Reflection on Networking

The readings, videos, and voicethreads this week have been interesting. I am a pretty private person; I communicate with family and a few close friends a lot, but I do not feel so comfortable reaching out beyond that group to people I know only marginally. When that circle expands to the online world where "marginally" becomes exponentially smaller, I am even more reticent about sharing information. On the one hand, I find it easy to contribute a restaurant review on tripadvisor (Here's one I wrote for the Pasta Garage in Lexington, KY...if you're ever in Lexington, make the effort to have lunch there!!). I like being able to recognize an amazing chef. Sometimes, though, I find open-ended tools like Twitter off-putting. I really don't feel that everyone I know and everyone don't know will be better off if they hear my opinion about everything from immigration policy to a local music festival to World Cup soccer. ...and vice versa!  I think that the article by Lowenthal, Dunlap, and Stitson was most helpful to me...it's important to have a strong social media presence when you are competing for jobs and for your career, but you need to make choices consciously and intentionally to reflect who you are.

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