Comments on: thinking about connections

By: Christopher Rollyson

Christopher Rollyson — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:55:45 +0000

JP, I deal with this issue extensively, as I launched the Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn about a year ago (I advise firms on using LI for process innovation). LinkedIn’s culture and membership is “executive” and business (read “Boomer”). Boomers (YOB 1960 here, so I’m a spanner, er, American, not UK English ,^) don’t yet get social media, so they have a hard time knowing how to communicate. Facebook’s demographic grew up with Web 2.0, so the comfort level is higher and communication more rich. Think about it; organizationally focused Boomers have structure in their DNA, so they need to unlearn that. LinkedIn is becoming more interactive. Another reason for Facebook’s interactivity: it’s personal, playful and there’s less fear.. many of my clients have initial trepidation in LinkedIn *because* it’s business.. they don’t want to look bad, so that imposes a barrier to entry. LinkedIn will become increasingly interactive and hugely valuable as more people understand the value (do you realize most users don’t even know about the Answers forums?!) of interacting. Keep an open mind and watch.

By: The Social TCP/IP Stack « BenJam

The Social TCP/IP Stack « BenJam — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:04:40 +0000

[...] The services I use let me and, more importantly, me friends choose how to ‘consume me’ (a’ la JP Rangaswami). [...]

By: Devangshu

Devangshu — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:45:33 +0000

JP,
You’ve already grasped the reason for the fragmentation though you fail to explicitly mention it.
You connect with three different user-sets, which have a relatively low overlap, because your interests are diverse and you personally make the effort to straddle different platforms with different demographics in pursuance of those interests.
Anybody who uses any of these three platforms has easy access to FB (Linkedin is the only marginally closed set), which is where you choose to place contact info. I don’t see how disenfranchisement can happen.

By: Subbu

Subbu — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:51:24 +0000

Now I realise why you haven’t mentioned your email ID in your blog. I have recently made a posting in my blog about the posts I wished I had written. You might be surprised at one of the entries. Just click on the following link: http://thefreeunion.blogspot.com/2009/02/top-ten-i-wish-i-had-written-this.html

By: Ric

Ric — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:23:58 +0000

@mkrigsman – great point! I suspect that a few years ago, any attempt on my part to speak to JP would have been routed via his PA and strenuously denied! Which would certainly have been a shame for me … (less so for JP perhaps!)

By: Paramendra Bhagat

Paramendra Bhagat — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:07:21 +0000

Twitter Tips: It’s A Bird, It’s A Bird
http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2009/02/twitter-tips-its-bird-its-bird.html

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 03:18:02 +0000

Your theories make sense. Though behavior is – as it often will – evolving with the specific tools and the whole ecosystem. The contact method is part about need and to some degree suggests the method. And partly about personal preference and nature of existing relationship. Some of what you’re describing falls along some of the same aspects of conversations regarding the asymmetric nature of Twitter followers.

I became aware of you at an FL search conference. And a brief personal conversation and an email follow up about something we had discussed. I subscribe to your blog because I appreciate your thoughts, and I occasionally comment if I feel – rightly or wrongly – that I’ve got something to add. But… as much as I’m sure I’d enjoy chatting with you at an industry event or such, we’re not “friends” per se, so I’ve not invited you to Facebook. (Nor have or should I receive an invitation.) That just wouldn’t make sense. In terms of LinkedIn, I see it as a non-invasive contact manager for business reasons. (Unlike some annoying services.) In the end, I suppose I take more than I give in this relationship since I likely get more from your blog then I’ve offered back. Ideally I’m balancing that out in the world with other volunteer work I do and such. I don’t know. I’ll have to send you a LinkedIn request at least, so the least I could do would be share my network should you have occasion to use.

So… as to your question, I don’t think you have to do anything in particular differently.

Scott

By: Paramendra Bhagat

Paramendra Bhagat — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:52:28 +0000

One great thing about Facebook mail is there is no spam. And your friends latest are only a click away. I mean, Facebook is a fundamental application, like email, like search.

I think your choices go on to prove 2.0 is about people and relationships. You have a great set of outlets.

And looks like you got a great family, a great church, and a great circle of close friends, people you meet in person.

JP, I’d say you got it made.

You are an evangelical 2.0 guru. I mean, you did get me on Twitter.

By: san1t1

san1t1 — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:24:24 +0000

I’d like to see your thoughts repeated again, perhaps with a year or two’s further insight since the last series, on how communications with your colleagues, who have closed, intraweb means to converse with you have changed since you evolved your external identities. Do you find that (eg) internal email, or internal IM, are now barely necessary for non-managerial tasks? Does the “public work you” that leaks out of the firewall vary massively to the “private work you” that stays within the boundaries of enterprise auditing?

As to twitter and blogs. I find on twitter folk generally have “fugue” type conversations, question and answers, questions and answers.

Whereas with a blog there is a lot more space to expand and explore a single topic. it’s contained within it’s URI (http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2009/02/09/thinking-about-connections/) which is not the nature of twitter at all, it encourages conversations to leak and spread.

Both of these are valid of course, and I find you, JP, seem to explore concepts with others via Twitter, collect your thoughts, and then use the blog to posit your considered opinion. It would be an interesting exercise to see you produce a “twitter glossary” that shows, through links, every tweet that you considered was contributory to a given post BEFORE it got published.

By: Shefaly

Shefaly — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 07:02:03 +0000

@JP:

I am LI-purist (link with people who can vouch for me and whom I can vouch for, professionally) FB-sceptic (not sure what the point is really – I used to keep it for family and very old friends but now adding new friends there too who may move to LI in future, who knows?), Twitter-explorer (I use my own criteria for following people which means I follow very few people which may upset some but I put my hands up it is my self-imposed limitation).

I follow you on Twitter of course, and ‘star’ many of your posts. The rest, hopefully, will come by whenever we meet. :-)