I’ve been spending a great deal of time thinking about relationships lately due to a great week I had with my whole family over spring break. It was one of those classic vacations where all of us - Kevren, Dijouri, Prescott, Hadrian and Emily were able to revitalize ourselves and develop even closer bonds. I also missed the opportunity this week to catch up with couple of folks who I only see a couple of times a year and missed an introduction to another - so this week was just chock full of relationship stuff.
With near misses and great successes this week, I thought I would jot down some concepts which I have been bouncing around the evolution of a given social relationship.
Not all social relationships are created equal and neither are all interactions.
Yup, Captain Obvious is back! While a fairly simple observation, it was punctuated with some great social content which found me this week thanks to the great folks that I follow, share and interact with. This week had escalating Shel v. Loren action, Sarah’s FAQ, Christina’s milkshake and @rabeidoh’sfive levels of social media relationships - each of these folks demonstrated varying levels of investment for evolving active social relationships. The key takeaway this week from my network for me is that each person has different expectations and these change over time based on your interactions, for good or ill.
While I really don’t want a Social Media Antagonist or think that anything such as a social media Ninja exists, I do think we are ALL attempting to generate meaningful relationships which evolve towards their natural end state, what ever that is. Ultimately whether you are just a feed voyeur, a follower or a personal friend you will ultimately find the shared value equilibrium in each social relationship you engage in.
The Interaction Evolution
We all bring our own quirks and expectations with us when we start building social relationships, this includes or preferential biases for communication. I use different tools, mediums and response requirements based on where I am with a specific relationship or topic I am covering. Think about it - What access do you provide to a twitter random? Who get’s your REAL email? Who get’s your phone number? Who gets added on twitter?
No simple feat to qualify a mutual connection for mutual investment and evolutionary access. Mutual contribution and participation will ultimately determine what level of interaction happens and access is provided. Dopp’s recent post demonstrates how access expectations vary and what qualifies as a valuable interaction via email for her as an individual:
If you have my phone number, the best way to get my attention is a text message. If I’m following you on Twitter, you can have the same effect with a direct message. Email is the next best thing, and “info at sarahdopp dot com” will get you past my spam filters if you’re not already in my address book. I read every email I receive but I’m not always the best at responding, so please follow up if you’re not getting what you need from me. (Tip: I tend to respond to short emails faster than I respond to long emails.)
Appears to be an expectation gap in some of Sarah’s relationships, but now everyone has the ground rules which is a good thing. It is something to build on. What are you going to GIVE your connections to build on?
The Evolution of Social Relationships
We all have to start somewhere and any given social relationship hopefully will evolve towards greater access, trust and value over time or it won’t and you are 1 click away from something else. No specific state of a social relationship is any less rewarding or beneficial for the participants, just different exceptations, access and interactions. It sorta has a “deal-with-it” undertone, but facts are facts. To go even further cliche on this - you get what you give from a social relationship.
The Connection: Sharing and Learning
Some of the most rewarding social connections I have are centered on the sharing of information and experiences of people I have no other connection to than a random twitter add. Most social relationships start with an innocuous add and may ultimately stay a voyuer for both parties, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a valuable relationship. When you are sharing ideas and time with your network you are investing in the relationship which provides for new opportunities and interactions with your connections.
Your Social Colleagues
Over time and with work, you will be able to identify folks you interact with who you would consider a colleague. You meet at conferences, grab coffee and catch up at other geek social events, but you probably just show up at their house in 20 minutes. This is however where your investment continues to evolve and provides initial returns for both folks through shared experiences and increased trust.
Social Friendship
There are plenty of business colleagues I interact with which represent some of the most rewarding relationships I have which are steeped in shared successes and interests, but don’t evolve into “friendship”. Just like in business, social relationship can develop to become personal relationships that transcend your typical business relationship - mutual respect, mutual learning and continued investment in share goals and values, but it requires more than just shared experiences. Shared goals, ideals and investment are central to developing and maintaining social friendship.
Social friends are definitely good stuff when you can find it and the social relationship is now just a just a primordial hop out of the sea to borrowing tools or going into their refrigerator uninvited.
A Personal Friend
This should be self-explanatory, you have real friends right? Yup, you can borrow stuff now. This is also the part in which any relationship becomes wonderfully unpredictable, interactive and enjoyable. This is the “best of luck” part of the evolution, as from this point on it’s not 140 characters or dodged voicemails - they are showing up at your house uninvited and eating your food. Time to food theft varies by person, but it’s worth the wait and the effort.
The Homo Sapien Complexity
Social relationships evolve very much the same as any other relationship. The main anomaly is the candidate pool is so much bigger for finding cool folks that you can’t possibly develop each and every connection to the same level at the same time. Even though you have exponentially more access, it doesn’t mean you have exponential time or value to add, so do what you gotta do to evolve the right relationships.
No matter the path a given social relationships takes, each interaction provides the opportunity to drive shared value and extend/change what the evolutionary equilibrium is.
To that end… @shelisrael go ahead and block….. @Film_Girl I have my fingers crossed! And don’t be that guy…
So I continue to just be amazed with the increasing value of Twitter for me as a person. Twitter is helping me be less verbose, although you can’t tell from my posts and it continues to expose me to new folks, ideas and online resources I would have never known about without Twitter. That being said, the Big Bang of the Twitterverse continues to expand the population at an amazing rate, it is increasingly becoming a the platform of choice for communication for many folks.
Twitter-centric content is everywhere! I am easily able to find posts on Twitter which are rewarding and provide for a better understanding of the value of the platform, but there are increasing number of ideas around effective Twitter management which is an interesting twist. The growing number of how to better manage the stream recommendations are not only interesting, but confirmation that the community is evolving. Perhaps the most honest piece on managing the stream I have read is Dopp’s. (If you haven’t read the Juice you should, the content is amazingly honest and insightful - not the kinda stuff you will find here.) Tips, tricks and how to’s are becoming a staple when it comes to Twitter references online.
Despite the Twitter land grab underway, the utility of Twitter is still non-trivial. With the recent increase in reliability and the platform stabilization of late, which is much needed with the increasing visibility; there is a growing need to understand the use of the platform by new folks. The community does self-monitor and reject poor form, but it will take some time for users to push back against the over crowding, so anything that help improve the usage hopefully is a good thing. So how can you use twitter as a tool for more effective communication? Below are 5 areas for consideration to improve your Twitter experience:
Listen and Participate: People are on Twitter to connect. No, really… use twitter to express and share. If someone in your group asks a question and you have input, respond - that’s sorta why they asked. You may want to listen for a while until you participate, your call.
Use it for a Place to Get Ideas: The people in your stream will amaze you with their creativity and insight in <140 characters. Actively use the information and the links shared to understand more about what interest you and your followers. You just might find a topic or two which you can share with others or even blog about.
Meet New People and Develop Relationships: You will find people on Twitter who will expand your network and your understanding of a topic or a region - it will also expand others views of you and your region.
A Place to Find Stuff: This could be content you are looking for or other stuff, such as restaurants or other things to do. I’ve been reminded I need to go see a movie and how much fun an afternoon at a museum can be.
People Watch: Sometimes passive is good. More than likely there will be many folks in your network that you won’t engage, but just watch. That’s ok, just because I don’t play with some of my kid’s toys, doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy watching them play with them.
Need to understand a little more about twitter? Here’s a brief little video for you:
Have fun with your new shiny toy and find a way to make it useful and productive for your and your friends.
So I was reading the latest Inc. Magazine online, because of some random content a friend of mine was able to do a quote for mediaTemple, which is how I found the article, “Anything Can Happen” a interesting little history lesson on Ev. After reading through it I was somewhat amazed a the naivety of the author’s assertion that Twitter may be built to flip or at least passing on others might think this. On some levels, so what if it’s a exit focused start up, that being said Twitter’s micro-use case for business, public safety and personal communication are almost limitless, except for the 140 character thing. Below is Max Chafkin’s thinly supported concept by “many others”:
Although some technologists think Twitter could one day be a billion-dollar company, many others say it represents the worst of Web 2.0: a company that is built to flip, that does little of value and has no long-term prospects as a standalone enterprise.
So relationships, information and minimalist technology may have little value in some circles, but it is quickly becoming the favorite channel for real-time communication for many. It is essentially a platform that levels the messaging playing field for people, businesses and potentially the government.
People
Twitter provides insights into where and what. Not an overly complicated use case - share where and what is going on RIGHT NOW in under 140 characters with your followers and keep in touch with the people you are following. Twitter allows for a voyeuristic view into random folks’ lives and friends alike. It also services as an up to date new source with crowdsourcing of content and pushed content from legacy media outlets, such as the BBC.
Businesses
This technology could be seen as best for a marketing channel, but I think it better suited for the service channel and effectively keeping your customers aprised on support issues, service availability and general FYI information without the requirement of going to a website with it being delivered to your phone. I mean think about it - an elevator pitch in <140 characters. Maybe a new product launch artifact will emerge called the Twitter Pitch, but in essence once you’re done, your done; unless of course every day has a new pitch, which might be a fun spoof profile.
Public Safety
Amber Alerts might be useful on twitter, reminders of an election day or severe weather alerts. Twitter represents a broadcast communications platform which could have many uses for an eGovernment initiative. I actually think the civic uses are endless.
I’m not sure where I was going with it, but in principle if Twitter can represent the worst of what is Web 2.0, then bloggers and technologist are all doomed since it would imply community, relationships and content has limited/no value.
I’ve decided to begin leveraging Twitter as a source for research and extending my general awareness of the good stuff folks are producing/sharing with/for the community. I try and do Top 5 tweets, but this will be a little different, this will be a wander through information and concepts I never would have found out without Twitter. Thanks to Gaping Void, I found Confused of Calcutta, by JP Rangaswami and navigated my way to what he thought he would find on Twitter.
Over time every site, tool and network I’ve used/participated in ultimately changes from what I originally thought it would be, since I share similar, but different, relationships on many of these platforms I get different community views of content. I’m not sure what I expected to get from Twitter, but here is what I think it is good for:
For me: See what, where and to some extent why things are going on. I’ve been able to get a broader understanding of social media, marketing and news than I normally get on my own. Twitter is the by far the most diverse network I participate in.
People I’m Following: It give me a personalized view of micro-content which folks think is important. It creates a set of focused interactions where slivers of life and content are shared passively - it’s my choice to do something on the pushed content. I share weather, location and food, but others are more pervasive with their usage. Questions, Blog posts and human filtered news.
People Following Me: I have no idea what they are expecting, hopefully not that much, but I try to make this the medium where my life shines through, more so than any other platform I leverage.
There are a great deal of tools out there and all have different ways to be implemented by a given user, but key appears to be community oriented, as Mukund points out by posting Wodtke’s lengthy preso which winds through identity, reputation and relationships as attributes of communities, but also as markets.
