Facebook has opened my eyes

Have you been on Facebook? If you are a person of a certain age (which I am!) you would think that Facebook (www.facebook.com) is just for the youngsters amongst us. I went on it - with some nudging of Melissa who heads up our student efforts and has created a network online for all our students attending our Annual Meeting. Anyway, I went on and started playing around...not quite sure what I was doing.

I have been on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) for a few years now - so I "get" the premise of social networking.

What I didn't get - was how HUGE Facebook was and what a powerful tool it was to help ease communication with friends, family and colleagues. I now have a Facebook account that I visit once or twice a day to see what's going with my Friends. And when I say Friends, it's not cyber friends (people whom I've never met). They are my friends that I don't get to see enough because of time limitations 0r the fact that we live in different cities, they are my neices and nephews who live in a different state - I stay connected with them in a whole new way which is priceless, and they are my colleagues folks I see everyday but for which our relationships are different now that we are "connected" in this new way.

Here's a prime example of the power of Facebook. After I created my site I became Friends with my colleagues who were on Facebook - not really believing that I knew anyone else who would use Facebook. I was wrong. Within 5 days I had found an old friend of mine from college - after 15 years - can you believe that?!!! Because we're in different states than each other it's not likely that we would have just bumped into each other. This ability to cyber connect is priceless!

PCMA has brought forward a business networking site for the Annual Meeting called PCMA Connect. PCMA Connect works very similarly to these other social networking sites - but it's a place to connect more for business connections than personal. But one thing is for sure - if you use the site for it's intended purpose the personal is bound to come because I believe it's just simply impossible to not personally connect with someone with whom you have something in common with - business or otherwise.

The power of these sites to bring you to a mass of people is something that you shouldn't ignore. My advice to anyone that's a little curious about any of these social networking sites is to try it - you never know who you'll find.

-Christine M.