This will be my last post of 2012 on this site, and so it may surprise many that it won’t be about the environment per se. Instead this is going to me more focused on the “Dad” part of Enviro Dad, and more specifically how social media has proven itself time and again to be an amazing source of knowledge, for those who choose to use it that way.
While I could cite several examples to prove my point, I’ll instead stick with one that I personally experienced within the last 12 hours.
To provide context, my eldest of four children who is 10 has been experiencing a rather troublesome case of insomnia of late and my wife and I have been looking for ways to help him. He has recently been diagnosed ADHD and after resisting for some time, we decided to try him on some medication. The decision had immediate positive benefits as his focus at school drastically improved and my very bright son began to excel at school once again. However it seems with the good, also comes the bad and suddenly he was having far more trouble than usual in getting to sleep.
With only 3 bedrooms in our house and 4 children, our 3 sons share one room while our daughter has her own. I fully acknowlege that 3 boys between 8 and 10 in one room is going to make getting to sleep quickly a challenge. However when the younger twins fell asleep our eldest would still struggle for as much as an hour or two longer.
We have sought out advice from the Dr. who treats his ADHD and we have even done some online research ourselves. The use of melatonin came up in several searches, but along with it came a number of posts and articles about how the use has not been proven safe on children. There was also nothing to say it was unsafe but it only created more questions for my wife and I.
Last night, out of frustration my wife decided to ask her friends on Facebook for any tips or suggestions. As she is not a very active user of FB her Friends list is not overly large. While many of her friends are parents it was still a much smaller sample than what I had, given that I used social media as a part of my business. After seeing her post, I decided to do the same using only Facebook to start.
I posted the ask for advice around 11PM on a Sunday night – a time when not many of my almost 1,600 FB friends are online so I didn’t expect much. However what came next – and over the next 10 hours has simply been amazing.
Right off the bat comments and suggestions started flowing in. While some were meant as tongue-in-cheek, many others were sincere and genuine. Before midnight we had hit close to 20 comments. By the time I went to bed about 30 minutes later we had hit two dozen. When I turned on the computer this morning around 9AM the comment list had gone over 40. In addition I had six private messages from those who either didn’t want to share publicly or had more to say than a public comment should permit.
What was even more impressive was how diverse, and well thought out the comments were. We had many comment on the use of melatonin with the vast majority sharing postive experiences, but at the same time we had a huge sampling of other advice as well. I’m quite certain that even if I’d try to search online for hours myself I wouldn’t have come up with the scope and breadth of advice that was offered to me by those I’ve chosen to connect with through social media – and who were more than willing to share what they could offer.
As I look back at 2012 at the role social media has played in my life, I see the continuation of a transformation of not only communication, but marketing and even research. Those of you that I have chosen to connect with (and those who have chosen to connect with me) form the basis of a resource pool more powerful than I think many of us realize. When used as an engagement tool more so than a broadcast mechanism, there is an ability to tap into knowledge, wisdom, connections and general support that likely could never be monetized appropriately.
This site could not exist without social media, nor could many of the elements of my professional, and even personal life that I value. My suggestion to others who perhaps have either used their social media sphere ineffectively or incorrectly would be to reasses what you have established and determine how you can make better use of an astronomically powerful tool.
I was blown away by how fast and how willing the social media community stepped up to answer my questions when I asked, and if we all chose to engage versus broadcast the same way, it becomes staggering really what we might be able to achieve.
To all my subscribers, readers, fans and those who just happen by this site once in awhile please accept my sincerest thanks for your ongoing interest and I wish each of you a happy, healthy and sustainably prosperous New Year!
Hello Eric! I admire the work you put into this blog and the purpose behind it. It,s like a burst of fresh air compared to all of that useless chatter we hear about on certain other blogs (where they obviously don’t know what they’re talking about…). But I was wondering… these blogs that you right, where do you get the information exactly? Do you base your articles on past reports or have you found the information? And if so, how did you find it? I mean, some of these reports are not necessarily handed to the whole of the population… Again, I admire your work, and keep doing what you are doing, because it is truly something worth-while and amazing.
Hi Alyssa – thanks for your comments and kind feedback.
Sourcing out information for a post in my case comes from a variety of sources. Some of it, such as my Test Drives come from personal experience as I drive everything I review. Product or destination reviews only happen if I visit the destination or sample the product. I’ll receive offers to try products or write about certain subjects from P.R. firms looking for opportunities on behalf of clients. As a journalist I also have access to sources of news through Press Releases and being on the media lists of many firms. But at the same time, a lot of the information I base my posts upon come from simply doing my own research. The News tab on Google is a great resource for example.
If you are asking this in order to find ideas for your own blog, there really isn’t a single right answer per se. Instead over time, and through research, hard work and evolving opportunities you’ll have a variety of options to source ideas and information from. Good luck and thanks again!