‘I don’t understand foursquare, I mean why would you want people knowing where you are all day?’ This is how a lot of conversations go, before that people complained about twitter and me tweeting ‘I’m on a bus’, ‘going to the gym’ or even at the doctors.’
You know what, maybe they are right and I should let them go home to their television sets and watch some more re-runs.
What do I know is that my sorry little world is slightly less sorry as a result of all this sharing. One thing people always miss is that the people doing the sharing WANT to share this garbage so it is ok. People I know in one context I now know more about, usually I knew them from one of those boring business networking groups and now I know they go parachuting, like the Egyptian section of the British Museum and they eat once a year in my favourite restaurant in Oxford – which is where they met their partner. Our connection is richer. I met Rebecca (AKA @unicorn) because she is mayor of our local underground station and it turned out we know lots of the same people.
My greatest foursquare challenge is staying mayor of @moogrill the Argentine cafe near Liverpool Street Station, people actually meet there now because silly little me checks in and @CheekyGreeky and I have an ongoing battle to oust each other. (Not that I’d take any of this seriously of course.)
So to the Super Swarm, which is what I am suppose to be writing on, my problem is that I can feel myself about to lurch off into one of those agonisingly arsy ‘isn’t social media great’ blogs that motivate me to reach for the arsenic. The thing is I am full of gush about this stuff, when I am at an event and lots of people have checked into a venue it creates a buzz, often people did not realise they knew the same people, conversations flow and where as we were all wall flowers before now at least we can talk about where we have been. So think beyond the world class thrill of getting a Super Swarm badge – think about how technology is bringing you together, we will all check in then we will leap on another social network and connect even more, or we might not.
We are bringing ourselves together because we can – everybody who is nobody can take part, for some of us it is almost a dare! I have mentioned super swarming in all corners of my sorry little world and it has sparked excited interest. At this event I am getting together a group of people that in another context would struggle to work out why they are meeting. That is where this all really works for me, getting regular people together to do regular things with no attachment, no saviours, no all about me stuff – it is all about you being more interdependent and interconnected.
Check in now on Plancast to say you are in – go there make it happen.
