i started blogging at the beginning of 2006. i created my "facebook" page last september, the same month i created my "linkedin" page. i now belong to four social networking sites including, "plaxo" and "last.fm".
why? well i think it was a combination of "web 2.0" curiosity, a feeling of being somewhat isolated (there are four of us in the studio), and a need to have an active and stimulating social environment. what i hadn't expected was that by being a member of these sites it would also give me a sense of stability—no matter where my friends and associates are, i can always find them "on-line".
in the "real" world, my world—my new york city world—finding social stability is pretty hard to do. friends and associates move, split-up, get divorced, get married, change jobs...phone numbers...favorite restaurants...
that didn't happen in my home town. and if it did, most of the people we knew stayed nearby. my parents and i would still see them at the grocery store, the hardware store, at temple during high holidays, at school functions, or at the town dump on saturdays. (yes, the town dump—a source of innumerable go-cart parts.)
so why am i blogging about this today? well, it occurred to me that while the internet may be addressing society's need for social stability—allowing each of us to create our own on-line community, our own home town—it's also changing the context in which i do my work.
the medium and/or environment i use to project my client's message—effectively and economically—is becoming smaller. my client's audience, more homogeneous. the tools i have at my fingertips are limited to the software i own.
to be successful, i need to move back home (metaphorically of course!).
as tip o'neill said, "all politics is local". maybe now, the same can be said for graphic design.
