Can you believe that a little ole picture taker app was sold for one billion dollars (I don’t even know how many zeros that really is) last week? And to think that I had no idea the value of that little picture taker and was using it just to make pretty pictures with my phone.
One of the words that will completely sum up my life raising a teenager has to be growth. To be perfectly honest, my degree is in computers, but without a teenage son, I wouldn’t have any idea what social media nor modern technology really is, nor the real impact that it can have on your life. There are times in life when you learn to simply say “I WAS WRONG” and this is apparently one of those times. You see, I was not going to let my son have a Facebook page nor ever get anywhere near any social media…in my humble opinion, it was EVIL. As with most things in life, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch and despite the fact that there are still things that go on in the social media world that are unhealthy, my perspective has completely changed over the last 6 to 7 years. Without it, I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of meeting all of my new friends nor reconnecting with so many of my old ones. I wouldn’t have gone to Ecuador last year…I wouldn’t be living in the house that I live in now…I wouldn’t have traveled to several cities across the US with some of you teaching and sharing photography…I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to photograph some of the most incredible people in some of the most beautiful locations and I wouldn’t be putting together this blog post right now.
What does this have to do with the little picture taker app? Here’s a true confession…I downloaded that app because one of you told me about it, but all I thought it did was make my phone pictures pretty to post on fb or twitter. As with most things cool and techy, I was a little late to the party and by late I mean like showing up last week when it sold for a billion dollars. I decided that there most be more to it and I took a closer look at it. Well that, and one of my friends saying ‘Hey, I am trying to follow you on Instragram and I can’t find you”…you can’t find me because I just use it to take pretty pictures…I don’t know what the heck I am doing.
What I love about learning is that I can quickly get myself up to speed or at least half speed, and maybe no one ever really noticed that I was crawling along and barely getting by. So I am hitting the ground running now with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest and even Draw Something. It’s apparent that neither real skills nor talent are necessary for any of them, but rest assured that I am always coachable and a continued work in progress.
If you want to crawl along with me, please follow me on Facebook (Tricia Lee Hinson Whitmer), Twitter (@TriciaLee), Instagram (tricialee), Pinterest, (tricialee), and Draw Something (@tricialeephoto). I need a cheat sheet just to keep up with all of the Usernames and Passwords or maybe I just need a social media intervention, but hey I am not taking my self too seriously and giggling my way through it one little app at a time.
Happy Monday!
ENJOY!!!
