Here’s a link to show some of my recent work… but what will you find here that qualifies as “work”, and how did this come to be?

In September 2009, my parents made an announcement: for their 50^th anniversary, they were taking our entire family on a fabulous Disney Mediterranean cruise!  I’ve always been a planner and researcher, so I headed to CruiseCritic.com in hopes I could find a community of travelers who would be on our sailing of the Disney Magic.  Zip.  Nada.  Where were my fellow cruisers?

A few months later, I discovered Disboards.com, a forum for people who want to discuss anything and everything Disney.  Turns out they already had an active thread for our sailing… I dove in with gusto.  After a month, I realized that having only one thread was not working for me.  This single thread, like Disboards itself, covered anything and everything about our sailing.  Finding a previous topic required searching through 50+ pages to find it.  And thus, our Facebook page was born.

When I set up a Facebook group page for our sailing, every new member, photo and post triggered an email to me.  Before long, people started sending me messages… could we set up events for D.I.Y. touring in each port?  Could we set up private groups for people in the Fish Extender (a secret Santa-like activity) program?

I watched in amazement as we grew to more than 100 members.  We had 150 discussion threads going on… What are you wearing on Pirate Night?  What kind of purse will you be carrying for excursions?  Will we be able to see new “Glee” episodes on the ship?  Those of us flying to Europe on British Airways were able to post updates on the status of the ongoing strike, which affected many of our flights.

Our Facebook page became a treasure trove of info for those cruising the Mediterranean on the Disney Magic.  It also became an instant community of friends.  There are plenty of communities in cyberspace but how often do you actually get to meet your online friends?  Pre-cruise meet-ups happened in Houston, Atlanta, and even in Barcelona, Spain.  The excitement was building!

When we got to the ship, my family was amazed.  We couldn’t walk 10 feet without somebody walking up and saying, “Hi Karen, thanks so much for setting up the Facebook page!”  What could have been a ship full of strangers became a place where I recognized people everywhere I went.  I met so many great people from all over the world and also made a handful of close friends.

Our cruising experience demonstrated the power of social media, and enriched my vacation in ways I could never have imagined.

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