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Defy Gravity with Web 2.0

On September 20, 2009, in Creativity, Doing the Greater Good, Featured, by Nettie Hartsock

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRUeEJQSKbs[/youtube]

“It’s time to trust my instincts. Close my eyes and leap. It’s time to try defying gravity. I think I’ll try defying gravity, and you can’t pull me down.” (Defying Gravity – Wicked the Musical)

I’m writing my book fulltime on Sundays and I always try to listen to inspiring and uplifting music when I’m writing. Today my work ended with the soundtrack from Wicked, The Musical.

I’ve seen Wicked close to ten times and plan on seeing it again when I go to New York in October. (I was doubly blessed to take my teenage daughter to it for her first trip in NY last year.)

The book and the musical help inspire me to be more. The story of Elphaba and how hard she works to stay true to her mission, what she gives up along the way, and what she gains in return is timeless.

Elphaba (the green girl) also changes the people and places she comes in contact with. That’s certainly a powerful way to live your life.

For some of us, we face this new world of Web 2.0 with great fear and trepidation, but I can tell you after having been on the Web since 1995, there’s no reason to fear Web 2.0.

It’s just another upgrade. In fact, it’s one you can make easily and bring together the best of yourself offline blended with the offline. As they say in the musical, ”Let the green girl go.”

You’ve nothing to lose by using these tools and you and your community have so much to gain. The only thing Web 2.0 asks of you, your company or your community is to be just who you are.

Turns out the more authentic you are, the better off you are on the Web.

Web 2.0 doesn’t have any of the old smoke and mirrors tricks. Web 2.0 has disrobed the wizard controlling the masses through fear. For the first time in a long time, you can be who you want to be and create a highly engaged following.

You can be unlimited in Web 2.0. You might even be popular.

You might even be like me, a woman who started a career on the Web in 1995 (to stay at home with my young children) and is still blessed and lucky enough to be going strong after all this time.

You can absolutely engender success on the Web 2.0, but you have to participate. You have to defy gravity along with the rest of us. Take your hits and keep flying.

Here are five ways to “defy gravity’ using Web 2.0.

1. Build your page on Facebook.

2. Build your LinkedIn.com profile to 100%

3. Stop waiting for permission to be who you are.

4. Find the people that care about your causes on places like Twitter, Facebook and other social sites.

5. Start participating by embracing your mission and your messages and sharing them across the Web without fear.

You can do it. Sweep away all your fears of failure and start flying.

If I can do it, you can do it. If they can do it, we can do it. Just take one small leap and defy gravity.