Thursday, December 3, 2009

Technology versus Susan Meier

Reprinted from Harlequin Romance Authors' Blog on eHarlequin.com...

Susan Meier Versus Technology...

And technology is winning!

For those of you who were at the HR authors blog on Friday, you realize that I also posted then. Why? The Google Calendar we use to keep track of the Harlequin Romance authors blogging each month seems to be having weird hissy fits. I've been deleted and added back in on dates that I SWEAR I have not chosen. I've dropped off dates I've chosen and magically reappeared only to disappear again.

They tell me (they being my more technologically savvy kids) that this is my fault. I am doing something wrong. Really? There's a secret handshake? LOL

Nope, the kids reply...You're clearly missing a step, not clicking an icon or hitting save or walking around your desk three times while chanting nursery rhymes.

To fix this, since I'm embarrassed that it's always me who seems to have trouble on Google, I volunteered to do the calendar manually.

Problem solved.

Yeah. Until I decided this week that it was time to become active on Facebook and to join Twitter. Only one hour into my Twitter experience I had the distinct feeling I was David going against Goliath...with no sling shot.

I filled out the form and quickly discovered I couldn't call myself Susan Meier. Someone else had taken my name. Okay. I get it. Susan Meier is kind of a common name. So I called myself Susan Meier 1 and everything was peachy. Except when I announced to friends to find me on Twitter...and I wasn't there.

Four days later, I still don't come up in a people search. You can find me by going directly to http://twitter.com/susanmeier1 but you can't search for me. I'm not hiding...At least not deliberately. I'm simply not coming up in searches and no one seems to be able to figure out why. But don't worry, I've contacted customer support. I'm #367,845. They should be getting to me in the year 2048.

Still, I persevered. I can do the HR Author blog calendar manually. Not a big deal. I also don't mind the little glitch in Twitter. I'm sending everyone I know my addy to avoid the evil search. I needed to blog and to be on Facebook and Twitter so I could announce that my new ezine was coming out...Just as soon as I wrote it.

I have a really neat system for writing my ezine. I use blogspot. I can write it, edit it and even publish it myself without having to bother my web designer -- who is a lovely person and would help me in a minute...but I'm determined to conquer this Internet thing!

Anyway, I wrote the Intro, found a great lesson from one of my online workshops to use as a writing tip (it's a mini-goal-setting seminar, great for people wanting to set 2010 New Years Resolutions). I wrote a cat tail, reminded people of all the things they missed by not popping onto my website in the past 3 months... and published it. Bingo. Perfection.

Sort of.

I realized I had offered people the option of subscribing to the ezine, but didn't have a system for delivery. No problem. I would capture their email addresses and put them in a group and send them all a notice containing the blog addy to find the ezine. Piece of cake.

Not really.

I had more subscribers than I'd thought and my little "capture" and create a group project took hours. But that was okay. I'm not averse to a little hard work. LOL Even if it does mean I'll be hunched over for the next forty days.

I sent the email announcing that the ezine was "up" and then discovered I'd forgotten to put an excerpt from THE MAGIC OF A FAMILY CHRISTMAS in the ezine. Duh! That was sort of the point of the ezine. To let people know about the new book! Duh! Double Duh!

Suddenly Twitter wasn't looking like the cause of my Internet problems anymore and maybe Google's calendar wasn't half-baked.

Could the problem really be me?

Maybe...Well, yes.

The whole dang problem with Social Networking is that it changes overnight. Just when I master one thing there's a new thing on the horizon. And I want it all. I love being in touch. I adore helping people with writing tips! I want to brag about my cat, tell people stories about my heroic son, whine a little about my weight and in general enjoy every darned person I can find.

So it's me. My love of communication will always have me wanting to be on the cutting edge even before I know how to get there!

susan
THE MAGIC OF A FAMILY CHRISTMAS

2 comments:

Kath said...

I've had that happen to me. Sometimes I forget which username I used or ...the system won't let me use my common one...and I have to use Kathryneo1...oh!

And now I see I am using my pen name. Ok.

Susan said...

I actually had to create a list of passwords. Pundits say you shouldn't reuse your password, but everyting (including RWA online groups) requires a pass word...so I knew I'd never remember them all and I had to create a list!

It's actually kind of funny.

susan