Technology and Social Media - will 2010 be the year of networking, connections & relationships, and are they real?

I find it interesting that in our daily life we are becoming so much more connected to technology. Kid's have no idea what a cassette tape is, nor know what a tape deck was. They would not know what a photo slide is, nor would they know maths without a calculator and spelling without a spell checker. The kids of today have grown up with the internet and don't know of life before being online.

The benefits of social media technologies are that it encourages sharing, openness and establishing connections eg podcasts, you-tubing and twittering to so many people in every corner of the globe. However others see technology and social media as a limiting force, stopping real world connections with actual people. There are multiple arguments either way.

So is technology and the ability to connect via social media as real as a friendships in reality?

I think that it comes down to a few areas when you connect into social media and other relationship building technologies:

1. start of with people that you TRUST - this gives you a point of truth, because you know the person, and therefore the people they know and like are also likely to be people who you would get along with too
2. CONNECT with people that seem to have the same interested and passions that you do, so that you have something to talk about with equal and shared knowledge/wisdom, but where you can add value and input into conversations you may not know details about.
3. have an separate online IDENTITY for your professional life and personal life - you can never be too careful about what information you release on social technologies or the web, so have a similar avatar or image of yourself that is enough like you that people could meet you in person and see the resemblance. Also depending if you want to be recognised or not, get a name that you like and use it everywhere. This is especially relevant for PERSONAL BRANDING & networking with professionals in your field. Be consistent in this usage, to develop relationships and trust (yes that word again)
4. INTEGRITY - be sincere and respectful of people you meet. If you wouldn't do something to someone you meet in real life then don't do it online because you have technology as a cover to keep the real you hidden
5. Allow yourself to BE YOU - even in the online world with technology providing a sense of distance/personal space and anonymity, people still get a feel for someone and can determine if they like them or not, the same as in reality
6. BE ACTIVE in your online community - share information and items of value with others and in return they will share information with you

When you think about it, this isn't that far from what you do in normal life, it's just allows you to talk to people globally.

I have met some fantastic people around the world, shared in their lives, knowledge, successes and journeys and hopefully returned the favour. I respect the infinite knowledge that is brought to me via the electronic medium and feel enthusiastic to have connections with such fantastic people on the other side of the world who I will most likely never meet.

Technology enables these connections to be made, and whilst there are bad aspects to it all, this mirrors the real world.

What does 2010 hold for Social Media.

I've really embraced the standard set of social media & networking tools in the last 6 months and have really changed my opinion of them. So I have reviewed the 2 most common tools associated with social media and look to see how they will change in 2010.

I find facebook to be a valuable tool to connect with friends overseas and at home, and stay connected to them and maintain my friendship and relationships with them even if distance seperates us. Of course there are many 'apps' that you can add that are very game like, but it's easy enough to keep away from them. As a whole facebook can be like picking up the phone or sending a text message, but you talk when the other person logs in next.

At the other end of the spectrum, I use to see twitter as a waste of time. However I started to follow people I have long respected, which led me to access their 'friends'. From there it snowballs like a pyramid marketing scheme or viral ad. I now use twitter as a fantastic business learning tool, with added benefits of networking with likeminded people and following trends you are interested in. Again establishing connections with people in the form of a "follow" can promote you in your field if what you say is 'retweeted' within the community and seen as valuable, but for those with many followers I could imagine it all gets too much and they will likely limit lists to real personal connections. Of course the problem with twitter is that there is alot of junk that floats past your stream as well, so there is a need to fish the stream to find the juiciest fish.

There are many other tools used to connect with others and share information such as twitter add-ons to share photos, videos, presentations etc, tools to shorten URLs (to save all important characters), tools to share bookmarks with community, virtual meetings that then become real time.

My summary - I see the strengths of these tools being exploited in much greater detail. I think this year will really start to see the tools gain even wider adoption within business areas, but also evolve as more tools are created, especially to take advantage of portability being delivered by the smart phones now becoming more commonplace. The risk is the sheer volume of the information that potentially can be delivered in the stream ie the stream becoming a torrent or a flood of information that can no longer be controlled and the person gets swept away by an information deluge. I hope a combination of smart mining and sorting tools and also a stronger sense of community, knowledge sharing, collaboration, innovation and creativity will flourish in this environment in the comming year as we rebuild businesses in new and exciting ways.