Today's School of the Boat lesson is on sharing. Not like the cookies and milk stuff you learned about in Kindergarten, more like the "hey, I found the best lumpia and shrimp fried rice in this little joint on Magsaysay Boulevard! You got to check it out!" kind of sharing. So listen up because everybody gets qualified on this one, no exceptions. This is some of the fundamental training, like phone-talking, or using an EAB. You just have to know it!
First, let's revisit the mission. On the boat, the mission changed routinely depending on the needs of the country as defined in the most current tasking orders. Here on the www.ssn-680.org website, the mission is defined by one constant theme: locate and connect with every sailor that has ever been assigned to the USS WILLIAM H. BATES (SSN 680). Pretty simple and straightforward...
The mission will get embellished by the things that make it worthwhile reconnecting, but the fundamental mission stays the same - locate and connect.
Share Button Example
But here is the key. They can't experience what they don't know about.
The good news is that if you search Google for SSN-680 or William H. Bates, we show up right up there at the top, so if someone is looking for the Bates, we can be found. But many of our former shipmates don't yet know that there might even be a website for the Bates, or don't yet know the pleasure that comes from reconnecting with those we sailed with back in the day. The question is, how do you let them know and who is supposed to do it?
Let's answer the who question first. I served on the Bates from October of 1981 to August of 1985, roughly four years of the Bates' thirty-plus year lifetime. So I might actually recognize the names of a couple of hundred shipmates, but realistically, I only had an active relationship with probably a hundred or so. Add to that my aging memory, and you can see that my reach is limited.
It is estimated that somewhere between 1300-1500 sailors were assigned to the Bates sometime during her lifetime. The Master Sailing List, which is in the final stages of being ported over to the new site, lists about 1275, so we still haven't even identified every Bates sailor, let alone located them. We have two dedicated volunteers, Mark Gray and Terry Fessner, who have assumed the responsibilities of Missing Shipmate Coordinators, with a commitment to locating every shipmate that sailed on the Bates, and getting them registered on the website. And that's just three of us. So you can see that the problem is big enough to require much more.
This is where you come in. This post will reach hundreds of Bates sailors that I don't know personally, and potentially reach people that weren't on the Bates that know Bates sailors. It will reach even more if you share it. When you repost or 'share' this article, everyone you know through social media sees it, and that is a huge number compared to the few that Terry, Mark, and I can reach. This is how you can help. When you see a post on the site that you iike, SHARE, SHARE, SHARE. For us to reach the remaining Bates sailors, this has to be fundamental and automatic. It is you that will make our mission successful!
Now to the how question.
We have made sharing easy for you to do. At the bottom of each article, you will see a row of brightly colored Share Buttons, as in the example above, or at the bottom of this article. The red numbered circles show how many times this article has been shared or posted on a particular social media. The buttons are the tool by which you can share. If you mouse over the buttons, a tooltip will popup and tell you what service you will be sharing on. Left to right in our example, you see LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, and regular email. These are all very standard social communication methods by which you can share. The last green button, is the More Options button, in case there is a share path you would like to use that is not visible in the main row of buttons.
All you have to do is pick and click!
Once clicked, a new window will pop up that is specific to your chosen social media site. If you aren't currently logged in, it will ask for your login credentials (not your www.ssn-680.org creds, but Facebook or LinkedIn, etc.) Once logged in, you can, based on the specific site, add comments, choose where you want it posted, pick a photo to go with, and so forth. Click submit, and a new post is created on your social media account, and you are returned to where you where on this site.
That's all there is to it. Pick. Click. Submit. Then go to your social media account and 'like' your new post, which flags your activity on all your friend's accounts.
This is how good content goes viral, and it's how a few of us will be able to locate and reconnect every shipmate that has ever served on the USS William H. Bates!
It's all up to you!
Share the good stuff, shipmate!
Subscribe
Report
My comments