2020/Austin/sharing-gratitude
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Sharing Gratitude was a keynote by Natalie Hester at IndieWebCamp Austin 2020.
Video: ▶️13:00s
Notes archived from chat.
Sharing Gratitude
by Natalie Hester
- slides show a picture of her adorable baby
- Keeps a gratitude journal on her micro.blog
- Thanks Jean and Manton for inviting her
- lives here in Austin, works as an academic fundraiser
- Natalie was also introduced on an edition of Micro.Monday
- things changed about 10 months ago when their daughter was born
Social Media: The Good
- Helped connected her to moms
- Made it easy to learn things. Loved the likes and comments.
- The third party validation felt great.
Social Media: The Bad
- joined Austin Moms FB group. Over 20k members, conversations pretty intense.
- Found herself getting judgmental about some people.
- Plus a deluge of ads for weight loss
- Eventually realized wasn't part of a community that shared her values
Competing Missions
- non-profits often have different missions than the companies they work with
- libraries v publishers "support your local library"
- Companies like Facebook collect our data and inject influencers and ads
- "you just constantly feel like you're being marketed to, and judged"
- An acquaintance http://drewcastillo.micro.blog posted daily on FB. Simple statements of what he was thankful for and what he was looking forward to that day
- Last year he announced he was leaving FB and going to micro.blog
- She followed him and set up her micro.blog and started posting a daily gratitude post
- There are many days she wakes up less than grateful.
- Taking a moment to stop and think about it has improved her days.
Why Micro.blog
- Could have bought a notebook to keep a gratitude journal
- She had been inspired by Drew and thought if she shared online she might inspire someone too.
- about micro.blog: "It feels a bit like Hulu after we started paying a little bit and got fewer ads"
- The discourse seems pretty civil and content seems real
- Recommends trying to start a gratitude journal for a couple days or a week
- Keep up the good work trying to make the web better
Q & A
- Do you still use Facebook?
- I deleted my Facebook! I still use Instagram.
- Another reason why I left Facebook, was learning about Facebook's knowing in the current political climate, knowing what they're doing with political ads. I don't follow a lot of my family on Instagram, and I don't allow them to follow me. My circle is a little tighter on Instagram.
Natalie also mentioned she uses Marco Polo app to share photos and video calls; Chatbooks for printing and sharing photos.