I spent the afternoon at Mannix Marketing, my Web Designer, and now, my Facebook and social media consultants as well. I had lunch with Chris Archibee and we talked about my blog and the technological needs of the new writer, I met with Toby Dawes, the mad genius who knows how things work, and then Amberly Rendell, who told me all of the things that are right and wrong with my Facebook and other social media. It was good stuff, a lot to absorb, and it was very productive and useful for me.

Toby got my podcast up and on Itunes and showed me how to work my new digital MP3 recorder, so I cam record the podcasts from anywhere. I’d like to start using Skype to talk to some you at the end of each  podcast. I was very comfortable doing the podcast, a natural forum for  me and I want to focus sharply on content and style. Another way to tell me story. One person said I sounded like Howard Stern, that made me gulp (I don’t think so, myself.) Amberly showed me how to make my Facebook page more effective. She did a Google analytic on my website – I got 121,000 visits in the last 30 days. I love the blog and work hard on it, and it is paying off for me. More people come to the blog directly than come through Facebook, the blog is the engine that drives the enterprise. But my Facebook presence is growing rapidly and so is Pinterest and Instagram.

Kimberly talk about replies and site activity and I told her I thought the key to social media was using the new sites but not surrendering yourself to them. People are using Facebook for e-mailing and private messaging, and I don’t use it for either. Facebook is a powerful connection tool, but is also a greedy corporation selling lots of data. They are always pushing people to connect more and more, and speaking as a creative, I just can’t be on there all day answer scores of messages. I’m not judging people who do that, it would just interfere greatly with the focus and space I need in my head for writing. I can’t write well if I’m going back and forth on Facebook checking my messages or re-pinning topics and photos. I am not able to read most of the notifications or messages, there are just too many of them. I do try and keep up with the replies to topics, they are interesting and valuable for me. Sometimes I just can’t keep up.

The site also wants some monitoring, as all sorts of angry and trouble people will pop up from time to time, and I want my sites to be safe and civil and useful. I think I have chased most of the disturbed and self-righteous away, they have plenty of places to go, including Congress.  I think I am getting there, nasty people seem to drift elsewhere quickly. So do those good people who only want to see cute animal photos. There are lots of them here, but lots of other stuff too. I never want the site to bring people down, but I also live in the real world and reality sometimes intrudes. I promised to be open on the blog, and I work on that, I promised to be authentic and I am getting there. Whenever I write something I ask, “is this the truth?” And if so, I’ll write it.

The podcast feels like a big deal to me, a change. I love the style and format of it, and I have to think carefully about what I want it to be. E.B. White keeps coming to mind, but I may develop my own style, much as I love his. It will not be anything Howard Stern, I can promise you that. If you have ideas for the podcast please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]. I will get to them all eventually. I wrote yesterday that the Old World is collapsing, and today, at Mannix, I felt I was taking some big steps towards the New World. We’ll see.