"It's not a mountain to climb but a wave to catch"
Many people fear social media.
They think it belongs to another generation—even though we are all digital immigrants.
Others think it undermines or devalues their approach and operations—even though it’s a set of tools to augment and embellish what you currently do.
The only divide is attitudinal.
It's the perceived scale of the task: all this new technology, different websites, confusing semantics—it seems insurmountable.
Which is why we use the wave metaphor.
The online world is fluid, ever shifting with continuous momentum to help those already involved.
Waves are powerful things: fun, constant and sharable.
Even when it's choppy out there, storms pass.
Mountains rarely move.
We once had a youth worker on our training course that was based on a remote island. She couldn't see the benefits of social media, thought she was of the wrong generation to learn and had missed the boat of operating in these spaces.
At the end of the 2 days, she didn't use her isolation and age as an excuse, and also saw it as a huge opportunity to share examples of good practice with others on the mainland.