Why Do You Follow? Why Are We Friends?

There is much debate these days about the future of social media. This is not a new phenomenon or a fad. The interface will change, new portals will crop up, but it isn’t going anywhere.

Is Twitter modern day Hieroglyphics?
Five thousand years ago, the Egyptians used hieroglyphics on walls and caves to tell entire life stories.

Over a hundred years ago, Samuel Morse devised a code for his electric telegraph which revolutionized radio communication.

Today we sit impatiently while our 3G phones take almost a second to react to our every whim.

What are the similarities?
It is our need to belong, share, and be a part of something. Social media has given us the ability to connect with people we actually know, people who know the people we actually know, and beyond.

The connections are the starting point not the end game. If you haven't seen Did You Know 3.0 you should! It's an eye opener and it's exciting. In the presentation, it lists the population of MySpace as the fifth largest country in the world.

We are building communities from every area of the planet, every race and religion, financial background and upbringing, personal taste and political leaning. Borders are gone.

Six Degrees
Whenever I receive or send a friend or connection request, one of the first things that catches my attention is how many mutual friends we have – the more Kevin Bacons, the more likely we have stuff in common. At least that’s the theory.

Obviously, with hundreds and possibly thousands of friends, connections and followers no one can keep it all straight. But if you want to experience the true magic of this process, take a few seconds and find out more about them, then perhaps initiate further contact.

Why do we connect?
Be inquisitive and you will be surprised how many will say hello and how many will want to know more about you.

If you expect others to read your stuff, be prepared to read theirs. If you think you can build a network so you can send spam, don't be surprised when your friend count begins to dwindle.

Your engagement could simply be to collect friends like hockey cards, build a profile and join the worldwide fridge magnet party. Or you can take a few seconds and get to know a little bit about those who said “yes”.

What are the benefits of social media to you?

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Do They Care? Should We Care?

Someone much more cynical than me once coined the phrase “no one cares more about you, than you”. We all have friends and family and close colleagues, but other than that who really cares about us?

I have found some wonderful new friends through social media and those friendships and business connections have grown my personal network of people I care about. I’m sure you have too. The electronic way we all connect has given us the chance to meet people we would have otherwise never met.

But let’s do some rough math. There are approximately 6.7 billion on the planet and if we’re lucky we each have a handful of people who truly care about us and want us to do well. And vice-versa.

This doesn’t mean the rest wish us ill or harm, they simply don’t have that kind of time. People are busy. They are busy worrying about their lives and so are you.

It’s interesting to note how much we as enlightened humans care about what others think of us. That makes us compassionate but it also makes us borderline neurotic. If you have ever lost your job or changed companies, or shifted industries, the cliché is true – you find out who your friends are. Blame proximity, but people move on. And so do you.

This experiment gets even more interesting in business because we have gotten to a point where the degree on your wall or what you did in the past means less and less.

But what we should deem more important is how fast we can think on our feet, how creative we are with our minds, how well we can adapt, communicate and share.

StumbleUpon conducted a behavioral study last year. After gathering the data, they split up the sample of 1,000 people into five categories; Happy-Go-Luckys, Purists, Emotionals, Owners and Destroyers.

The Happy-Go-Luckys were the group that sifted through pages quickly but didn't stop to make negative comments because - as it said in the report; "There is enough negativity sapping the world so there was just no need to add more." This is a group that didn't care what others said about them nor felt it was necessary to make negative comments without reason. Benign behavior not vindictive. Remember that the next time someone fails to return an email - it may not mean anything.

The more we worry about what others think of us and what they think of our ideas, the more we dismiss those ideas and who we are. And hence stifle our growth.

The brilliant Sir Ken Robinson explains it much better than me when he discusses education and creativity. If you haven’t watched this TEDTalk it’s twenty minutes well spent.

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