So here I am again, now with two blogs–Consequential Strangers and MotherU–each representing a totally different part of my life.   I’ll funnel some ideas into in one blog, some in the other, and with others, such this one, I’ll be “bipostal,” contributing to both sites.   I’ll express my thoughts and hope that they resonate somewhere in the Universe, share my expertise and hope that it helps.  But I’ve let go of the expectation.

I’m not the only bi-postal blogger out there, according to some recent stats on blogging.  Approximately half of us are working on at least our second blog, and 68% have been blogging for two years or more.  To paraphrase Oscar Wilde’s famous quote about second marriages, “Second blogs are the triumph of hope over experience.”

This blog, Consequential Strangers, grew out of three years of writing and research on the book of the same name.  It features real-life examples from the news and further explanation of concepts in the book, as well as my own ruminations on various aspects of one’s larger social life.  It satisfies my sociological/psychological self. I’ve focused on relationships for decades now, written about all sorts–parent and child, couples, siblings, extended family.  But this book took me beyond connections involving intimates.  The blog enabled me–for the first time in my writing career–to continue to explore a subject even after the book came out, something a traditional book doesn’t allow.  Admittedly, it was also a marketing tool–what book today is not launched withouth a blog?  But I’ve since realized that while a blog may pique readers’ interest, it doesn’t necessarily lead them to a book store.   So Consequential Strangers has become a place where I throw out ideas about relationships. I hope someone is listening.

My more recent blog, MotherU, is the resurrection of a website my daughter created nearly seven years ago.  For nearly a year I’d toyed with the idea of doing it. Then suddenly I had to get it up there, reincarnated as a blog, and it almost felt like it was the site’s idea, not mine.  Its focus is the mother/daughter relationship when the mother becomes a grandmother and the daughter a mother and both are members of the “motherhood union.”  Only a week old at this writing, MotherU represents a fundamental piece of who I am — the mother of a grown daughter and, to my amazement, a grandmother (not a term I accepted gracefully!).  I have always found stories and theories about mother/daughter relationships particularly interesting–the inspiration for 1001 posts.  But also, I believe there is a need for this conversation between mothers and their adult daughters.  So I plan to throw out some ideas, and we’ll see what happens….

Two blogs, two audiences, no expectations.  With an estimated 133 billion people writing blogs, and “only” 346 billion readers to go around, how can anyone have expectations?  I guess I will base my “success” on the criterion that 70% of bloggers use: my own personal satisfaction.  Believe me about that, because I’m also among the 75% that describe themselves as “sincere,” not the 16% who describe themselves as “snarky”!

Sometimes it’s hard to trace the origin of my various online connections, but I believe that Jason, who writes the Caffeinated Conversations blog, found me through the Gumption blog by Joe McCarthy.   In turn, I found Jason via Google Alerts, when he tweeted Joe’s review of CS.  What a great example of the wonderful, serendipitous, and sometime overwhelming connections we make in cyberspace!  We’re geographically and sometimes ideologically worlds apart. But somehow we manage connect.

Therefore, Jason’s question is right on target.  What is your dream?  Given this culture of continuous connection, what do you want your social future to look like?   Following Jason’s entry, in which he put forth the idea that through conversation we can change the world for the better, was Megan’s comment, in which she said,

I think if people are able to share ideas and cultivate relationships, it’s great, but really, there is no electronic substitute for talking with other human beings face to face. I have started referring to online “friends” in quotes, simply because I grew up with a different definition of what a “friend” really means.

Of course, I couldn’t help myself.   I  jumped right into their conversation, both to describe my own dream and because Megan’s need to put quotation marks around “friend” is precisely why we need new words to describe our  relationships–and not just our online contacts.  This is my comment:

Megan, a way to describe at least some of your online friends is to think of them as “consequential strangers”–people other than family and close friends. But I’ll bet that many of your online exchanges are with people you know in both contexts–on and off line.

My dream is that we stop calling online relationships “virtual” and questioning whether they’re “real.”  My dream is that we begin to appreciate and value all relationships and to think of those that matter, in small or great ways, as “meaningful,” regardless of where we meet or how deep the level of intimacy.  Our social ties span a continuum, from stranger to soulmate, but because close ties have been studied more and, until recently, talked about more, acquaintances  somehow seem unimportant.  But they’re not.

Implicit in Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech was the idea that once we all look past the outer trappings, whether skin color or status, and dare to cross traditional lines, we will be better able to appreciate our similarities and see our differences as benefits.  And every bit of research I’ve uncovered over the last three year confirms this as well: The more we “integrate” our lives will all sorts of people and all sorts of relationships, the healthier, happier, and more successful as humans we will be.

I worry about the perils of online socialization, too.  But if we’re conscious and careful–if we learn to manage our (relatively new) online lives so that we reap the benefits of having so many others to call on–the advantages will outweigh the risks.

Besides, the genie is out of the bottle:  Every day we make new connections at an unprecedented rate and volume.  We consume tens, maybe hundreds, of byte-sized morsels of “conversation”–through emails, in chat rooms and on bulletin boards, and via social media.

Perhaps this avalanche of acquaintanceships will overtake us.  Or perhaps we will look back a few years from now to realize that many of the definitions we grew up with have changed and we simply had to adapt (for better and worse) as earlier generations had when newfangled technology threatened the status quo.  Either way, we’re all standing on the same hillside.

Digital life has become a constant offering of links.  Read this, because someone you admire suggests it. Read this, because the information will help you [fill in the blank].  Read this, because it’s outrageous.  Read this for a good laugh. Read this, because it will bring a tear to your eye and rest0re your belief in humanity. I only recently have begun to give myself permission to not have to read it all.   Enticing, fascinating, and compelling though it all may be, my day simply isn’t long enough or my brain wide enough.  

The best we can do is think of ourself as gold miners–sifting through the stream, plucking out nuggets that seem to glitter, and then storing them to examine later.  It’s so time consuming, that we either give up altogether or rely on others to do the panning for us.   For example, I trust Mashable.com to keep me up to date on social media.   Which brings me back to my point of this (somewhat shorter) entry:  I will continue to try to be concise.  Except when I can’t.  Thanks for understanding.

Despite the economic gloom and doom, the honorees on this year’s 30 Under 30 list are building wildly successful ventures with the help of their peers, parents, professors, and patrons.   Why enlisting these loyal tribes of support has become so important in the start-up world — and how the smartest companies foster that same loyalty among their customers.”

The honorees are the vanguard of the Millennial Generation (those born between 1982 and 2005), and as you can read in this excerpt from Chapter 7, they were born to connect.  They intuitively know the importance of consequential strangers, and they can teach the rest of us a thing or two about collaboration and connecting across traditional boundaries.  My vote went to Pete Cashmore, the 23-year-old founder of the website Mashable.com–which provides one-stop shopping for advice about using social media, as an individual, a business, or to promote a cause.   Last year when this old dog set out to learn some new tricks, fortunately someone recommended the site, which has been an invaluable resource, praised by experts as well as newbies like me.   I didn’t know most of the honorees, but reading about them gave me hope!

Learn from people who’ve been there. It’s hard to believe but social network media dates back only a few years.  And before we had the software to allow us to be in touch with our convoys, there were internet communities and other precursors of what is now exploding on the Internet.  Here are some of the people/sites that have given me the best understanding of what it’s all about.  Start with Nancy White’s excellent blog, “How I Use Social Media.”  It’s one woman’s journey, but Nancy has been there from the beginning.   I’ve also found Pete Cashmore’s Mashable an invaluable resource for understanding what various social network sites are best for and how individuals and companies are using them.  Best of all, the site speaks to beginners as well as veterans of the net. I’d also suggest reading anything by Barry Wellman or Howard Rheingold.   They’ve both been looking at internet communities for decades; reading their papers and blogs is like getting a crash course in how we got here.  If you have any favorite people or sites, please include them in your comments.

Spend social currency not money. If you’re still uneasy about the new media, you might be tempted to hire one of the so-called experts out there–you’ll come across many of them.  Their blogs and tweets promise to teach you “how.”  And perhaps some of them can help, but it’s important to remember that no one knows “the best way” (or even the five best ways) to reach out to your people.  So why not begin by spending social energy rather than money? It might sound kind of old-school and not very flashy, but the best idea might be to just get out there yourself, find a slice of common ground, and connect–one consequential stranger a time.

So why should anyone be surprised that “older” people have found their way to–gasp!–sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.  They are using them the way they once wrote postcards or made the occasional phone call to an old army buddy.  Online venues are great for rediscovering acquaintances from the long-lost past and meeting new people as well. And unless illness or geographic isolation stops them, research shows, they’re bringing those encounters into the real world as well.

Staying connected and involved are the keys to graceful aging–and that means stepping outside our inner circles. In fact, it’s the people we don’t know so well who are more likely to…

…Introduce us to a novel activity or experience. The people closest to us know what we know and often think the way we think. Make a new acquaintance or join a new group, and it opens a new door.

…Allow us to exercise a different persona. Our loved ones can finish our sentences for us, but consequential strangers wonder who we are. With them we can be a blank slate all over again. Members of the Red Hat Society, according to its founder, “don’t have to conform to an old image or explain that they are changing certain aspects of themselves.” Try that with your partner or a really close friend!

…Remind us that we are, indeed, part of something bigger. When you’re wielding a hammer as part of a Habitat crew or schmoozing with a old fraternity brother on Facebook, you’re connected to the greater mass of humanity.