I first joined Facebook though an invitation from my
friend and colleague, who happens also to be my college classmate. Everything I did -way back when- was for a personal reason.
I first joined Facebook though an invitation from my friend and colleague,
who happens also to be my college classmate. I hoped to be able to keep in-touch with other colleagues,
wherever they might be performing all over the world, while at the same time search for other classmates
from my music school. I soon realized that Facebook was also a great way to keep my close relatives and
friends in my home country, Thailand, in the loop.
Everything I did -way back when- was for a personal reason. I uploaded photos for my family in Thailand,
as well as for those very special friends with whom I felt close enough in my heart to share my special moments.
These were the days when I had merely a few hundred "friends," what I call my Facebook days of innocence- when
there was no tagging, hiding, blocking, and more.
Soon, though, my friend list grew. Now that I was in circulation, I received friend requests from people
from the past -grad school and high school classmates, old acquaintances, long lost neighborhood friends-
almost all of whom I never dreamt of meeting again in my normal day-to-day life.
Later, I was advised by several gurus that Facebook was the most wonderful thing for my business.
-My business is singing, running a voice teaching studio, designing graphic&animation and video-making, along
with writing for and over-seeing my Websites. I took their advice and started the
La CoffeeMelodie Suite fan page.
This immediately was followed by the question, "How do I get people to join my page?"
-(Later on in Facebook, of course, we no longer "join" but "like" fan pages.) My favorite gurus told me to start
networking with folks by inviting them to be my friends. I started with looking up people living in my area and
checked out their profiles. When all seemed good I asked them to become friends, inserting a brief introduction.
I spent a lot of time day-in and day-out adding friends. Slowly and steadily, I expanded my network group.
Next came the question, "Should I let EVERYONE see EVERYTHING that I upload?"
Now, on Facebook the term "friend" doesn't mean, "A person you know well and regard with affection and trust,"
(source: Definitions of friend on the Web
) and this changed my Facebook behavior and manner. I don't think that all four thousand-some of my friends would care to
see photos of my backyard. The same thing goes with the games I play: I'm sure some people do not appreciate to see my
posts on the Mafia War game all over their newsfeeds. So, I started to make friend lists and put them into appropriate
categories. I then went into my account to set up the level of privacy appropriate to each friend category. Why?
Because it's proper, neat, and organized. And, most importantly, because I don't want to bother my friends. Of course,
I, too, want neither those activities in which I have no interest to show on my wall feed, nor to be invited four hundred
times a day to play Farm- Pet- one of those nouns ending with "ville", so I blocked those applications.
I've learned that if I take care of my privacy settings, it helps with all of my friends' activities when it comes to
interacting with me. Everything goes smoothly and in a non-irritating way.
It's very important to use Facebook well, and to its maximum benefit. Like many of you, I've linked all my social
networks from Facebook to twitter to linkedin to myspace to youtube, and to other smaller social network sites that I
have under my name. It is a way for me not to have to visit fifty-two -whatever the number- Websites to update my status
everyday. If you do this, please remember not to spam your friends' wall feeds because of the automatic updates from
network-to-network that you have.
Facebook also connected me with an old grade school friend. I didn't know her well back then, but since we have found
each other on Facebook we have developed our friendship which has grown into a beautiful relationship. This would not have
happened were it not for Facebook. She and I live on opposite sides of the country, and we both have our own families and
careers which already have kept us occupied, but we're planning a trip to meet each other.
Everything has its two-side. Take a good side of things and make it useful.
We are an American father who has lived many years in Thailand, a Thai mother who has lived many years in the United States,
and four children- the eldest born in America- who spent the first parts of their lives in Thailand and then moved to the USA.
This multiculturalism provides a unique perspective and affords each of us the opportunity to approach things from new directions.
We follow our hearts wherever they take us. We also believe in sharing. If another is enriched then so, too, are we,
for the betterment of one is the betterment of us all. We share our ideas, thoughts, knowledge and opinions with the hope
that others will find value in them, as well as in the hope that they will pay it forward to make the world a continually better place.
