Do you know about my Tumblr, Ho‘ohana Aloha?
I use Tumblr to share what I consider ‘learning links’ with you, with short bits of commentary on how I feel the article, quotation or video I’m pointing to may be interesting or relevant. It’s perfect for our ‘Ike loa kākou curation [the learning we do together]. You can subscribe for Ho‘ohana Aloha via email or RSS reading, or you can just dip in when you’ve got time for some web surfing and want to check out what’s currently on our community radar. (I keep a link to Tumblr up in the Talking Story masthead navigation). If you use Tumblr too, you can follow me on your own dashboard.
Want to take a quick look and come back?
Lengthwise, my Tumblr entries fall in between the 140-character limit of Twitter and the posts I write for Talking Story, and I strive for brevity. Tumblr has grown immensely as a platform, and there are oodles of templates people can use, but I still keep it streamlined and as simple as possible, and for the same purpose I first chose it for: Sharing my web finds with you as I find them.
A quick aside: I’ve cut back significantly on Twitter. It’s fun, but it’s usually way too distracting, and can become an alarming time sink. Whereas others have discovered ‘Ohana in Business goodness there, I honestly can’t say Twitter’s the best use of anything but my goof off yet be social time. However Tumblr’s proved to be a highly useful habit keeper.
Tumblr saves me a lot of publishing work as a Talking Story helper, and I really feel its presentation is superior as a separate channel for us. Sometimes I use it as an as-it-happens news feed: Good example in today’s breaking news, with two postings about The Eddie, and Hawaiian surfing events. My Tumblr goodies include a bookmarklet which sits on my web browser toolbar for quick posting, and an app for my iPhone. I can grab from Flickr for the occasional photo-blogging too. I used to publish blog postings on Talking Story which did the same thing (share learning links, and writing by others in our Ho‘ohana Community), but it wasn’t as timely, and required much more effort. And you know how quick and easy works: You use it more, perfecting your practice.
I do share Talking Story links on Tumblr too, so if you subscribe to both there will be a slight duplication. But I’ve stopped doing the blog syndication there automatically, to force myself to say what’s in the post with more brevity, with a different twist (because I’ve slept on it since my Talking Story programming) or strictly as a short topical preview.
So I hope you find Ho‘ohana Aloha helpful and interesting. And if you have a Tumblr, let me know! Tell us how you use yours in the comments.
From the Archives: The Tech Life of a Manager, 2010 and Beyond