I decided to interview my Godfather for this assignment. I knew that coming into the interview he didn’t really use social media in the way that I do. My Godfather, Scott, is a Technology Executive who runs a consulting firm filled with computer engineers, but immediately pointed out to me that he doesn’t have a Facebook account. Instead he relies greatly on a social media platform that I have never even heard of called “Linked In.”

Scott pointed out that he was able to use LinkedIn every day in his work in several ways. In preparing for meetings, he will often “connect” with the people he is meeting with or simply search their profiles to understand more about their background, and the background of the company that he is meeting with. He also pointed out that if there are particular skills that he is looking to recruit, he can find those online and reach out to people in the Atlanta-metro area. Scott noted that he is relatively protective of his list of connections, and only chooses to accept invitations from people with whom he has a personal relationship, but other than that was not too concerned with security. LinkedIn also allows him to join professional groups, and select favorite content that he says are “curated for his own professional interest.”

I’ve never used LinkedIn like my godfather uses it in his everyday life. I do find that I use Facebook very often. I feel like I check that the most because my friends on there come from everywhere so I like to keep in contact with them and see how they are doing on a daily basis.

A funny note to this interview is that as we were talking, his wife (Rhonda) pointed out that in fact he does have access to Facebook, and has been known to “stalk” her account at least once per week.

During the interview, I learned several differences in how I use social media and how my godfather does…