I wrote a short blog post about a year or so ago, when social networking software …. the likes of LinkedIn, Ryze, Ecademy, Orkut, Friendster, Tribe, and so on … was all the rage. I thought that while those offerings and their capabilities were all nifty-like, what would work for me (and, I suspected, many others) was blogging, me being my normal sometimes-confused, sometimes-clear, sometimes-smart, sometimes-clueless me on my blog … writing and linking about things that interested me, issues that perplexed, frustrated and inspired me.
I thought that finding and exploring my own voice would help me eventually find other people that also were interested and interesting. I thought that this process might let people start conversations with me (and vice-versa) that were more important and ultimately more honestly useful than swapping contacts and trying to get the combination of my past jobs and titles, plus my interests in music and books, “just right” … so that I could find a new job or make a deal. I found that too cold, linear and frankly, one-dimensional.
For me, this blogging thing has worked well. In a year and a half or so, via blogging, I have made many friendships that I think and feel are real, and are mutually respectful, growthful and beneficial … in the Netherlands, in France, in the UK, in the USA, in Canada and elsewhere … and in some cases I suspect that these friendships will lead to enduring collaborations.
This makes sense to me. Blogging is, I think, the online process that mimics how we converse and engage in the real 3D world, AND it has some useful supplementary aspects. For example, much has been said and written about the absence of “body language” in blogging … and with this I agree. Body language helps us greatly to interpret and understand what someone else is trying to communicate. However … with blogs, one can go back to a post and read it, several times if needed or desired. One can sit and think, and muse about responding or not … one can grab a post and work with it, adding some thoughts, some facts, some links (Doc Searls has called this process “the scaffolding of meaning”). One can also send posts or comments to posts, to others .. via email, or work it into an essay, a research paper, a business plan. The information spreads itself around … and helps to create understanding, meaning and sense. It also clearly creates real and tangible connections between people … that this is happening is clearly obvious.
This process … active on several levels … also helps people build trust and credibility in this online environment. There are many examples of conflicting perspectives and voices … often called trolls on blogs where a particular point of view is espoused,elaborated and reinforced. I think trolls are an essential part of creating better, deeper, more widely shared meaning … they provide a wall, a fixed point of refernce against which to bounce meaning, explanations, better or more comprehensive facts. One also comes to find and know blogs that are interesting, relevant, useful .. and in reading them, and perhaps commenting form time to time, we get a clear sense of the commitment (to a point of view, or to openness, or …) of a blogger. Our interaction and interpretation of that blog, or another blog, also helps us get a sense of those mostly intangible but oh-so important attributes of trust and credibility.
All this is much like having, and working at, meaningful and enduring conversations and dialogue in the offline world … the process of human discourse .. and this is where and how trust, credibility and reputation are built. And those attributes are what make “social networking” work for people … helping them accomplish what they need or want to do, with other people, in this oh-so-social world.
Doc Searls points us to a new search engine today … IceRocket, a search engine that searches blogs for exact phrases and also has a “Find a Firend” feature (disclaimer: I have only looked at the home page, and have not yet tried it).
What I also believe is very interesting about blogging, social networking, and the ongoing evolution of semantic and collaborative technology – the enablers of human conversation – is that technology such as Icerocket will help us find and evaluate what others are saying and doing on their blogs, and so enhance the process of finding like and different-minded folks, enhance the process of listening and of using voice to create connection and meaning.
And that, I think, is a good thing, in a world that is rapidly changing because of information, technology, interconnectedness, the accumulated experience and consequences of all that has gone before, and troublesome complexity.
I’ll keep on blogging. I have long since stopped even looking at my LinkedIn connections, and I haven’t looked at Orkut for probably nine months. In the spirit of my point of view, I probably should go and look around, and see what’s happening there, since I keep on telling myself that I am open-minded and dedicated to learning. I should practice what I prognosticate.
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