2020/Austin/sharing-gratitude

 Sharing Gratitude  was a keynote by Natalie Hester at IndieWebCamp Austin 2020.

Video:

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.