Continuing my week of thanks…
I have always been amazed by the generosity of people whom I have never met beyond the electronic ties of social media. For all of its reputation for negativity and hostility, social media has always been a place where I have found people who go out of the way to help me. Three quick examples:
When I was first starting my blog, I had difficulty posting pictures (as you can see, I've gotten past that). I expressed frustration on Twitter and asked for help. Within minutes, a person I knew only from brief twitter exchanges sent me a direct message asking for details of the problem. I told her what I could, and then she asked me for my user name and password so she could look directly at the settings. Now, I was cautious, but I changed my password, and sent it to her. I didn't hear anything for some time, but later that evening I received a message telling me to check the site. She had changed the settings to allow me to post pictures and cleaned up a few other things along the way. Again, safety conscious, I recharged my password, but my blogging skills were improved that day by a person I had never met.
Last week I was preparing to go on a trip for a presentation. I had intended to use Prezi via the iPad Prezi viewer. On the night before I left, I tried to open the presentation so it would be on my iPad even if there was no wifi available (it turns out that there wasn't, so this was a good idea). However, as I tried over and over again, the app kept crashing on me. I started to panic, thinking that I was going to have to lug a laptop on a multi-destination trip. Once again I went to Twitter and cried for help (honestly I don't spend all my time on Twitter complaining). In a few minutes I received a message from an engineer from Prezi. He was monitoring Tweets of people using the term Prezi. He made a few suggestions, none of which worked, but then he asked for my user name. Going in to my account, he made some changes and fixed the problem. The Good Samaritan saved me hours of frustration and probable failure.
This morning, following the anxiety that I talked about in the last post, I started to think about what I would use for my next presentation. Thinking aloud, I posted the question on Twitter. Not five minutes later I received a reply from a gentleman with whom I had talked quite a bit. He mad a suggestion that absolutely hit the mark, we even back and forthed a few possible titles. Thanks to a Twitter friend, I have a great new direction for my work.
None of these three blessed souls gained anything through their good deeds, but my life and my work were improved by all three.
How about you? Do you have any stories of social media “good deeds in a naughty world”?
As always, I invite your comments.
Image Credit: 'Be kind, for everyone you meet is+fighting+a+harder+battle.+~Plato' http://www.flickr.com/photos/8489692@N03/4914478820 Found on flickrcc.net
Posted with Blogsy