Do I Respect Media Snackers?

I think I do, nevertheless you would probably have to tell me if I am right on track or not. But let’s see where that reflection comes from.

Yesterday one of my fellow IBM colleagues, and good friend, Doug Meacham, received the challenge to participate on a new meme going on at the moment, initiated by Jeremiah Owyang, that discusses the recent YouTube video put together by the folks of MediaSnackers on whether knowledge workers are respecting, or not, Media Snackers, a new breed of "young people, hyperconnected to a wide assortment of digital, on-demand media. They are consumers who are no longer bound to linear media; who "snack whenever, wherever and whatever they like"".

From there onwards Doug took the challenge and brought further the new meme on to me, as I am getting to wrap the last finishing touches to move from the old job into the new one. But before I go on with my own take, I strongly encourage you all to go and read his comments on the topic and specially the fantastic commentary that followed afterwards, because it is just as good (i.e. On whether content is king or not! Plenty of food for thought in there, I tell you!)

But, anyway, let’s go and have a look on whether I respect those media snackers or not. Here is my list on what I do to show respect:

1. I, too, try to offer insights that will be of value, specially when I try to put together some thoughts on how traditional Knowledge Management is moving forward into the next generation of Knowledge Sharing, which is actually been adopted massively by those same media snackers, who eventually will be part of the knowledge workforce very soon, if not already.

2. My posting frequency is daily and I am sure that plenty of people think it is a bit too much. I must say that I have grown into the habit of posting rather often, but somehow I sense that it may slow down a bit as I get to start my new job from tomorrow onwards. On the other hand, I have also been told that people enjoy the daily blog post, so we will just have to wait and see how it goes. Any thoughts on what frequency do you enjoy the most?

3. I, too, try to keep my posts short and to the point, but I keep failing time and time again and this is something that I know I need to work on much harder. I have said this in the past. I don’t have the gift that Euan Semple has but I am trying… Seriously … (I know, this post is not a good example either!)

4. I cannot envision a blog post without a link to other snacks, like Doug says. So I tend to link quite a lot. That is the whole beauty of blogging, how you are connecting through hyperlinks different views, conversations, dialogue to enrich the original discussion and bring it into new levels of interactions.

5. One thing that does help me keep real for the media snackers is my extensive use of different various micro-blogging tools, like Twitter, Facebook status message, and various other Instant Messaging tools, i.e. Skype and Google Talk, mainly. Phew! I think I am doing all right on that one!

There are several different reasons why I started blogging over four years ago. Perhaps too many to mention them over here in this particular blog post, but one thing for sure is that for me blogging is a daily learning experience. Not only from my own blogging efforts, but also from what I get to learn from interacting with other bloggers I follow on a regular basis. However, like in everything, there is always room for improvement:

1. Definitely need to shorten my blog posts in order to bring forward the same key point. A tougher, I know, but I need to keep working on it. Only thing left to ponder about though would be the kind of impact it would have on you folks reading those short articles. What do you think? Shall I try and see if I am good enough at it? Or just stick around with how things have been running thus far?

2. I am with Doug on this one as well. Exploring new formats is something that I have been looking into for months and have got a couple of ideas here and there. Cannot say much more on the subject, but now that I have got the perfect opportunity and reasons behind it, I can say that it is coming … 😉

3. And, finally, one thing that I am hoping to continue doing over the course of time, which is basically keep feeding myself with what the media snackers are doing / saying themselves. In a way they are the ones defining how they are consuming their media / snacks, right? So participating with them from the various conversations is probably going to help out a bit. That is why I have always been very keen on following up most of what they themselves get exposed to, or are involved with. Something that I have been blogging about in the past and which I am hoping to continue further with it as time goes by.

And now, since there isn’t a meme without bringing other folks into the conversation, here I am tagging Martin Koser, John Tropea, Jack Vinson, Nancy White and Tony Karrer. (Oh, Euan, if you want to take the challenge, by all means, enlighten us, as well please 🙂 ). Let’s find out if they also respect media snackers or not…

(Here is the embedded video that originated the meme in case you would want to find out where it all comes from)

Tags: Media Snackers, MediaSnackers, Doug Meacham, Jeremiah Owyang, Meme, Metablogging, Blogging, Euan Semple, Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Google Talk, Martin Koser, John Tropea, Jack Vinson, Nancy White, Tony Karrer, Blogging 101, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Social Media, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge Workers, Workforce