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Monday, April 29, 2013

To Google+ or not to Google+ that is the question


At times I can be a bit out of the loop, and as I have pointed out here in the past, scared of change and resistant to it.  Yes, I am a Gen-Xer but I am entitled to have “fuddy-duddy” ways as some of my friends point out.  Seriously, if is aint broke why fix it?

Being married to a man to who is in the IT world, and has been known to build computer things from spare parts in the garage, is at times a challenge.  It took him years, years I tell you, to really convince me to use email and the internet after I got out of college.  Now I wonder what the heck took me so long since I now spend most of my time doing something on it.  The latest hurdle, much to the amusement of my friends, is I finally turned on text messages.  Yes I have lived this long without text messaging… so sue me.

My latest frontier to fully embrace in the new tech social media world is Google+.  I know it has been out for nearly 2 years, but I am slow to jump on bandwagons.  A few months ago I signed up for my free account, joined some groups, a bunch of people friended me, but now what?  Really, I don’t know how to work this newfangled thing and I am really confused as to its purpose. Particularly why we as genealogists have embraced it so fully while many other groups have nearly shunned it.  Of course I said that about Facebook and now I don’t know how I have lived without it.  Any one want to help enlighten me?

I have read posts by James Tanner, Daniel M. Lynch, Dorie Clark, and many others.  I do admit that I need to watch Dear Myrtle's webinar on the subject.  Or the one offered by Family Tree University.  That will be added to my to-do list.

It may be that I don’t have enough time in the day to read everything, do everything, and be everything that I want to.  In that case I may need to readjust my time management skills.  I am going to give it a bit more time while I figure out how to use it more fully.  Perhaps I am overwhelmed by the number of messages I get in my inbox daily from the different groups I have joined.  There is a lot of good stuff, just once again not enough time to read and digest it all.

On that note, I would love to know what you love/hate about this new way for genealogists to connect.  Is it a tool you use all the time?  Do you have any tips for me on using it better?  Let me know your thoughts since I hate feeling a bit on the frazzled side.  I am sure there is a reason why we love it so much.

2 comments:

  1. I too am slow to jump on the bandwagon. First, there is too much I have to do --working on a 1200 person family tree for an archive--and second, I kind of wait and see how much other people like it. The Google+ circles seem friendly and useful, and I like them, but how can I keep up with Twitter and Facebook and Google+ and blog writing and webinars and blog reading and finish this family tree project?

    To me it's as much a question of quantity as quality. Our first grandchild is coming in August and I have to get to a stopping point!! So probably I'm not the best person to comment. Some great peeps spend time on Google+, that much is true . . .

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    1. You seem to have the same problem I do. People tell me that I must have tons of time to do this since I am primarily a stay at home mom. They obviously have no real idea what that means. There are days that I can barely keep up with the household chores as it is. :)

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