2015: A Year to Share and to Connect

A few days ago, my friend and colleague Alec Couros asked, via Twitter, about people’s personal and professional goals for 2015. My personal goals are still a bit muddled (2014 was a challenging year in many ways, both for me and, to be honest, for the world in general), but professionally, I have a pretty good idea of where I’m headed:

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So I’m ending this year by getting started on those first two goals with a blog post (second in a week – must be a record or something) that will hopefully hold me accountable in some strange, don’t-let-the-Internet-down kind of way.

I’ve got two plans so far – the first is to take part in the Photo-a-day Challenge, which I’ll be doing on my newly minted Flickr account (yeah, I know, it’s empty so far), and the second is to get much involved in Twitter chats and other Twitter conversations – I share resources a lot, but I could be so much better at engaging with others. I just need to work a bit harder on believing that others care what I have to say.

Thinking about all of this sharing, I’m reminded a pretty cool quote by Eric Raymond about gift economies:

In gift cultures, social status is determined not by what you control but by what you give away.”

This idea seems to align really well with what happens on Twitter – the people I respect the most in that space are the ones who comment, who reshare, and who engage with others: who give away knowledge, insight, sometimes even just a bit of humour or support.

So…in 2015, what will you give away?