Threading the Social Needle
One thing I try to do often is connect with people across all my various social networks. If you’re following me on Twitter, I invite you to add me at LinkedIn. Likewise, if you’re a reader and contributor to this blog’s community, I invite you to join me at those other two places. If you’re reading the blog, but not yet getting the newsletter, which is totally different, I invite you to get that. If we’re not Facebook friends, add me there. It’s all part of a concerted effort. The goal? Threading the social needle.
Networks Loose and Taut
Imagine you’re looking for a job. Where do you start? What do you need to know? I’ll give you a hint: the first letter is “p” and the last few letters are “eople.” I have spent time and effort building a robust social network across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, this blog, and beyond, because it’s my goal to be helpful in as many ways possible. It’s how you were able to help me send a woman to college in under 2 hours. It’s how I help friends find work, get projects, or just connect with like-minded souls.
That doesn’t happen on the fly. Jeremiah covers this very well. Networks are the lifeblood of this new human computer we’re building. You want the network connections to be there ahead of when you need them. And here’s where we get a little more human still.
Be Human About It
Connect with people from the mindset of wanting to be helpful to THEM. Learn what you can do to be useful FAR before you ask them for anything. And do this because you care, not because it’s a strategy, not for some long flung business project. Do it because being a good human matters to you. If you do this, and I mean it, no faking, it will become a very powerful thing. People remember your efforts to be helpful. They remember all the ways in which you do good things for them. And it never has to matter a lick, except sometimes it does.
How this SHOULD Work
In the future, this will be a lot more dynamic. When I show up at a social network, it will ping my profile server, will ask me which personae of mine to expose, and then see which connections I have from other networks that have similar credentials, and offer connections without me thinking much about it. I’ll be able to write metadata above every one of these contacts, very visual stuff, that will allow me on the fly to draw little lines between one person and another few people, showing VISUALLY the networks of people that I’ve met, and how they might relate.
With this information, I’ll be able to pluck threads quickly, and know that someone who has a PHP need is connected through me to someone who’s a PHP expert. I’ll be able to see my network by proximity, by home base, by corporation, without much fuss. I will be able to apply endless filters so that I can squint into the tapestry and find the exact right two people to work with me on a project.
But until then, while it doesn’t work that way, I’m building my own variations on the theme and threading the needle by hand.
If you’d like to connect with me on various social networks, here’s a short list:
- LinkedIn - my email linkedin at chrisbrogan dot com.
- Flickr (photo sharing)
- My newsletter (different than the blog)
Pretty much every where else, I’m also “chrisbrogan.” Feel free to connect.
What do you think? Where should this all reside? What’s the best place to put all this kind of information, and how else might we want to use it in flexible ways?
Photo credit, Twenty Questions
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Comments
Chris - great to see you asking this question. With sssssoooooooo many options, it is important to stay focused. To overcome the issue of social network connectivity - I focus on my target audience. For me, this is working professionals and business owners (large audience I know!). I dedicate my energy and tell my target audience about the social media channels that I think they will digest. For example, LinkedIn and Facebook work pretty well for me - but my blog is by FAR the most important channel - as most corporates and small businesses have technology (or business rules!) that permit access to such sites as FaceBook or YouTube! In the futre, as you predict! It will be great to see ‘contextual web 3.0 come to life!
Where should all this go? Well, excellent question, which probably depends a lot on what it’s all for.
Right now, social media tools are in an adrenalized (sp?) evolution. And other kinds of technological innovations are rising up the curve as well (think semantic web) to enhance and propel the medium of media.
It would of course be nice to have all of the streams meaningfully aggregated into a single tool (after all Google, so far, has become the primary search engine, so why not a similar case for social media?)
FriendFeed (which should be called ADDFiend) seems to be the kind of unifying “thread” that I think you are getting at (please correct me otherwise). I don’t think FF is it right now, but the idea of a conversational thread coupled with the flow of dynamic information in all its forms (text, video, etc.) is probably where the trend is leading.
My close buddies aren’t on FF yet (and I think I’d enjoy it more if they were (laggards!)). But for me, as an outsider, I’ve been able to follow & learn from the brightest in social media & tech, absorbing information at a rate I never thought possible. So FF is an example of how to keep the thread weaving. It just needs to evolve.
You mention being pinged as you walk into a conference. I’ve wondered how RFID-web (would this be Web 4.0?–3.0 being mobile) coupled with semantic technologies is where the hot stuff is going to happen. I say hot because it offers the possibility of releasing us from the chains of desktop and mobile devices and could get us back to face-to-face social interaction enhanced (and not limited) by hardware.
Sorry, roundabout answer, but I think where all this should reside is in a customizable platform that:
-helps us extract meaning out of information-overlaod (solves the problem of abundance of data versus scarcity of meaning);
-spontaneously links us with the people who either share our interests or who could benefit from establishing a trusting relationship based on their profile;
-provides thread-able conversation that can ping you if that’s a conversation you aught to participate in;
Right now, well-crafted blogs can go a long way for most companies to establish the kind of interface that improves customer interaction. Twitter & Facebook are great to use for the (still few) folks using these tools…but I wouldn’t rely on Twitter to grow a base (enhance it, yes). That might change if Twitter’s adoption hits critical mass.
The trick here is the play around with the current tools, establish good profiles on them, network through them…but: be very aware that all this is in serious flux. A new boy toy is always around the corner, so your strategy has to keep the awareness bulb burning.
Let me know if this helps. These are questions we need to keep working on. Thanks for the thread, Chris.
Chris,
How do you manage to have a “relationship” or “conversation” with so many people. You are following 8678 people on twitter. What percentage of those people are lurkers? How many contacts would you say you never interact with and what is the value of those contacts?
-M
Hi Chris,
My two cents on “Where should it go?”
I like using Lijit to gather my “many faces” because it offers value for me and for the reader/user. They get the excellent search / re-search feature and I get statistical analysis of who/what/where for my efforts. They are always evolving their technology and I think they are young and bold, so should be able to create some really cool new apps. By the way, I think they are close to incorporation of an ad component (which makes me a little nervous).
Other than that, I also think that a separate “about” page on the typical blog would help. Call it “Contacts and Contexts” and make it a definition page of all the different ways we interact across the web and the cloud, listing the means of contact and a brief description of how the content creator uses this particular avenue.
Chris, great post, as always. Thoughtful and erudite. Of course, Google and MS, among others are interested in the “social graph” — the landscape of how folks are connected through various social media platforms. Charlene Li at Forrester has some interesting thoughts, and I blogged about the tension between consolidation and fragmentation a while back. Your piece offers a useful perspective on this unfolding , evolving technology.
In today’s post on my blog, I asked if we should keep personal and professional separate when it comes to social networking. The reason I started thinking that way is shared in the post, but I’ve noticed that some fine folks that I respect - like you, Mack Collier and others - invite professional contacts to friend you on facebook. So I’m wondering if I should reconsider my stance. That’s what I’m trying to get insights on through today’s post.
And then I skip over to chrisbrogan.com and your post is about completely opening up your social networks. Incredible timing. Thanks for sharing.
Great read Chris! This is a topic that most of us who have found ourselves in this space like to ponder about. I say ‘found ourselves’ because i was a late comer to the world of social networking when i inadvertently created a social network and had no idea that was what i had done. i thought i was creating a virtual trade show. Now that i have discovered the truth, i have jumped in the deep water and i am treading as fast as i can. i tweet, link, face, bloglog, ff all in an effort to see how and what this all could mean. In my efforts i have found some terrific people, like yourself. :) i never would have known you had i stuck in my small world of retail technology. In this vast and global environment we live in and try to do business in, it seems we are simply looking to create smaller worlds that relate to our various persona’s. to connect, to expand our thinking, to improve our businesses, to prove the 6 degrees of separation. for some it’s just a numbers game but i’m with you, it’s about the people..plain and simple!
Wow, how things have changed. It really wasn’t all that long ago that many in the business community throught that this new-fangled email thing wouldn’t be all that helpful or useful..and now, we have Instant Messaging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, text messages, and so many other ways to stay connected.
It is unlikely that the majority of people will do all of this but it will clearly have a huge impact going forward. Even today, many recent college grads who are getting into the workforce today don’t consider email to be the best way to communicate with colleagues and friends whereas I would be completely lost without email. Of course, doing a bad job with your social networking can have lasting effects in ways that many in the younger generation are choosing to ignore.
Everything you type on the Internet can come back to haunt you…so you need to find a way to be yourself while at the same time realizing that drunken nights twittering away can be bad for your job prospects. ;)
Your post is interesting I’ve been thinking about adding this type of thing to FriendBinder (http://friendbinder.com).
Currently we allow you to add notes next to a friend (needs a lot more work though) and you can find other networks people are on by just knowing one of theirs (if they are already on FriendBinder)
Richard.
Mike asked:
How do you manage to have a “relationship” or “conversation” with so many people. You are following 8678 people on twitter. What percentage of those people are lurkers? How many contacts would you say you never interact with and what is the value of those contacts?
The answer is that not all those are relationships as much as they are information exchanges. I don’t read all 8,000+ peoples output in a given day. Instead, it’s a stream where I dip in, pay attention, have conversations, and communicate where I can.
FROM those almost 9000 contacts, I have meaningful conversations on other platforms, like phone, email, blog comments, etc.
When people question how I can follow that many people, it’s because they presume I intend to read every tweet. I follow back the people who choose to follow me, because it’s respectful, because it means that person can direct message me, because it’s yet another way to catch an interesting conversation in my stream.
Am I best friends forever with all 9000? Nope. Will I ever be? No. But then, I never said that Twitter was a way to build lasting and deep relationships. It’s a tool.
Chris, you’ve managed to greatly expand on something I wrote about a few days ago about organizing your online life…(http://tinyurl.com/66l6pc), which is to connect your social networks as much as possible to increase its effectiveness. You’ve added a very insightful expansion and addition on why this is so important… and so, I concur!
Funny thing about social networking online: it’s no different than the real live version which means selflessly ‘paying it forward’ and offering help/connections to people without any expected reward in return. Too often we’re approached by someone purporting to be doing us a huge favor, when in reality there’s some hidden agenda, that thing they need from you in return. To be a networking madman, you need to have integrity and go a loooonng way to help people out, without that element of expectancy. We’re only on this earth for a finite period - let’s leave it a better place through creating a culture of helping people!
Yours with boundless enthusiasm,
Richard :)
Chief Deal Weaver
http://www.BlackWidowNetwork.com
I am convinced that in the not so distant future we the people will be enabled to design our own “social portal” which can be integrated with any other social portal. As Doc Searls moves VRM forward the walls that exist today will come donw and the web will become much more productive.
Additionally, our government is already using “smart agent” technologies that cuts through all the different codes and protocols enabling the collection and organization of information, people, content, activity, from anywhere and everythere. In essence the “ultimate social portal power” is already working but yet to be released for commercial or personal use.
While the major social networking and social media portals will have a role the individual portals will become more of the utility of choice and that utility will cut across mobile, television broadcasting and on line activities. It will be a new and very productive world with dynamics that create brand new markets centric to relationships.
That is my take and we’re likely to see it unravel within the next 48 months if we the people get our way.
What say you?
As an adjunct to this discussion thread I posted two related threads this morning. Chris, it is amazing when you find minds thinking about related issues and posting about those issues from different yet connected perspectives.
How do you rank? here http://www.relationship-economy.com/?p=1106
And Do Numbers Create Relationships? here http://linktosocialutions.com/?p=89
Feedback and commentary very much welcome, I love learning from “we the people”
Response to Jay from above:
Wasn’t sure if you were aware of them Jay, but the girls from http://www.Mego.com (Ariel and Julia) have been hunkering down to develop a ‘portable social network profile’ - you fill out your profile once and it fits in all social networks, is the idea. Hopefully they’ll become the household name in this arena; we’re working with them to integrate it into our network as soon as they have it polished up….
Thanks for your insights,
Richard :)
Chief Deal Weaver
http://www.BlackWidowNetwork.com
Chris, why do you feel the need for people in your Facebook or LinkedIn profiles to be in both, but also to follow your blog, interact with you on Digg, Stumbleupon, and Twitter? By engaging the same people in all of the above, where is the unique if everything is the same?
Penelope Trunk recently blogged about the many social media sites and how it’s silly to connect with the same people about the same topics on all of them.
It’s clear to me that blogging is best for expressing big ideas. If you can’t convey new ideas on your blog, then you probably won’t get a lot of traffic. And most blogs that do well have a single theme and the audience can depend on the theme dictating the content of the blog. But Twitter is not good for fleshed-out ideas. I see people using Twitter for a lot of stuff, but not for fleshed-out ideas. And Flickr is good for expressing passion. Way better than, say, Twitter.
It’s acceptable to have different places in your life for different aspects of your personality. So don’t flatten yourself by presenting only perfect consistency across Twitter and LinkedIn and blogs and Facebook.
A short bio on NY Institute of Technology, CA College of the Arts, and D.S.U
The New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology is a exclusive academicly centered college of higher learning. Founded in 1955, the institute enrolls 10,000 students at its multiple campus centers. The institute is fully accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Specific program recognition include: The NAAB, Foundation for Interior Design Education Research, American Culinary Federation Educational Institute, and a number of others. The College offers student freshmen professionally-oriented programs leading the path to to A.S., B.S., and M.A. degrees.
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Very interesting, I agree about where it will go and I know the fun and sometimes work of weaving tapestries of people. The power of my personal network and I mean “personal” amazing but I have to be careful not to shoplift from it without stocking the shelves once in a while. Thanks for starting my thinking off this morning.