The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Social Media — Introduction

I am always look­ing for ways to bet­ter under­stand social media.  One source of explana­tory infor­ma­tion I find to be sur­pris­ingly use­ful is a book that was writ­ten long before the days of Face­book, Google, and Twit­ter — Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effec­tive Peo­ple.  You may be won­der­ing what Covey’s book could pos­si­bly have to do with social media, but upon deeper review it is becomes obvi­ous.  Covey’s book con­tains pro­poses a prin­ci­ple based model for human inter­ac­tion rooted in inter­de­pen­dence and abun­dance — pre­cisely the same ethos at that of web 2.0.

While Covey’s work is not a tech­ni­cal primer for under­stand­ing the mechan­ics of the web,  it does offer a use­ful men­tal con­struct for how to engage, inter­act, and com­mu­ni­cate with other human beings, be that online or in-person.  In a world of here today gone tomor­row plat­forms and tools, tak­ing a prin­ci­ple cen­tered approach makes a great deal of sense.  Fea­tures and func­tions will always change, but prin­ci­ples remain con­stant.  By focus­ing on prin­ci­ples, as pre­scribed by Dr. Covey, it becomes pos­si­ble to more eas­ily nav­i­gate the ever chang­ing and some­times intim­i­dat­ing world of social media.

This post marks the first in a series of posts exam­in­ing how Covey’s frame­work can be applied to effec­tively under­stand­ing and using social media.   The plan is to address each of Covey’s 7 Habits indi­vid­u­ally, post by post, and relate ways in which they can be applied to social media.  I hope that by jux­ta­pos­ing these two con­cepts that I will gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing of both of them, and that you might ben­e­fit in the same way.

Covey’s 7 Habits are as follows:

1. Be Proac­tive
2. Begin with the End in Mind
3. Put First Things First
4. Think Win / Win
5. Seek First to Under­stand, Then to be Understood
6. Syn­er­gize
7. Sharpen the Saw

I hope you enjoy the series, and as always I wel­come your feed­back.   I will add hyper­links to the list above as they are published.