Hi, I’m Esther!
It is always interesting when I am introduced to new people. My name is the easy part. What I do, well that depends on who I am talking to.
Being in a very niche industry that is not well understood, you have to gauge what you say. Often I just say I design websites. Or if they are in the business world, I say we develop and promote online business solutions. Yeah, I know. I don’t understand that either.
What I long to say is I work online, internet marketing and promotion, design, etc, etc, etc. Then the blank look steals over their face and “I ahem, I build websites.”
My Mission in Life
I have decided that my mission in life is to translate the internet to the general masses. It is not about Google and Facebook. Why this is not taught in schools, I don’t know.
We only use 4% of the internet and the rest is all on the dark side. No it’s not all porn, bitcoin and drugs and hiring a hitman to kill off your hubby.
It is algorithms, electronic payments, transmission of data that make up the most of the numerous mega-bytes of flying data through the cyber waves.
It is officially classified as the Dark Arts I am pretty sure.
The Cyber Witch
So what does that make me? A social practitioner or a cyber witch?
I sum it up by saying I am a Digital Strategist. While people may not know what that is, they understand it is something online that is not porn or cat videos. Not that I have anything against ‘waste away’ cat videos (especially the one where they push the other one down the stairs).
Walter Mitty does exist, I know because he has a website.
Endless Possibilities
It brings the other side of the world as close to me as my neighbours for a cup of tea. I can learn brain surgery, how to programme my TV and how to put on lipstick 65 different ways, on Youtube.
I can be alone at home but have 1,000 friends around the world sharing their very existence with myself. A lot is said of fake friends online but what about the many people who due to their health or circumstances or location, have made friends online and carried that through to real life?
I can learn the biography of the movie stars as I watch their movies, I can play and replay my favourite music clips. And it is all free. Well some things may not be but it is cheaper using the internet than paying for cable tv and the internet connection.
It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, in Australia or Finland or India. You have internet and access via some smart device and the world is your oyster.
It has the capability to take someone’s good idea and build a million dollar business, transform after hours a poet into a leading playwright and to launch a potential music star through an App to his first hit song.
The internet is hope, dreams, possibilities, friendship and connections. I prefer to think of it as the Fine Arts instead.