Dear Clients and Colleagues:
By way of personal testimony, I'm going to address a growing issue in the on-line marketplace, or more specifically business networking.
A trusted friend recently introduced a former colleague facing an inflection point. This person wasn't looking for immediate change per se; he wanted an objective framework for asking questions -- in a safe environment. Rather than immediately gather background, I held off looking him up on-line until meeting in person. Granted this modus operandi may be a little different since my business relies more heavily on one-to-one communication and relationship building vs. the one-to-many approach.
We are rapidly moving, okay, have moved into a world where lots of loose connections, or those known as Facebook friends, now rule the roost. The marketplace is largely responsible for this trend so far be it for anyone to become indignant about what amounts to a mostly positive trend when taking into account the trend's overall value.
Back to the previous story. If I had chosen to go on Linked In or Facebook to profile this person, then chances are details would have been gathered in typical form. By the same token the exercise also would have fed natural biases that naturally inform meeting someone for the first time. Flip this example around and several examples leap to mind where a prospective client profiled us and decided what we did wasn't for them -- without having a personal conversation.
Forgive the rapid fire question, but for crying out loud, have we lost that much human capacity that we're going to fear meeting someone new in business so much that we're going to profile inside and out prior to ever laying eyes on that person? Cynics may say yes that's been going on in the on-line dating world so what's the big deal. I am not one of those cynics --at least not on this topic.
Please join in an exercise of creative constraint when it comes to on-line social networking. Meeting new people with a blank slate that removes bias has more potential to open new doors and lead to new places of value, something that is needed right now across all sectors. Key search terms only go so far.
Put the personal back into (social) networking, in other words, or at the very least show profiling restraint so more game changing possibilities can present themselves. The fear of something new can never supercede the need to find something new. Thank you,
JG
By way of personal testimony, I'm going to address a growing issue in the on-line marketplace, or more specifically business networking.
A trusted friend recently introduced a former colleague facing an inflection point. This person wasn't looking for immediate change per se; he wanted an objective framework for asking questions -- in a safe environment. Rather than immediately gather background, I held off looking him up on-line until meeting in person. Granted this modus operandi may be a little different since my business relies more heavily on one-to-one communication and relationship building vs. the one-to-many approach.
We are rapidly moving, okay, have moved into a world where lots of loose connections, or those known as Facebook friends, now rule the roost. The marketplace is largely responsible for this trend so far be it for anyone to become indignant about what amounts to a mostly positive trend when taking into account the trend's overall value.
Back to the previous story. If I had chosen to go on Linked In or Facebook to profile this person, then chances are details would have been gathered in typical form. By the same token the exercise also would have fed natural biases that naturally inform meeting someone for the first time. Flip this example around and several examples leap to mind where a prospective client profiled us and decided what we did wasn't for them -- without having a personal conversation.
Forgive the rapid fire question, but for crying out loud, have we lost that much human capacity that we're going to fear meeting someone new in business so much that we're going to profile inside and out prior to ever laying eyes on that person? Cynics may say yes that's been going on in the on-line dating world so what's the big deal. I am not one of those cynics --at least not on this topic.
Please join in an exercise of creative constraint when it comes to on-line social networking. Meeting new people with a blank slate that removes bias has more potential to open new doors and lead to new places of value, something that is needed right now across all sectors. Key search terms only go so far.
Put the personal back into (social) networking, in other words, or at the very least show profiling restraint so more game changing possibilities can present themselves. The fear of something new can never supercede the need to find something new. Thank you,
JG
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