Bridging the Communication Divide with Blogging, an interview with Vicky Hennegan of Remarkable Parents

July 25th, 2008 mlovings Posted in Blogger Interviews, Educating Our Kids, Moms and the Internet, Social Media Technology, Technology and Relationships | 9 Comments »

It’s been a while since our last parent interview – so hello everyone! Hopefully everyone is enjoying the summer and finding some time (and extra gas change) to enjoy some time off with their families. Before you skip off to enjoy another weekend, I’m extremely pleased to introduce the following interview with Vicky Hennegan of Remarkable Parents.

Vicky definitely provides some food for thought as to why “blogging” and other new Web technologies are helping to form new bonds between parents and their children in a manner that touches people today and in the future. Even if you know a lot about technology, take a moment to read Vicky’s comments because there will be a parent out there you’ll want to share this with. Thank you, Vicky.

MacKenzie:  You say on your site that the internet is the great equalizer between generations. Can you expand on this and give an example where you’ve personally experienced this happening?

Vicky: My 18 year old daughter Kay will be heading off to college in the fall.  Like every parent my feelings are somewhat conflicted.  I want her to discover who she is as a young adult and to experience life on her own.  I am worried that now that she’s 18, she may feel that it’s a failure of her new found adulthood to come to me with her problems.

Keeping in touch with her while she’s hundreds of miles away is one of our family’s upcoming challenges.  I’m not a helicopter parent (one who hovers closely overhead), I don’t expect nor do I want to hamper her experience of being on her own person.  I just want to be in the loop, have an idea of what and how she is doing, and know that she’s safe.

A few friends who’ve children have gone off to college have prepared me that that college students don’t devote a lot of time to keeping in touch.  I know she has good intentions to  keep in touch, but realisticly I should be prepared to feel left out.  To bridge this communication divide we have been talking about ways we can keep in touch.  We don’t plan on using only the telephone, we also plan on using IM (instant messaging), Email, Twitter, Facebook, and Skype.   Kay already uses these technologies and so do I.  This will make keeping in touch so much easier. As you can see in the print screens below, you can send extremely short updates and messages, which is very convenient.  I have included some examples so you can see a little of what I mean and a short definition.

• IM – Instant Messaging   This is realtime text communication that takes place between two or more people through their computers over the internet.
• Email   The ability to send, receive, and store written messages in an electronic format within a software application.
• Twitter   A free social networking application that allows users to create updates that can be up to 140 characters and they are sent to the timeline of the friends that have ‘followed’.

• Facebook   A free social networking application that allows user to join networks based on interests, city or location, or other criteria where people socially interact with others.  They can also email and invite friends that will then have access to their profile, status updates, and whatever else that is public is on that individuals Facebook page.

• Skype   Software that allows ujsers to make free telephone calls over the internet between 2 Skype users on the computer.  Video telephone calls are also available if the participants have web cameras.

 
It’s really fairly simple and easy to get started with these web-based applications. One of the goals of Remarkable Parents is to introduce our readers to new technology and demonstrate how they can use this technology to effectively communicate, be more productive, and use their time more efficiently. 

People are already using these same technologies for communicating with their familys, in their career, and to stay in touch with friends & extended family.  The concept of using the same technology for multiple functions in our lives is one of the most effective uses of technology.  When you are already familiar with how to use the application it isn’t hard to apply small changes for different situations, this is the type of win-win-win scenario that we like to demonstrate to our readers!

MacKenzie:  What is the most incredible or satisfying aspect of writing or managing your own blog?

Vicky: The most satisfying aspect of the web site is having planned the overall vision of the site for so long and seeing that vision implemented.  When the first article Who Taught My Kid That Four Letter Word? was published, along with the web design which I really love, I felt  amazing, absolutely amazing and I really haven’t come down yet.

MacKenzie:   For any mom who is new to the blogosphere and social networking, can you offer a quick how to get started list to help ladies get engaged?

Vicky: I purposely put some links, print screens, and definitions in the first question, so the ladies can go to those sites to get more information on those technologies.

Steps torwards technology and social media use

1. Email  Sign up for an email account.  Most email accounts are free.  I suggest using Gmail.  Google’s Gmail has has one of the best spam blocking engines that will block most spam and make your experience much nicer (a second choice would be Yahoo).
2. Search Engines  Google is by far the most popular search engine and is also free. When you are searching you can use individual words for your search criteria or you can use phrases enclosed by quotes (a second choice would be DogPile).  This phrase will search for pages that Google has indexed that have these three words many times anywhere on the page.   

     

This phrase will search for pages that Google has indexed that have the phrase ’small breed’ (must be the entire phrase) and the other word anywhere on the page.



3. Social Network  Join a social network all the ones listed below are free, you can choose just one to start. (Twitter requires the least maintanance)
   • Linked-In   A professional, business orientated social networking site.  You can falso use Linked-In Answers which are where questions posed and users who are experts or have specific knowledge in an area answers.   That’s a really nice feature.
   • Facebook   There are a lot of little add ons available for Facebook.  This is more of a social site that offers you a lot of options for customizing it and the ability to add photos, video’s, hyperlinks, join networks or mini organizations, and people can leave you messages by writing on your wall.
   • Twitter   Twitter is a hard social networking site to describe.  You socialize by adding followers and then conversating with them.  If they also follow you, you will see their end of all their conversations, which lets you find others in the same industry, with similar interests, or others that just seem fun.  A tweet is a message under 140 characters long.

You can use a search engine to search for douments about these services.  You may want to use the word ‘beginner’ in your search criteria.

4. Bookmarking   Join a bookmarking service like del.iscio.us which is free.  You can find pages on web sites that you’d like to read or reference again later.  You save the bookmark that points to that web.  You can also assign tags to the bookmark which puts bookmarks of the same type of content  together.  Most web browsers have bookmarks, but they are associated with a particular computer.  Del.iscio.us bookmarks are on the web, you can access them where ever you have an internet connection. You also can look at other peoples bookmarks.  Many teachers and other professionals share bookmarks this way.  You can even save a bookmark for someone else.  Each bookmark.
5. Passwords   All these sites will require a login and password.  Many will have a little box that you can check that says ‘remember my password’.  If you check this box everytime your computers browser goes to that applications page, it will automatically login to your account.  If multiple people use the same computer, you may not want to have it automatically login to your account.  A good idea is to have about three different passwords you regularly use like ‘apple1′, ‘crazy8′, and ‘gr8est’  (try to put one number in your passwords, it’s more secure from hackers) and rotate between them.  This way if you forget which password is for which application, you only have 3 to try. 

MacKenzie: If moms could learn one technology this year, what would you say it should be?

Vicky: I would have to say that it would depend on the individual mom and their family’s needs. 

If you need to communicate with your kids while your at work and they’re at home, I would say get two webcams, headphones w/ mics and use Skype or you could use IM.

If you are lonely, want to crowd source advice, or make new friends I would say Twitter.

If you will be soon changing jobs, finishing school and want to either get a job or network with others in your same profession, I would say Linked-In.

If you do a lot of research and need to have quick access to the documents you are using or if you need to stay up-to-date on a specific topic (try to add people to your network that have the same interests, I would say del.iscio.us.

If you are willing to spend a little time, want to connect with old friends, join networks or organizations for a particular subject, I would say Facebook.

I also wanted to share that Remarkable Parents is beginning a 6 Part Series of Articles at the end of the month, sharing basic but more thorough information on 6 “must have” software applications.  I think this would be very good information for anyone starting out.  You can go to the website and sign up to receive the articles in your email box, it is located under the ‘About Vicky H’ box.

MacKenzie: Your site is asthetically pleasing want to offer kudos into anyone in particular?

Vicky: The web designer for Remarkable Parents is Randa Clay.  We worked remotely as I am in Wisconsin and she is in Texas.  The relationship did work well for us and it wasn’t a problem that she didn’t live in the same state.  I am amazed at how well she got the concepts and my vision for the site.   Randa has done a case study on many of the steps we took and tips  that clients can use to translate their vision to the designer.

Someone who also helped me considerably was Chris Garrett who was handled some of the more technical issues and helped me develop and organize my vision for the site.  Chris lives in the United Kingdom, so we used Skype for many of our sessions.