Given the traditional guru-student relationship, how open is the yoga community to using online services for guided student practice, teacher training, inspiration?

I found myself pleasantly surprised at the number of choices available today. That said, when it comes to home-based study, many options appear limited to online ordering of traditional media (such as printed manuals and DVDs) that will be mailed to the student’s home. These are early days but we haven’t yet seen the full potential of online services and mobile devices as an aid to a guided practice, or even a yoga immersion.

Is “Distance Learning” the Right Term?

What surprised me was to find how often people use the phrase “distance learning” in conjunction with yoga. Although this phrase is used quite comfortably within academic or commercial settings, it’s disconcerting in the context of a yoga-centric learning environment.

Perhaps it’s time for the yoga community to come up with a label that doesn’t emphasize the notion of physical distance between people. Instead let’s choose a phrase that is more positive, one that embraces the convenience of online services, especially as a practical alternative for days when things get in the way of showing up for a real-world class.

I dream about the day when I can “take a class” from a favorite teacher, via a future online service. This would be an attractive and practical alternative to having to miss her studio-based class due to work or family conflicts. For those of us who travel regularly, being able to take online classes from our teachers would be a wonderful option while on the road.

If I knew I could take “make-up classes” via an online service, I’d be more comfortable about signing up for 12-week class passes. Instead I juggle classes at several local studios, based on which classes are the best fit for my schedule. I’d much prefer the option of choosing the teacher first, and then the schedule, rather than the reverse.

New Teaching Opportunities?

And wouldn’t it be nice if deserving yoga teachers could earn a decent income, assuming the future “online classroom” could create more teaching opportunities, or allow them to serve a larger number of students.

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Several weeks ago the New York Times wrote that blogging among young people was on the decline, according to research from the Pew Center’s Internet and American Life Project. Later, more thoughtful commentaries appeared, noting that blogging isn’t dead; it is just evolving.

The observation I found most pertinent is from GigaOm:

Blogging… has evolved into much more of a continuum of publishing

My experience, although far from scientific, is that blogging and tweeting have become part of a continuum of conversation. People choose the means of expression that is most comfortable, perhaps most convenient at the moment — the means that best suits what they want to say — and to whom.

With both my personal blog and my professional blog, I’ve been surprised by the number of comments that arrive via email rather than as comments posted directly in the blog. It takes an extra step or two for someone to contact me by email, rather than WordPress’ built-in comment forms. This suggests something about the person’s motivation.

The more thoughtful the comment, or the more it pertains to the writer’s specific business issues, the more likely it is to arrive in my email in-box, rather than appear as a public comment on my blog. More than once I’ve found myself encouraging the comment’s author to share it from within the blog, because I believed it would resonate with others.

I also recognize that, at times, people’s only recourse is to communicate with me via email, because the opportunity to comment on a post has expired.

Sadly, I’ve been forced to stop accepting blog comments within a month or so of posting a new entry, to avoid incessant spamming by the Eastern European link farms. Somehow I just haven’t been able to swallow the need to add a Captcha form, the automated alternative to fending off the spammers.

The fact that spammers have become so active says that there’s continuing value in blogs.

And then there was the message on 2/26 from prolific tweeter Jeremiah Owyang:

Tweet more than 20 times a day? You should blog. Pay yourself first.

No, blogging isn’t dead: it’s just part of a continuum of conversation options.

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What You See

At the bottom of each post, the LinkWithin widget displays links and thumbnails for up to 3 related stories within my blog.

You’ll see the benefits of its “intelligence” at the end of this and all other posts in this blog.

How It Works

LinkWithin chooses related stories based on their title, tags and content, according to the developer’s FAQ.

Having said that, I’ve found some of the choices to be quite amusing: it sees linkages that a human editor would never consider. Take a look at the post “Indicators of Waste Heat” as an example (LinkWithin’s results appear at the bottom).

How did LinkWithin “see” the connection between our cats’ heat-seeking behavior and a yoga retreat in Provence?

Well, it turns out the yoga retreat took place during a heat wave in southern France. There was no A/C in the yoga studio or in the 16th century hotel where we stayed. Temperatures hovered in the high 90s and above for more than a week.

LinkWithin must have detected words relating to heat in both posts, even if their subject matter is largely unrelated. Both posts were written with a somewhat wry tone, although I doubt LinkWithin could detect that subtle aspect to the content.

See what you think…

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Having said that, I’m upset that Facebook forces me to waste so much time monitoring my privacy settings and profile options. And just when I think I’ve got it under control, they go and change something.

I was shocked to learn (via the NYT) there are >50 places to toggle specific privacy settings in Facebook. I’m still overwhelmed at the complexity revealed in the May 12 New York Times’ infographic about Facebook’s privacy options. If it wasn’t obvious before, this infographic makes it clear that Facebook sides with the advertisers’ needs over those of the millions of people who entrust their personal information to Facebook pages and friendship networks.

Speaking of complexity…

And then there are the application settings, especially if you want to block unwanted apps or games that may be meaningful to your friends, but not to you. Farmville addicts with nothing better to do can clutter up your wall really quickly…

It took a few days, but I’ve finally learned how to block the unwanted posts about hungry, lost or neglected animals.

Sigh. It shouldn’t be so hard…

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Hometowns

Facebook lets you name only one hometown. Its database matching limitation raises troubling identity questions if you haven’t lived a simple life, and would like to create opportunities to reconnect with long-lost friends… What’s the smart way to answer the question of where is your hometown?

Do you answer based on where you went to high school? Or, where you attended elementary school and spent your childhood years? Where your parents now live? Where you lived when bringing up your kids? Where you hope to retire? What if you have a second home, and want to network with people who live in that community?

I answered Facebook’s hometown question in terms of where I attended high school, but no one from my family lives there any more. Factually true perhaps, but no longer emotionally valid. My parents have moved to a nearby town. My sisters and brothers are scattered across time zones; only some chose to stay in Massachusetts.

By using the high school locale as the hometown answer, perhaps I’ll hear from former high school classmates. We lost touch years ago when I moved from the East to the West Coast for job opportunities in Silicon Valley and then the Pacific Northwest.

And yes, there’s Classmates.com… When I clicked on a link within Facebook to reconnect with high school friends, it automatically enrolled me in Classmates — not my intent. In just a few days Classmates has annoyed me to death with spamming emails. I wasted an hour this weekend trying to figure out how to cancel Classmates (to no avail), so I’ve had to add Classmates’ email URLs to my ISP’s junk mail list. My husband has similar complaints.

Names

Editor’s note: Thanks to advice from my niece, this has now been solved. Under Facebook’s account settings, if you know where to look, you can enter an alternate full name that people can use for searching if they knew you by a former name.

Unless I use my maiden name, there’s no easy way for childhood friends and elementary school classmates to find me, or me them, via Facebook.

• Old friends won’t recognize me by my married name.
• My maiden and married surnames sound odd together, so I only use them in combination on official government documents. Never in real life…
• Because there’s no option for a second hometown, we won’t reconnect via shared ties to the town where we attended elementary school together.
• I now live 3000 miles away, so we won’t just happen upon each other in a shopping mall.

Unfortunately, these database constraints on Facebook’s part mean I’ll lose out on those unexpected joys of reconnecting with people I haven’t heard from in years. Which to me is half the reason why you join Facebook in the first place, isn’t it? So far the people who are reconnecting are people who’ve known me as a married woman, or extended family members… Mostly the people I already know how to reach.

Perhaps someday Facebook will add fields to the member’s profile to overcome these limitations. And add to the joys of rediscovery and reconnecting with long-lost friends.

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My office has several Macs side by side, so it was easy to work on multiple parallel tasks. When the file/program transfer process finishes, my husband will be the lucky recipient of a Mac laptop that also runs Windows 7.

Transferring Files & Programs to a New Mac

When you have hundreds of gigabytes worth of stuff on a Mac laptop, the process of transferring from one to another takes a couple hours over a Firewire cable. But it requires no supervision once the process is underway. (Hence the Facebook project as a productive use of time while transferring files.)

Every time I go through the process of transferring files and programs from an older Mac to a newer one, I’m reminded of how well Apple has simplified this process compared to what you experience when facing a similar challenge with Windows PCs. The Mac transfer is almost flawless — especially if you remember which programs (like Adobe’s Creative Suite) need to be deactivated so you don’t get into license conflict.

Getting my documents and apps installed in the Windows partition of my new MacBook Pro will take far longer than it took to set up the Mac side of this computer. Tranferring the files is no problem, but I have to reinstall all the programs, which means looking through my office files for all the license keys and typing them in with no errors. (Not an easy feat.)

Proud Owner of a MacBook Pro i7

Luckily for me the Bellevue Square Apple Store’s business consultant treats me well. He knew I was interested in the new 2010 MacBook Pro models, and kept me informed about inventory status, as he knew I wanted to see the new high-res anti-glare screen before choosing which configuration to buy. His first i7 models arrived in the store today, so he contacted me this morning to let me know he had a few in stock.

There’s a lot to like about the new MacBook Pro with Intel’s i7 processor: fast and sweet. It has all the usual Apple fit-and-finish finesse, but with superior graphics, a terrific screen, and a big boost in performance, when compared to my older laptop.

After lunch I ordered a copy of Windows 7 Professional from Amazon, and took advantage of their local delivery option (for $2 more than it would have cost to receive the software on Saturday). It arrived in time for me to begin the install before supper time.

As I write this, I’ve set up Bootcamp, partitioned the Mac, have installed Windows 7 Professional (64-bit version), and am now installing Apple’s hardware drivers for Windows. Compared to how long this process took on my older laptop, albeit with the 32-bit version of Win 7, this install is just screaming fast. It’s so fast that I keep getting distracted from this blog entry.

Real Time “Social”

But the truly fun part about today was exchanging comments and photo tags with my niece Melanie, who was closely monitoring my Facebook progress. She lives 3 time zones to the east of here, so her workday has ended and she’s relaxing in the evening while I’m still plugging away. She made sure family members are getting tagged properly in my Facebook photo albums.

No sooner did I get a photo or two uploaded, but Mel had tagged the family members whose faces appear in the photo. Except she forgot to tag her father in one of the shots. I wonder if that was a Freudian slip, or if the image appears cropped on her computer, so she didn’t see his face…

So here I am, installing Windows, and exchanging comments with family back in New England. Juggling fun, social interactions, and work all at the same time. Thanks Facebook, thanks Apple, thanks Amazon (for same-day service on Windows 7). You all made my fun day possible.

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You are the same today as you are going to be five years from now, except for two things: the people with whom you associate and the books you read.

— Source: Charles Jones, cited in Attracting Perfect Customers

What a wonderful thought. It’s an inspiration for being more mindful in 2010.

What You Choose to Read

You have lots of control over what you choose to read. Are you reading the materials that are most nourishing for what you need right now, in your personal life or to take your career where you want it to lead?

I’m a voracious reader, as my friends and family know. But do I always take enough time before diving into a book or magazine, or a blog, to consider why I’m reading this one instead of something else? If I thought about its impact 5 years hence, would I choose differently?

The People in Your Circle

I’m blessed with a terrific spouse, a wonderful circle of friends, and a large and loving family. Holiday times like this provide ample opportunities to remember such blessings, and say thanks.

But as I think about the quote from above, I’m interested in creative ways to expand my circle of friends and associates. Yes, social network tools are one path for doing that, but I prize more experiential ways to meet people, via thoughtful exchanges by phone or face-to-face.

Food for thought: Following a trade show a few months ago, my husband shared his boss’ game plan when attending events or conferences: he takes time to identify the most interesting or smartest person he encountered that day, and invite him or her to dinner or coffee. That’s an approach I’d like to put into practice in 2010. It sounds like a fabulous way to meet people who can spark whole new ideas or opportunities.

For 2010, I’m looking forward to meeting new people from whom to learn and expand my horizons, so I in turn can make a greater contribution to friends and family, clients and the larger community.

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Much of the hyperbole comes from agencies and consultants who have seized upon social media as the next wave; their motivation is self-serving, of course. Promoting their credentials as social media experts enables them to attract clients, launch new projects and grow revenues. Still more hyperbole comes from pundits seeking to grow their audience for blogs, speaking engagements, books they’ve authored, podcasts, etc. (You know who I mean.) These are all classic examples of early hype cycles.

So much of the rationale on why this matters still comes back to audience size (expressed in terms of new social media metrics that replace the old-fashioned “eyeballs” and page views of the early Internet days). Here’s a great example of this argument:

But all this attention on numbers makes it all too seductive for marketers to do the same old things in a new way. Where’s the conversation?

I Love the Concept – Now Engage in Conversation

Don’t get me wrong: I love the idea of conversational marketing between brands and customers – I just haven’t seen much evidence of it.

Outside of email or phone, I’ve not yet had a single “digital conversation” with any service provider to my business or any brand whose products I buy. Most of what I receive from vendors is predominantly email marketing (this is true in both my personal and business life).

Most of the activity I observe in the social media world today is the result of people who earn their living via social media and who actively promote it as the next new platform for marketing or company-customer-brand interaction.

Today’s Practice Is Rarely Conversational, With a Few Exceptions

In the B2B world webinars are often effective conversation starters. The Q&A that follows webinars is a good example of conversation, one that’s triggered by a digitally hosted event that’s happening in real time. But these conversations are heavily dependent on human voices engaging in dialog.

I see lots of examples on Twitter of employees talking up their company’s products or services – especially when something new is being launched. For example: You should have seen the noise in the Seattle area as the Windows 7 launch neared! It was obvious Microsoft’s PR team had initiated a concerted effort to galvanize the employees to talk up the launch. Local tweet-ups abounded…

But on a day-to-day basis Twitter is loaded with examples of self-promotional messages or personal brand building. (I have engaged in this myself.) Who really cares what I’m cooking for dinner, or that my high-tech cats know how to turn on my Mac?

When I’ve found tweets to be most useful is when someone points out a helpful resource they’ve found on Slideshare or someone’s website. This is what I call the “signpost” form of tweet… It’s rarely conversation.

The Medium Limits the Message

As for conversation, the 140-character constraint on tweets means that at best each message is a quip or a retort. Maybe it serves as a conversation starter, but I’m still looking for evidence of real conversation happening in the Twitter world.

There are a few highly talented people who’ve mastered this medium, but in general what you see on your Tweetdeck sounds more like cacophony.

Blogs Still Rule

The best examples of online conversation take place in good-old-fashioned blogs: when someone writes a provocative post, and lots of people respond with interesting commentary or alternative points of view.

Conversation occurs when someone speaks, people listen, the speaker responds, and multiple parties engage. Yes, conversation of a sort takes place when lots of people speak all at once, but it’s ineffective if no one is listening. Or if so many people are talking that they drown out each other’s voice.

Blogs are the best online vehicle I’ve seen for asynchronous online conversations. They also offer the benefit of allowing late arrivers to benefit from the conversation after it has taken place.

Late arrivers’ role is generally limited to listening because the active conversationalists have moved on… Archived webinars can perform a similar function, but are often closed to the general public or to nonpaying subscribers.

Social Networks?

I also see occasional signs of conversation within LinkedIn’s network, sometimes sparked via Q&A; more often by the conversations that take place privately when LinkedIn enables former colleagues to find each other and reconnect over email and then phone.

Plaxo seems less effective at this – perhaps because of its hybrid mission as address book updater and personal news flash publisher. (I’m finding Plaxo more and more annoying, and have had to turn it off because it causes  Outlook to crash on a daily basis.)

Facebook fans rave about the conversations they have there. Due to social media fatigue and too many other demands on my time, I haven’t yet found the time to invest in building a Facebook presence. So I don’t have enough personal experience with Facebook to comment.

Conversations with the People Who Matter

Perhaps due to our New England upbringing, my family has found more value in a “gated community” we’ve established for private conversations and memory sharing using 37Signals’ Basecamp. It has proven to be a wonderful  platform for re-uniting a distributed family and enabling very thoughtful or even tearful conversations. This has been a true cross-generational conversation – but it’s not conversational marketing, as no brands are involved. There’s no opportunity for anyone to monetize what’s taking place.

And as for my real friends: we talk in person or by phone; occasionally by email, but always as a prelude to a real-world conversation or get-together.

So, yes, call me a Baby Boomer. Even though I’ve been using computers and email for literally decades, my conversations still tend to take place “off the grid” and face to face.

But I’ll be happy to engage in a dialog with my favorite brands, once they have mastered the art of conversation.

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Nice time-saving features…

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Most businesses lack the cultures for open-minded listening and responding, and cultures tend to take a long time to change. How often have you observed a panic-stricken or repressive response inside your company to negative criticism or consumer feedback in the blogosphere?

Most companies also lack people-based scale to handle higher levels of engagement with customers, partners and others via social media.

Check out the fascinating presentation by Matt Dickman, SVP Digital Marketing, Fleishman Hillard:

The Future of Marketing — eMarketing Techniques May 2009.

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