See the little frog in the picture here? He didn’t ask me to, but I exposed him to the world when I opened my patio umbrella today.
I seem to be doing that a lot this week — unintentionally exposing people (or frogs) who didn’t sign up for that. In my effort to publicize the blog within my Facebook friends group, I didn’t realize that I modified the comment box to be a Facebook posting.
In response to my “I Dare You” post yesterday, which encouraged readers to leave comments, a friend in Germany asked if her comments would be visible to “the whole Facebook world.” I first told her no, but then I looked more closely and saw that my blog comment box was, indeed, supplied by Facebook.
This has been another thought-provoking development (as Eckhart Tolle says, even so-called mistakes always have a purpose). For you folks in this initial group of subscribers drawn from friends and family, I should assume that only a tiny percentage of you may be comfortable posting personal stories on a blog, let alone on Facebook.
Facebook raises the vulnerability stakes, without a doubt. It’s why I avoided it myself all these years. And though I am answering the call to put myself out into the world at this point in time, I totally understand your reluctance to do the same.
So, to make it a little more palatable at this very early stage of the project (and certainly against the advice of PR experts), I tweaked the blog again and replaced the Facebook comment box with the blog’s original “Leave a Reply” box. The link to the blog is still posted on my Facebook page, but reader comments will not be posted there.
Also, it seems the current layout of the blog requires you to click on the individual posts listed under “Recent Posts” in the right-hand sidebar to reach the “Leave a Reply” box on earlier posts. You can also read other people’s comments that way (thank you, Dan, for being the test case for that with your beautiful reply to Finding the Purpose Behind the Pain).
Thanks for your patience as I claw my way up the learning curve. Though the intent of the blog is to nurture readership and interest in Feng Shui Animal House (which is still in the early stages of development), it feels like taking my readers’ exposure down a notch is the right thing to do.
I feel a little like a flasher, having opened my coat for just an instant before closing it again.
