"Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. As slaves of Christ, do the will of God with all your heart."
How many times a day do you look in on Facebook, Twitter and
LinkedIn? If you say more than a few times a day, you are not
alone. We are now seeing numbers that would look like social media sites
are becoming a large percentage of our discretionary time. I know that I
personally, check in at least three times a day to Facebook, maybe five times
on Twitter and even though less so, once a day to LinkedIn. I am not a big user
of Instagram or Pinterest (although I do stuff there) but lots of people would
say they are on these services once or more than once a day as well.
Every time we frequent these sites we are providing and leaving data that they
can turn around and use for their own revenue and growth purposes. Yes,
from even what website we leave to enter a service is tracked, as well as where
we go next. As everything gets more and more personalized, we should
imagine that our social media sites of choice will become sirens that call to
us to come to them from wherever we are on the internet. And, we should
be aware of this as we make our choices. This past week, Facebook started
making available their data to the major television networks about our
behaviors and action on their site. For Facebook this crosses the range
of activities like comments and shares that we might have about TV programs
(please no spoiling as we are in the time-shift era and you can’t assume I have
seen the last episode yet) and their prize jewel, the “Likes” to do what they
can to entice new and more TV advertisers. Facebook says (and I believe them)
that the data is collected and provided in aggregate to protect the privacy of
their users. That said, this not going to go away and this is not just
for TV. We can get and do the same with our own companies. I was
working with a small company last week who hadn’t thought of those who “liked”
a picture of their business as potential customers who can be sold to in a
tailored way, based on the subject of the picture they liked.
I write a lot about how we are to be Christ-like examples to
others with whom we work. I emphasize this because I see the power of this
every day and in every workplace I enter. We are each building a big data
set of reputation points that others are trying to figure out and apply to
their own lives. With each each action and word we leave behind a trail
and history of who we are to date. Others see that data and try and
project who they could be from who we are. If we are Christ-like, love
life and make the most of what we have been given, then they want to know how
and what they need to do to have that type of life. If we are
inconsistent, or leave trails that are muddied by bad choices, bad words, bad
actions, then they can’t make sense of what we say we are and who we really
are. Today, leave a data trail that others want to follow. If you ask God
to help you do so, and you commit to doing so, you will make a difference for the Kingdom!
Reference: Ephesian 6:6 (New Living Translation)
