What happens when you start to write a book?

You open up the topic and give people the opportunity to join you on the journey. Since I started to write up my thoughts about the life changing effects of social media and our personal on-line reputation, my own life has changed drastically! I am listening to new stories almost every single day. I meet people I would otherwise never had met. I receive suggestions and tips from all directions and actually the more I dig into particular areas of my book the more I am faced with amazing ideas! Just this week I spend two days in London and one back at home working and net-working. I have gained insight into a life of 2 Water Charity only to discover that their story is pretty inspiring. I watched AJ Leon sharing his inspirations over the web in an interview (one of my earlier posts) and later connecting again on Facebook with me for just a quick shout out – which is really nice!  I have met few lady geeks at a Facebook event in London to chat about privacy, but also about their take on on-line reputation. I learned few pretty personal stories. I had fun with a glass of wine and serious chat about things that matter the most in the social web – the feeling of growing through connection with similarly minded, yet completely different people.  I stayed with a London based friend who uses blogging to share her daily life and probably does not even realise how good her blog is for people like myself, how inspiring. I had a chat with her on the topic once, shared few industry secrets and helped her more professional, the business side of on-line presence too. I am glad I could be helpful just by sharing this time my own stories.  I have also met Barcamp Nonprofit co-founders while judging Blackbaud Digital Awards yesterday. I sat there for few hours (and coffees) reading through amazing ideas for digital fundraising campaigns. Looking at all of them I tried to identify the challenges people behind the listed links must have had. I know how frustrating new technology can be, how hard it is to justify a budget for a new idea, how risky it is to actually go ahead and do it sometimes. I was really impressed! I have to admin that intensity of that process really wore me off and I am glad that I was not alone. We had a great afternoon of real collaboration and I loved it!  I have later followed up the Facebook event with a coffee with one of the ladies just to realise that we all have very similar experiences and the most intriguing stage of those is our choice to change or not to change the way our life, career, travel, a relationship develops. It felt genuinely good to hear that the web yet again provided new opportunities and had almost a healing effect on someone out there.  Today I had the opportunity to talk to the author of one of the IMPORTANT READS of my recent years, Anthony Mayfield. (His book is a must read, a MUST read!). I think all his points will take time to sink in, but I really appreciate the time and willingness to respond to my questions – I know that his answers will guide me though quite a lot of core ideas in my own book.  So as I am finishing my first chapter I am moving to the next stage of my book writing process. I am finalising my take on on-line reputation. I am clarifying in my head and on paper how far I want to go with some of the core ideas. I know clearly what I want to achieve with my book but I also acknowledge how much I might experience in the next few weeks. I have written to some of my most precious friends tonight and to some of the people I have met in the last few years to invite them to join me on the journey – just to take this entire adventure to the next level.

Here are the questions for this week and probably the entire journey once again:

• Is our on-line reputation something we can pass on to others to create/manage? Can we pay an agency or individual to do it for us? Should we?
• Is our on-line reputation an abstract concept or something much more tangible?
• To what extend does the social web change our daily life and do we really want it to be effective?
• What do you do when the first sign of change (due to your on-line activities) appear: step back and hide or embrace them and build your next steps on that?
• If you have a great story, you suspect it could inspire others, what stops you from sharing it on-line?

Keep the comments coming now and later! Your feedback helps – even when you tell me that you have no idea what I am on about yet again!;)