I came across this story but it was a small incident last Friday that prompted me to write a post about it.
Here’s a feel good story about a high school Goalie who was having a rough time.
I liked the story, loved the video. It shows the immense power that images hold in our lives and the incredible good that can come from something so simple. Yay for Facebook, Yay for this guys community!
But the thing that got me to write about this was…
Friday I was teaching a workshop on Facebook in Lake Tahoe. One of the attendees wanted to ‘Friend” me and looked up Mike Mueller in Facebook. “Which one is you?” she asked.
If you know anything about me you know I am a HUGE fan of Hockey. There’s a little disruption in the Hockey Universe right now (Players are locked out by the Owners so there’s no season) and in an effort to visually vocalize my extreme dislike of the situation I took my proudest hockey moment (Me holding the Stanley Cup) and photoshopped a red circle over the top of it.
To me, that pretty much sums up how I feel (about Hockey) right now. <insert picture says a thousand words reference here>
The interesting thing is this. To her, she saw the array of Mike Muellers in her Facebook search, saw the red circle thingy and she read that as “These are not the droids you are looking for”. Understand this… I’m standing just a few feet in front of her. That’s clearly a picture of me. Yet, she was ready to Friend any other Mike Mueller on that page other than me.
The Power of images works both ways.
It used to be I had the exact same Profile Picture for my Facebook Page as I did for my Profile. Teaching workshops on the two became confusing for the students so I started using a casual image for my Profile. Casual Mike & Business Mike. It was easy for them to distinguish between the two.
Now I’m thinking. Casual is one thing, making a statement might be another. Is my rant picture pushing people away? Should I scale it back a notch?
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He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, bought a cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and now,a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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