As of today, I’m leaving my role as Vision Critical’s VP of Social Media so I can spend more time with my devices.
While it’s been a delight to lead Vision Critical’s efforts on social media R&D, I’m returning to my life as an independent consultant so that I can focus on an even more demanding job: maintaining and optimizing my various devices, accounts and social media presences. Although these systems have flexibly accommodated the many hours I have put into my work at Vision Critical over the past three years, I want to be sure that when I look back at how I’ve spent my life, I’ve given my technologies the attention they deserve.
My new lifestyle
As you may be aware, our household now encompasses 7 computers, 4 iPads and 6 iPhones; simply keeping all these devices updated and synchronized is nearly a full-time job in itself. In addition, I am responsible not only for my own primary Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn accounts, but also for maintaining my ever-growing number of blogs and Facebook pages. Facebook alone requires a schedule that can accommodate the hourly breaks I need to view and reply to comments on my wall, and ensuring an adequate flow of relevant content to my other social networks takes up many of the minutes in between. This leaves only a few hours in my day, much of which is occupied by installing system patches and application updates or reviewing a newly revised Apple ToS or Facebook privacy policy.
Once I have fully updated, stabilized and automated the maintenance of all our devices and online presences, I will have more news to share about this next exciting chapter in my work on the digital frontier. For the time being, however, it is time for me to acknowledge that the work of maintaining all my work-related technologies no longer leaves time for an actual job.
It has been a great privilege to be part of Vision Critical’s innovative approach to using social media as a source of consumer insight. As that chapter closes, I feel equally privileged to be shifting my attention to the day-to-day technology maintenance that has too often been relegated to the margins of my workday.
Digital overload is no longer an obstacle to doing our work: it is the work.
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