Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Digital Bucket Filling

I just read the book “How Full is Your Bucket” by Tim Rath and Donald Clifton. It is a great little inspirational book that essentially explains how positive interactions increase positive emotions. The authors use the metaphor of a dipper and bucket to explain this process. The idea is to fill buckets of everyone you meet and not to dip from other people’s buckets.

As I was reading the book, I was thinking about how Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs are all fantastic bucket filling mediums for all of us. These social media tools provide a platform for instant, personal, and meaningful validation.

Twitter fills my bucket regularly. It is such a great feeling to share an idea and have that idea re-tweeted with others in my personal learning network (PLN), whose opinion I value. According to How Full is Your Bucket, “the frequency of small positive acts is critical.”(1) Twitter is an environment full of frequent, 140 characters worth of positivity!

Twitter makes it super easy to share blog posts! I can’t think of a better feeling than to jump on your blog and see a comment. In a world of high stakes tests and assessment, blog comments reel me back to what really impacts a person. It is the comment! Knowing someone took the time to read and respond to something that you wrote is meaningful, inspiring, personal, and fills a bucket.

Facebook does the same thing. Friend Me! Having friends fills buckets! According to digtialbuzzblog.com , Facebook has 500 million active users and 250 million of these users them login every day? Why? Because it fill their buckets! A “like” or a comment on a status update is like having your own personal cheerleader right there with you! The good feelings from the praise in a comment or seeing 10 “likes “ feels like hot chocolate on a cold day. It spurs us to continue post, to comment, and to like other people’s updates. Positive fuels positive!

According to How Full is Your Bucket “the majority of us don’t give or receive anywhere near the amount of praise that we should.”(2) So let’s fill 'er up! Tweet, re-tweet, re-pin, comment, favorite, and get those buckets filled up today!

How do Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs fill your bucket? Leave us a comment and let us know?

-Ann Feldmann

Works Cited

1. Rath, Tom, and Donald O. Clifton. How Full Is Your Bucket?: Positive Strategies for Work and Life. New York: Gallup, 2004. Print. pg.55.

2. Rath, Tom, and Donald O. Clifton. How Full Is Your Bucket?: Positive Strategies for Work and Life. New York: Gallup, 2004. Print. pg.31.

4 comments:

  1. It's funny that you write this today. I've been thinking a lot about the importance of a PLN and how I have come to rely on them for encouragement and feedback. What a great comparison between the book and the wonderful world of the PLN.

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  2. I see that the booklet “How Full is Your Bucket” was printed in 2004. Long before that year, perhaps before you started at Mission, we had an in-service presentation on that very topic by a very dynamic speaker. It had quite an impact on all of us for quite a while, with reference to our “buckets” ever-present.

    Your observation that internet connectivity, with the use of twitter, facebook, google, ipads, etc., can enhance bucket filling seems quite valid. And, of course, for the use of new educational opportunities. I read that Cisco is predicting an even greater explosion of devices connected to the internet in the next four years. In fact, they predict that by 2016 there will be more devices connected to the internet than there are people on earth (currently, 7.3 billion). Wow! We will need more people like you to give it all some direction.

    Warren

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  3. I completely agree that our many social mediums fill our buckets! I am very new to Twitter and Pinterest but my bucket is already overflowing. I feel flattered when people decide to follow me. Imagine that - people are interested in what I think and value. It doesn't get any better than that.

    By the way, there is a kids' version of "How Full is Your Bucket?" I read it to my second graders and they totally "got it." You can frequently hear in our classroom "he dipped in my bucket," "she filled my bucket," or even "my bucket is empty." I love it that kids can openly say "I need you to lift me up" :)

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  4. We all love getting positive feedback. I don't like when people use their Facebook for a grips session. I always ignore those posts. I love commenting on peoples kid pics.

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