[Air-l] Who am I? - Social Networks - Not Networking - Networking

[John Veitch]

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.