Stardust Global Ventures

I’ve long had this idea that poking on facebook is under used. I know, many people will disagree, but I don’t care. I think pokes are useful and just possibly a way to let someone know you’re thinking of them.

I did something last week. I expanded my poke list by systematically poking everyone in my list, almost. Almost because I made a few errors, got confused over which end I started with and wound up duplicating pokes and leaving a few people out altogether. Still, it was ultimately successful.

Ken and I had to fly to Minnesota, that meant no tools other than my Blackberry to access the web. Not unless I wanted to pull out my laptop and set it up, search for a network and hope there was a free one somewhere. It’s really not worth it to me when I’m not alone, and I wasn’t.

While my blackberry is a great phone and web access tool, it takes a long time to poke 230 people with the facebook application on it. What hadn’t occurred to me was once I had poked all those people was how many were going to poke back. I didn’t count. I couldn’t, and for very good reason.

When you travel by plane one of the first things that happens when ready for take off is a reminder to shut your phone off. Yes, I have ‘accidentally’ forgotten, or intentionally, but this time I did the expected thing and shut off. That may have been a mistake. A serious one.

When we arrived in Denver, because we didn’t have a direct flight, I turned my phone on and it started the perpetual buzz that usually occurs when I get a call. Only it didn’t stop, it just kept going on and on. So I looked and there were untold numbers of returned pokes. It was almost shocking because by the time we left  Spokane in the morning I had only gotten to the F’s. So, now my mission was unclear because I not only had to start poking new people I also felt compelled to repoke all those who had returned my earlier pokes.

When we arrived in Minneapolis I turned my phone back on and was again bombarded with the now constant poke returns as well as messages from some of the pokees asking if there was an occasion or if I had had too much to drink on the plane. I had not. So the new dilemma was how to repoke all those people, finish my list and answer a lot of messages from those with questions.

This started yet another train of thought in my brain. One I don’t think is even yet finished. Why do people poke each other on facebook? I’ll tell you why I do and I hope it will make sense and not be too offensive.

A poke looks like this.

Ok, that’s done but why would you want to do it? For me it all started because I wanted to find a way to let the people I am connected to know I value them even though I don’t have time to talk everyday to all 240+ people on my list. During our trip to Minnesota it seemed extra important because I knew it unlikely I would have the time to do anything but poke.

To be honest, if I add someone, I am genuinely interested in that person. I read their profiles, I pay attention to what’s happening in their lives. poking may be all I have time for, but I do want people to know I know they’re there. They matter.

Well my little experiment in poking went a little crazy because I had no idea the numbers of people who would respond. Typically I only poke a few people regularly. You know who you are, because you poke me. And what does that mean? For me it means if you poke me, I poke back. Absolutely. It has never occurred to me even one time to not reciprocate. So, if you want my attention, poke me. It’s like a the old ‘reach out and touch someone’ ad. Touch me and I touch back.

What do you think about poking? Drop me a line or ‘poke‘ me.

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