Soar With the Eagles
My RSS Feeds
Social Networking - not quite my panacea
posted Wednesday, 3 June 2009
I am Linked In. I Facebook. I Tweet. I blog. I have two websites. Social networks are great, for staying in touch with friends and for marketing my business and my new book (which you really need a copy of, ;-) ). I get a lot of good information from Googling sources on the web: Travel plans. Retail. Reputable medical websites, the kind that doctors frequent, are my friends. I love the web.
Where do I go for most of my referrals for things I really care about, though? My real-life people networks. Sorry, I’m just not truly connected to people until I have some substantive relationship with them. I get deeply connected to my cyber-students during a semester. I met my sig other in cyberspace. Younger people, perhaps, have not had time to understand the difference between superficial activity-buddies and the people who validate your current lifestyle or choices [make you feel OK about yourself, which they need more desperately than O2] , vs the people you really connect with on a deeper level.
I like and trust the handyman who fixes some of my stuff and refers me to other good people. I met him through my realtor friend. I trust my next-door neighbor and who he recommends. I like and trust the contractor that State Farm recommended. I like and trust the young man I hired after putting an ad on Craig’s List. He’s done several hauling and moving jobs for me recently. I like the reiki healers and massage/aestheticians I met at CERT training. I trust my pet sitter’s recommendations.
So when our old spring-loaded garage door opener went “BANG!” and died, at the end of a long and exhausting week, when my sig other went into orbit as people do when the last straw of the week is reached, I wasn’t worried. I sent him next door to talk to the neighbor. And the next day, when I was meeting the nice young man for some storage locker clear-out, I mentioned that we were in dire need of a garage door repair ASAP. He thought for a moment and uttered the magic words: “My father-in-law’s neighbor owns a garage door company.”
Of course he does. It’s how people have been getting things done for four thousand years, ever since towns got big enough that you didn’t know everyone personally or through a family connection and had to start larger social nets.
I love the web. I love social networking. But it’s telling that I didn’t turn to it to help me in this immediate dilemma in which I did not have the money or time to have it done poorly or next week. When I needed help designing a website, I put that need out on my local Linked In group – and did not hire any of the total strangers who responded.
I’m not a fanatic about personal referrals, mind you. I meet a lot of great people and even new friends as well as resources by doing nothing more than looking in a directory and asking divine guidance in picking the right person. It’s amazing (or maybe it’s not) how often that works out very well.
Someday, my web social networks will mature and I will have the opportunity to ask the right people about the right problem. Which will include my next door neighbor.
Where do I go for most of my referrals for things I really care about, though? My real-life people networks. Sorry, I’m just not truly connected to people until I have some substantive relationship with them. I get deeply connected to my cyber-students during a semester. I met my sig other in cyberspace. Younger people, perhaps, have not had time to understand the difference between superficial activity-buddies and the people who validate your current lifestyle or choices [make you feel OK about yourself, which they need more desperately than O2] , vs the people you really connect with on a deeper level.
I like and trust the handyman who fixes some of my stuff and refers me to other good people. I met him through my realtor friend. I trust my next-door neighbor and who he recommends. I like and trust the contractor that State Farm recommended. I like and trust the young man I hired after putting an ad on Craig’s List. He’s done several hauling and moving jobs for me recently. I like the reiki healers and massage/aestheticians I met at CERT training. I trust my pet sitter’s recommendations.
So when our old spring-loaded garage door opener went “BANG!” and died, at the end of a long and exhausting week, when my sig other went into orbit as people do when the last straw of the week is reached, I wasn’t worried. I sent him next door to talk to the neighbor. And the next day, when I was meeting the nice young man for some storage locker clear-out, I mentioned that we were in dire need of a garage door repair ASAP. He thought for a moment and uttered the magic words: “My father-in-law’s neighbor owns a garage door company.”
Of course he does. It’s how people have been getting things done for four thousand years, ever since towns got big enough that you didn’t know everyone personally or through a family connection and had to start larger social nets.
I love the web. I love social networking. But it’s telling that I didn’t turn to it to help me in this immediate dilemma in which I did not have the money or time to have it done poorly or next week. When I needed help designing a website, I put that need out on my local Linked In group – and did not hire any of the total strangers who responded.
I’m not a fanatic about personal referrals, mind you. I meet a lot of great people and even new friends as well as resources by doing nothing more than looking in a directory and asking divine guidance in picking the right person. It’s amazing (or maybe it’s not) how often that works out very well.
Someday, my web social networks will mature and I will have the opportunity to ask the right people about the right problem. Which will include my next door neighbor.
comments