Kamshin Consulting

Allow me today to make an unusual incursion into a foreign realm to me: the world of social media. Although I am not an expert on the matter (and do not wish to be), it is needless to say that Social Media profoundly impacts our lives. Sometimes to the point where you find yourself procrastinating on  various media instead of actually getting the job done, whatever the job is (working, studying, going out, reparing something, playing with your kids and so on).

From my own experience I see two factors in this time-eating activities: addiction and service sprawl.

Addiction

With the advent of instantaneous communication we're more and more hooked onto our devices, and we've lost the virtues of patience. Everything is immediate, the flow of information engulfs us and overwhelms us, we want to be a part of it and whatever the media is (mail, sms, twitter, facebook). We are waiting for the information to come to us and we react upon it immediately. This has two disadvantages. The first one, obviously, is that we become addicted, dependent on those media streams, just as fishes in a fishbowl are dependent on your hand to feed them and change the water. Without this food, or these feeds (pun intended) we feel deprived and tend to deperish, at least intellectually or, say, emotionally.

The second one is that with the immediate communication, we are acting like we do when we have a discussion. It is suitable with certain social media (such as twitter), but not always. This leads to hot reactions to various interactions, without weighing the actual impact of what we are saying or asserting. In certain situations, especially in corporate communication, this can lead to a loss of credibility. You often get across parties who immediately reply to a mail without taking a few minutes to read, place things in context, analyze and provide a proper, objective and argumented reply. This feels like the "shoot first, discuss after" syndrom. You can end up saying something that makes no sense and having to justify yourself afterwards. Just take the time to think about things before giving a mindless output.

To prevent the side effects of addiction, a solid time management strategy should be put in place, especially for fulfilling work requirements. I have always been bad at time management, therefore I rely on two things to get the job done and deliver :

• Long-term objectives mind map
• Short-term list(s) of tasks that require immediate attention

The long-term objectives mind map contains a list of medium-to-high priority deliverables that I wish to complete for each semester. I use four quadrants that apply to my professional role. I could put it this way:

• Projects (Long-term, major changes)
• Systems Administration (Medium-term BAU Changes) **BAU = Business As Usual
• Security, Documentation and Procedures (Whatever needs to be reviewed/documented)
• Personal Development (Self-training, Courses, Upskilling)

This provides me with a high-end view on what needs to be achieved, so that I can remain focused and consistent on the job.
The second list I use is a placeholder where I list alltogether issues which show up in production as well as ideas and/or grabs from various emails. This list evolves very quickly and integrates also tasks which are assigned to me by my manager. During the day I also tend to make notes on paper of what was solved / what needs to be looked after and the short-term list is then updated accordingly.

Besides having a solid time management strategy for your work, you also need to measure and limit the time you are spending on  social media websites. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the purpose for having an account at X/Y/Z? 
• Do I need this for work or for leasure?
• What will happen if I don't open this website for 1h? 4hrs? 1day?

Make a quick table of this. You will see how it put things in perspective.

While the above ensures you are focused and avoid the negative effects of addiction, there is still action that needs to be taken on social media service sprawl.

Social Media Service Sprawl (SMSS)

What is Social Media Service Sprawl? I define it as the endless creation of web 2.0 social media services that are focused on a single specific topic. SMSS could be schematized as one service for one purpose.

Although this can be rewarding for some people, for others who aren't able to properly focus on their work and who tend to procrastinate whenever possible, these services are a real pain in the heck. And one can truly question the utility of it. Yesterday, I have been deleting accounts on various social media sites.

I proceeded as follows:

• I made a list of all the web services I use
• I checked whether there were redundancies (i.e. Facebook vs Google+, LinkedIn vs Xing and so on)
• I checked whether they were really useful to me
• I checked all the authorized apps on my social media accounts

Upon ending this analysis, I made several choices that were meant to avoid spending time redundantly and checking endlessly websites where nothing is happening. Ask yourself questions about why you need a specific service. What added value it brings to your life, why you depend on it, if it is useful and how much time you spend on it.

Yesterday's action ended up in the deletion of half of my existing social media sites, upon the following criteria:

• Google+ (Seldom used due to redundancy with Facebook)
• Foursquare (not useful, waste of time)
• Xing (Seldom used due to redundancy with LinkedIn)
• EmpireAvenue (not useful, waste of time)

a few other accounts were also deleted. I do not mean to criticize the services above, I merely state that in my case I already had an account somewhere else that satisfied my needs regarding the service provided by the redundant website/media.

Another round of analysis will be necessary to determine the need to have 3 separate websites for photography, a page on Facebook and galleries here and there. Ultimately, one may argue whether the solution isn't deleting Facebook to get back even more time.

Social Media is OK when you are single and have plenty of time on your hands, but when you work long hours, commute, have the responsibility of a family with children and need to study and upskill yourself, the procrastination of "checking what's going on around" can quickly kill any kind of motivation and consume the very few (and very precious time) you could put at use for better purposes. Here again some rules can come in handy. I try to keep mine simple, although adherence is a very fuzzy concept for now:

1. Never sit at the PC when you get back from work and your kids are up. They are happy to see you and so should you.
2. Once the kids are sleeping and you have finally some quiet time, sit with your partner and discuss about your respective day and any other topic. There is no relationship without communication.
3.  If what you need to post isn't important/useful, don't post it. This is specifically for Facebook. There are always a bunch of friends/relatives ready to comment on anything showing up.
4. If you need to discuss something important with a friend/relative, why not give a call?
5. Keep in touch with your friends, in real life whenever possible. A face to face conversation is worth a million comments.

If you are reading this very line, you deserve a special certificate for not giving up on reading! I wish you a very nice day and I am looking forward to read your comments.

Cheers,
Max