Why not join me out here in the Webosphere?

I've had a week of total saturation in social media this week. Sometimes it gets like that, I don't know where it all came from really, but everyone was talking about it. Then of course, I did go to a seminar that was really interesting and there was another one today that I didn't go to but heard about. But I was also at a networking meeting in Stockholm where the subject didn't really need to come up, but it did, again and again.

But one thing that strikes me - everyone may be talking about it but VERY few of them are doing it. It's a shame because I don't think I have ever had such an intensive period in my life of learning new things, of insights into the way society is changing and understanding of motivation and social forces as I have since I started seriously exploring my way out into the social web. I was also one of those that said that I didn't have time, for a long time. I've been on LinkedIn since 2004, but no-one else was, so that didn't cost much time. Facebook I reserve only for family. Likewise most of my FlickR photos. But then Twitter came along and eventually I had a spare moment....That's a while ago now and my first attempt got aborted quite fast because it lacked purpose or strategy. But I have a seriously kinesthetic learning style, I can't take much in if I don't do it myself. I have to push all the buttons and try it out to see what it can be used for. I mean, just because it says "what's happening?" by the text box, doesn't mean you HAVE to write about what's happening...  does it...?

I was secretly itching to write a blog for about 4 years, embarrassing to admit that I didn't start earlier than february this year, but you might be interested to know if you haven't started "yet" that it took less than an hour to set it up, fiddle with the layout and write a post to test it. The slow bit is deciding what and why. Oh yes, and another useful factor is a speech recognition software that really works! Dragon Naturally Speaking, highly recommended.

So anyway, there is a vast amount of advice out there in the form of articles and blog posts, more that you will ever have time to read. So if you're curious, what are you waiting for? Press a few buttons, poke a few things, see what happens. And listen. Classic Web 2.0 intro advice:1)  listen, 2) contribute (comment on other people's material), then 3) create.