So you’ve joined the social networking craze and now you receive daily requests be “LinkedIn” and to be “friends” on Facebook. You’re finding camp friends from 1982 and being found–stalked?–by girlfriends from 1993. It’s new, it’s exciting, it’s fun…it’s time consuming…it’s eating into your gym time…it’s an excuse to stay in on Friday nights. Hmmm…
Plus, aren’t you feeling a twinge of deja vu with all of this? I mean, you already know these people, or, if you’ve lost touch with them, maybe there was a good reason…. So what’s this all about? What are we DOING!?
Well, I’ve coined a term for this: we are “retrobuilding” our social networks. We are going back in time and piecing together our friends, acquaintances, college hook-ups, and former colleagues so that we can easily draw upon our social networks as needed.
In fact, the potential value of our social networks –if well retrobuilt –is so great that our numbers of LinkedIn “connections” and Facebook “friends” are becoming the new status symbols. You know how the the cocktail party conversation goes: “How many Facebook friends do you have? Oh, only 34. Well, you know, I’ve been on for 7 months now, so that’s why I have so many. You’ll get there…”
We’re moving from a world in which money = power to one in which influence potential = power. The values of our society are changing.
What’s interesting is that even though retrobuilding is a relatively new phenomenon, we will be the last generation to retrobuild. No, I don’t believe that social networking is going away, it’s just that Digital Natives have no need to retrobuild: they’ve only lived in a digital world. Their friends and contacts are already digitized. They are as connected to their friends on MySpace as they are in person at school, as they are via SMS.
So what will be the status symbols of the 21st century? I’d argue that influence is pretty high up there, so you’d better go get retrobuilding.
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I love this concept of retro-building. It’s mining all the contacts we had in the past and makes us feel more human-connected in a world that seems so isolating thanks to the convenience of technology. That said, do you really go to parties where people talk about the amount of friends they have on Facebook? I feel like Facebook is Aquaintancebook with the occasional Creepbook. I think numbers don’t really matter, it’s whether you take that reconnect opportunity to a new level or let it stop there.
Francesca,
Yes, you’re absolutely right about the great irony of social media making us feel more connected and more isolated all at the same time. Frighteningly, I DO go to parties where people talk about the number of Facebook friends that they have. 🙂 But really, though…
I agree that Facebook is a collection of acquaintances and that the value of a tool like this is the true re-interaction of these people, not just the superficial “connections.” Regardless of how deeply and frequently you reconnect with , once you’re Facebook “friends,” you can access one another at the push of a button when something makes you think of one of them. The news feed provides these opportunities for connection. Three quick examples. First, I just received an invitation to an interesting networking event being held in London and immediately thought of a former college friend with whom I’ve reconnected thanks to Facebook. I forwarded the invitation onto him with a quick note. While vacationing on the Martha’s Vineyard a few weeks ago, I Twittered about some of my experiences. This prompted messages independent messages from two former co-workers, one of whom had just returned from the same vacation spot and was envious that I was there; the other headed to the Vineyard just the next day for the first time and seeking some recommendations. These are not connections that I would likely be keeping up with at all, let alone keeping up with regarding such casual and personal topics. My retrobuilt network enabled these pleasant and valuable exchanges.
I use these services a lot, and I mainly think of Facebook and LinkedIn as really complex Rolodexes (certainly no one younger than me knows what that is…) where I can store data on people I know.
But the real strength of them is maintaining soft network connections using wall-to-wall, Twitter, or other tools to occassionally chat and share information – so that when the really important time that connection is needed comes along, you have already “primed the pump”.
I like the new term you’ve coined! In addition to retrobuilding past relationships, I’ve found that these tools enable me to foster new friendships more easily than I used to.
I think PlanetAll tried to jumpstart relationship building way back in the 90’s, but was too far ahead of its time. I still consider it the most Web 2.0 application that ever came out of Web 1.0.
Interestingly, despite all the new social networking tools that are out there — some of which I’ve joined and dropped, others in which I’m quite active — none of them do exactly what I miss from PlanetAll.
Teri, thanks very much for reading and thanks for your comment. Wasn’t familiar w/PlanetAll, but sounds like a good service. Timing really is everything. Remember PointCast…?
Mark, indeed, funny how Rolodex brand and term endures. Love your concept/differentiation of “soft network connections.” It is, indeed, these informal, seemingly insignificant, chats that are really what relationships are all about. Thanks for bringing this up.