Executive Director's Blog
Executive Director’s Blog: August 2007
I’ve been thinking about this online community craze and recently I got invited to join Facebook by a few people. I wasn’t keen because I’ve always had such a busy social life anyway that I really didn’t think I had time to be setting up online social networks, it really didn’t interest me. However after a few invites I eventually gave in and set up a profile. I’ve been amazed at how many people are on there and how quickly my network has grown…. I’m also on ‘linked in’ which is more of a business networking community. I absolutely see the purpose of this, business networking online makes sense, it’s a great tool for hiring staff or looking for jobs and even finding business opportunities and the great thing about it is, every person you connect with must have some contact through someone you know. This is far removed from complete strangers making contact with you, when you don’t know their background or if what they are saying has even an element of truth to it.
I guess what I’m seeing with Facebook is that this takes online networking to a whole new level. One difference is that you can actually be found by complete strangers, yes you get to choose if you want to talk to them or not but even connecting with people you know, or thought you knew, it brings a whole new dimension to the relationship.
But I’m just wondering are these social networking tools finally breaking down that famous British reserve of socially acceptable norms in communication and is this a good thing? Or will familiarity soon breed contempt?
In the business sites you really only show one dimension of who you are – your achievements and experience. This is of course extremely important, but there is not much room for personality or for demonstrating the ‘softer skills’. It has suddenly become totally acceptable to display to the world your family, your hobbies, even allowing comments about you to be seen and depending on how you limit your privacy you can choose how much of yourself and your life to share with others.
This is quite a strange phenomenon really. If you meet someone in a bar or at a social function, you wouldn’t talk as much about your personal life as they can find out with a few clicks of a button online, in fact if you did start talking at that level with people you only just met they would think you were crazy and quickly make an excuse to move on and find someone slightly more reserved to converse with. And even when you know people well, seeing them in the light of their relationships with other communities of people reveals so much more about them that it’s an enlightening experience - or in some cases just frightening! So how much do we actually want to know about each other? Is keeping a little mystery still as exciting as it once was or is it more fun to throw a virtual plate of nachos at each other, superpoke a complete stranger, throw a sheep at a friend, snog your secret crush (after all it’s only virtual it could be just a joke right?!) or join the ‘Ban Bush from the Whitehouse’ network.
It’s interesting to view this in the context of our industry. We are a social bunch of people, more so than most industries, but then we are also such a busy community as well. Relationships and contacts mean so much to us, maybe it’s a good tool to keep those contacts up and take relationships to the next level? I think as long as we don’t neglect meeting up face-to-face that these tools may be quite useful for us. But really there is nothing that beats sitting down in front of another person drink in hand and just talking - it’s still more effective and let’s face it more fun that sitting down in front of a PC! So my guess is, yes it will add a new dimension to our industry (not to mention our social lives!) but no it will not replace the human interaction that we so love.
On that note, I’m off for a girlie lunch and a few glasses of wine, after all it’s a Friday and the sun is shining outside! Enjoy it while it lasts….
Yours,
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