Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Don't Forget To Feed Your Online Connections


We live in a connected world where most of us are online just about every waking hour of the every day. Whether it be connection through email, instant messaging or a colossal number of social networking applications like a BLOG, Twitter, Facebook or Myspace, most of us are continually plugged in. That means when we are online the impressions we make "in the cloud" are every bit as important as how we would want to be perceived face to face.

Through our online personas our ability to build and strengthen our connections and ultimately our personal and professional networks grows exponentially. I won't claim to be an expert in the Web 2.0 movement but I can tell you since bringing my BLOG online and participating in various web oriented sites/communities the sphere of my network has grown incredibly large. That is both incredibly fun and exciting but a bit scary too.

You see when you meet someone online there is a reasonable set of expectations for how to care and feed that "virtual" relationship. Much like in real life when you meet someone new, you have to build a connection to that person and find reasons to continue to engage, otherwise the relationship will wither away and die. When you meet people online the importance of doing that is magnified because the relationship is purely virtual; there's no smiling personality or person to person contact to fall back on. You are in essence dots on a screen (or perhaps a really cute avatar or picture) and it takes work for those online connections to grow and for a real relationship to develop.

Just because you can't see the other person doesn't mean the value or importance of their contribution to your life or business is any less meaningful. Take the time and make the effort to grow those online relationships and watch your personal and professional network blossom.

4 comments:

Sue said...

*feeding* You a cup of coffee. :-)

Anonymous said...

A relationship is as strong as the party who wants it least, who invests the least in the relationship. When you put in a penny, your relationship now has the potential to be one cent strong if the other party is interested in reciprocating.

When you post a comment, share your insights, create a human bond, you are investing in individual relationships, and at times community relationships. It is when these boil up, in aggregate, that we begin to see a quantifiable ripple across the web. Thanks for sharing!

Steve Harper said...

Sue,

And I will take it!

Ripple On My Friend!

Steve Harper said...

Jon,

You are exactly right! Spot on my friend. Thank you for sharing your inspirational comments.

I love the penny analogy by the way.

Ripple On!!!