations are distributed and the tools for finding them are available and increase in functionality every week. It requires a proactive approach to find them, for they may not necessarily find you.