hi all!
so The Bloom Blog is back and so am I! this time around we are gonna try something different and this first post will only be the intro. I am grown, BUT at the end of the day, I’m just a girl in a digital world tryna navigate and explore and see what works best for me. everything we do seems to be online these days, from social networking for fun and business, from clouds to soundclouds to soundclicks to iPADs (lol, I know..I said iPAD). technology grows SO fast in 2010 that I wanted to take some time, as an artist and a woman, and explore the impact it has on us and the many different ways it can be utilized. whether it’s to grow a business, promote a product, spread the word about something..FRESH, it has become integral to everything we do.
I believe it should be embraced but kept in perspective at the same time. we have to utilize but not let it dominate and dictate our lives. and women, in particular, being mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins and daughters tend to gravitate towards being the core of the family structure or at least we are expected to be. so I want to use this space to talk to my sistas about how they balance it all. we tweet, we facebook, we mindmeister, we remember the milk and the list goes on.
this will be a series that grows from week to week as there are SO many different sistas out there making technology work for them and we all use this “interweb” (I joke…) in our own ways. so this week we are starting with Sonia G. she’s a college student, an activist, a budding entrepreneur and documents her journey and what’s important to her in her blog. she answered some questions about how she applies technology and uses it to her advantage:
me: what made you decide to write a blog?
Sonia G: The blog started off as a way to just put some of my thoughts and the things that I come across somewhere. It was just for me. It eventually led to being a place where I could express my opinions about certain things that are occurring in society either political, artistically, socially, and it was something that folks wanted to read.
me: how do you budget your time between all the different social sites including your blog?
Sonia G: I’ve noticed that many sites and blogs tend to mirror each other. I see the same news, and the same pictures, and videos in multiple sites. Thus, I have my list of social sites and blogs thats feeds me everything but its not repetitive news. I budget my time by making sure i hit those sites first.
me: how much time do you spend online on average?
Sonia G: I try to squeeze an hour each day when life permits.
me: do you feel that there is one site in particular that has increased your productivity?
Sonia G: Yes. Two summers ago I interned for Applied Research Center . There I worked on their site: Racewire.org. That site in particular has increased my knowledge for the social movements that are occurring around the nation and as a result it increased my hunger to do something. It had made me a better activist.
me: do you feel that women use technology different than men?
Sonia G: That depends. In the progressive side, both men and women use technology as a means to raise community awareness. But, I have noticed that women who are artist grind more via technology because it gives them more access to wider crowds. I’ve also noticed sites that are run by women have more creativity to it , their cites cover a variety of things that always keeps me coming back and their layouts and sites designs are dope.
me: do you feel that technology has brought us closer and more personal with people or isolated us from each other?
Sonia G: Technology has definitely brought folks closer. Lets look at twitter. Through twitter I’ve become friends with folks that are across the nation, I’ve kept in touch with some of my mentors through Facebook. But yet again technology puts this cover on reality, because we tend to forget that we can actually sit down with a person and have a face to face conversation. If you ask someone ” to meet me for coffee”, they probably look at you like “people still do that, just tweet at me “. I think technology has to be used moderately, let it be a means to promote, express your projects but also stay human and aware that a real world does exist outside these social networks.
agreed. and this is only the first of our perspectives. do you agree with Sonia? disagree? leave a comment and let me know! this series will focus on my sistas in this “technosphere” but this is somewhat of a project study and you’re all invited to join in! I want to know what you think and how you make technology work for you. so I hope you’ll check back to see what’s new and how it’s being used, and continue to support women via checking for this blog!
<3, rox
