[Air-l] Who am I? - Social Networks - Not Networking - Networking
John Veitch
jsveitch at ate.co.nz
Wed Jun 20 19:29:55 PDT 2007
I'm indebted to Danah Boyd for so clearly explaining how different
social segments find it important to join certain online groups. Also
for the insight that while we might call these groups "social networks",
when young people join these groups they are not "networking" in the
sense most of us would understand.
So this form of joining behaviour is like wearing a colours, or a badge,
or branded jeans, or the right brand of sport shoe, or being part of the
"right" cell phone network. My self image tells me which choice is
appropriate for me. It's a from of personal branding, not really linking
or friending or connecting in the way someone like me (I'm 65) might
imagine.
The article in US Airways Magazine, "Welcome to the Social (Network)",
by Daniel Tynan goes on to explain that because of web 2.0 influences
many sites on the Internet allow people to offer site content, and to
"brand" that content with their proper names or their chosen Internet
names. Once again this is not networking, but it is using the power of
many to create a resource for other "people like me", since if you are
not "like me" you would never find your way to this "space".
Search engines will pick up your name or your brand in most of the
places where you are active. By using these sites we leave traceable
tracks of ourselves. Most of the young people using MySpace or Facebook
or Bebo are not thinking about "building a personal brand" but that is
the task they have begun. Besides it's an important task, one that we
all need to learn. A MySpace page you've put effort and time into is
certainly one way to begin. David Teten and Scott Allen in their book
"The Virtual Handshake; Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online" devote a
chapter to "Building Your Virtual Presence" (CH5).
Lauren M Squires, inspired this letter today by suggesting that we are
all in real life social networks so that Daniel Tynan's comment: "If you
don't belong to some kind of (online) social network, you soon may not
belong anywhere." was too strong. ("... This usage got my goat, for
whatever reason" LS) While I agree that the words Daniel Tynan chose
are immoderate, the sentiment he is expressing is in the right
direction. The value of the Internet for each of us evolves out of the
social contacts that we build online.
"All learning is social." ... "We learn best from people like
ourselves." ... "Children learn more quickly and easily if the teacher
is a person who shares the same culture as the child." I'm sure you know
many similar quotes. While it's true that in the real world most of us
can find the contacts we need, the Internet make is possible to build
social contacts across geographic and political and religious
boundaries. The great promise of the Internet is better understanding
and more informed decision making and greater innovation because we live
in the "information age".
You get a clue from the term "information age" that "information" is a
resource or a tool that you can "get" by paying a price of some kind.
That price might be $1.20 for a newspaper, or $150.00 for a technical
report, or it may be the time cost of being a member of air-l listserv.
However very often the key to my access to the information I need is to
be a MEMBER of LinkedIn, or Ryze, or Viadeo, or Xing or TEN. In my
activity as a member I slowly identify certain people who are "like me"
and when I see their names attached to comments, I would otherwise
ignore, instead I pay special attention. When you are "known" to more
people, your messages posted to lists like this or to web sites will be
read by more people.
That so many people on this list are familiar with MySpace and Facebook
but not Bebo (The current hit in NZ schools I understand) tells us
something about who's here. The original social network that became very
popular was Ryze. That network looks fairly old hat now, but it still
has some very active discussion networks in English, and it's growth
rate remains steady. I strongly recommend to you all the value of
LinkedIn. It's not obvious what to do there, because there are no
discussion boards, but it's a great way to display your personal work
record and history in a form less formal than a CV. And the Answers
section of LinkedIn is a valuable resource. Depending on where you live
and your interests joining one or two other online social networks is
likely to be useful.
Since many of you are university focused Academici might appeal to you.
Academici was built on the same base as OpenBC and run out of Germany.
It functions in 16 different languages. There was some problem with
continuing to use the OpenBC software platform and Academici had to
shift their entire membership to a new system. It's been messy and it
took almost a year. A lot of goodwill has been lost. But the initiative
is still valuable. Your support would be appreciated.
Drop me a private note and I'll send you an invitation.
Here's the site:
http://www.academici.net/
John
--
"John Stephen Veitch"
http://www.ate.co.nz/
http;//www.ate.co.nz/networking/
By all means Google me.
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