Ok.. so now that I have your attention. What I don't like is that I DON'T KNOW many of my social networking friends. There is a obviously a core group of individual friends and colleagues that its important to stay connected to but the fact that I don't know many of the folks reaching out to me, at first befuddled me. I assumed it was on the future chance that one day we would be able to leverage the connection to our mutual benefit. But the more these connections pile up, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Plaxo Pulse, the less confident I am of the potential leverage in these connections. I do derive some value -- answering questions, refering friends for job searches etc... but shouldn't there be more?
So, I moved from befuddlement (an almost ever present state of mind) to frustration at having to vet whether or not a particular individual was worth the time to connect with and I found myself accepting connections en masse (especially on LinkedIn).
Ok, so I've moved beyond frustration to acceptance (where is Kubler-Ross when you need her). Acceptance that this is the new order and I wonder how much of my mental process around this is due to the fact that I'm a late stage boomer and not a Millennial.
If I am the only one that feels this way, then in 2008 nothing much will change. But if others feel as I do, regardless of generational differences, I think we will begin to see more closed social networks, that are invitation only and align more closely with value that that particular connectedness delivers to network members.
Thoughts?
