Livre d'Or

I was just thinking about my methods, in part because at my new job we sat down as a team and decided "ok, e-mail for X, phone for Y, Basecamp for Z, that really stupid custom project management tool we're being forced to use for communicating with Certain Persons, text for catching our supervisor on the run, etcetera etcetera." At work it has been really helpful to delineate--we have a "communications strategy" document that we refer to on the regular.

But with friends, I'm finding, if you can't use what most of the other people in their lives are using, you lose the friend. I've tried very hard to keep up with my grad school girlfriends via e-mail and they just don't respond, because they're all talking to one another on Facebook. I only use Facebook to see pics of nieces and to help manage a page for a web site I maintain, so I only have ten "friends."

Right now:

LJ: Check in on rysmiel, occasionally post random stuff no one reads.
DW: Check in on your posts when I remember to do so. I don't post content here.
Proper Blog: has three categories I occasionally post to, but is generally a digital identity management/professionalization effort; I don't care if people read it or not. It helps with my work life, though.

Tumblr: I follow cool people. I add my walks, that's my content there. I may start doing more over there but I have trouble with the mix of content and reblogging.

Twitter: I run my personal account (random commentary with a good dose of my political opinions), and a work account (stuff from our office). I follow enough people on my personal Twitter that I have a hard time keeping up, but I do occasionally have good back-and-forths with some of my former colleagues. I like that, in part because it's usually "about" something--there's content at the root of the conversation.

Phone and text: Generally with the biological relations. But I like planned phone calls and text conversations (especially now that I have a work iPhone) and am actually quite a good conversationalist. I wish more people in my life wanted to phone with me!

Chat right now is a problem for me. The difference in time zones, coupled with the cultural expectation that I will actively use it at work (which I find incredibly distracting), is leaving me super frustrated. I feel like I could do so much better on the phone, but I'm the only person who feels that way!

The takeaway from all of this is that moving cross-country can really suck, and despite having all these methods of connection, it's pretty easy to feel like you moved to the moon. My communication patterns have to change, but I don't always find the support I need to negotiate that.