chrisbrogan.com» humanbehavior

Business Cards And Little Programs – Kitchen Table Talks

ceb — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:30:28 +0000

For this, our next in the Kitchen Table Talks series, I’m going to emphasize a point I was trying to make about business cards: namely, we shouldn’t just hand them out willy nilly. We do it because we’re not sure what else to do. But we don’t always need to end a face to face interaction with trading business cards. Here’s more:

Can’t see the video? click here.

Direct link to the video

People always ask which camera I used to shoot my video. I use the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 (that’s a review of the camera).

Be a Sociologist – Overnight Success

ceb — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:11:09 +0000

In this next installment of the Overnight Success series, I come to you from Paris, France. My point: that we can’t just stay in the trenches, least of all the tech trench. We have humanity to consider, and human behavior to take into account. Without us practicing our armchair versions of the “ologies,” we’re going to have worse results.

If you can’t see the video, click here.

Quid Pro No

ceb — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:30:16 +0000

Consider this an open-ended kind of post. I have questions as much as I have ideas. It revolves around online etiquette and human interaction. I’d love your thoughts, if you’ve a moment.

It revolves around quid pro quo, or “something for something.”

The basic premise of quid pro quo is that people attempt fair/equal transactions. This makes perfect sense when the exchange is obvious: I’ll give you $1.00 for that soda pop.

It’s a lot harder when it comes to situations between humans. Let’s start simply: if I follow you on Twitter, you’ll likely follow me back. Right? If I choose to friend you on LinkedIn, a professional network, will you be so quick to reciprocate? Well now it depends. How about Facebook? We’re friends on Twitter. Why not Facebook?

And this is just “friending” in the online world.

Here’s where this gets tricky:

If I invite you to join the Facebook group for Trust Agents, it’s because I think you’ll get some value out of participating there. Say you join the group. If you now invite me to join your real estate company’s fan page after you’ve joined my book’s group, what should I do? Should I say yes because you said yes to me?

But I have no interest in real estate, except for when I’m making a transaction.

I was asked to join someone’s new social media application, but because I have a lot of stuff on the go, I politely declined. What I got back as a parting shot was, “Thanks. I’ll still buy your book.”

It left me feeling a bit awkward.

Do we expect reciprocal behavior all the time? Is it easy enough to see that I participate as much as I can in both directions, and that it’s not all about me?

What do you do in these situations?

Photo credit Mr Mystery