7 comments

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  tom

  5 months ago

  I think I agree with your overall point that Facebook and other recent social entries are doing a better job of pulling your real life online rather than just creating another one with total strangers in place of your friends. But as my post above indicated (which you quoted, thanks for the link!) I think there’s a danger to that for some.
  
  I think the thing you notice about all those myspace pages by the, to use your term, “show-off inner city teens” is that they are all people with little to know responsibility. So yea, the 40 year old Musician/Waiter will have a MySpace page and he doesn’t have 2 nickels to rub together but I think that’s the exception. That group will embrace anything that’s free.
  
  The issue I was more pointing to were the people from their late 20s on who actually hold down professional jobs and, at this point, haven’t embraced social networking much at all. That’s where I think fear of repercussions play a part.
  
  Take Politics for instance. I have a friend who moved here (Southern California) from Wyoming to be a fashion designer. When he’d go for job interviews he’d put his Myspace profile on his resume (because he had pictures of designs there). After his second interview one of the people involved in the process pulled him aside and told him he’d be wise to remove the fact that he was Republican from his profile if he ever wanted to get a job in fashion. He did and sure enough he got hired on the very next interview.
  
  Now that’s anecdotal for sure but it shows you how an online presence can have an impact on your professional presence and how that in turn can put your career in danger. If I were in my 30s with a family I know I wouldn’t risk it just to have a Facebook profile. For Social Networking to really take off there are going to have to develop much better controls on it. Not just for professional contacts but for different social spheres such as your Mother and your Best Friend (almost no one wants their mother and their best friend to get the same updates)
  
  I think it’s a much trickier problem than anyone fully grasps at this point.
  reply
• 

  ceonyc

  5 months ago

  And I'd make the point that if that guy is a hardcore Republican, at
  some point, he's going to be miserable working for any company that
  wouldn't hire him solely for that fact.
  
  There's no doubt that I know and talk to more people in their late 20's
  related to career stuff than anyone save for maybe Penelope Trunk :),
  and I think the problem is tip-toeing into social media. Sure, if you
  have an otherwise non-descript Facebook profile that says you're
  Catholic or Jewish or gay or whatever, and that's just about the only
  non-resume thing someone knows about you, then sure, that's going to be
  an issue.
  
  But if you consistently blog fantastic, well thought out essays about
  how fashion trends start, cultural influences, or why certain "can't
  miss" trends die, and you drum up a big audience, AND you talk about why
  you're a republican, someone's going to hire you.
  
  I had 25 real job leads when I left my last job, and that's because I
  have thousands reading my blog for the last four years. I also blog a
  lot of things that, when taken out of context, might offend or annoy
  people. The people that made offers were people that had taken the time
  to get to know me... AND, they were inbound. I wasn't applying to their
  job, they were seeking me out. That's the ideal and you can only get
  there by putting your authentic self out there.
  reply
• 

  tom

  5 months ago

  Well first let me just say that I happen to work in not only an agency, but an entire industry that completely disagrees with me politically and I do so without problem. There are certain types of people who like to talk about politics but for everyone else it’s a complete non-issue. People in the fashion industry may hold very strong political positions but I’ve never once been at a party and had that topic come up in that circle (with the possible exception of Gay marriage but the discussion in that case was on a micro level not a macro one)
  
  Beyond that I think you make the same mistake I was accusing Fred Wilson of making which is you assume your experience with people equates to all people and it couldn’t be less true. No matter how many people in their 20s you talk to they are all people related to your portion of society. There are social levels in the world and they determine who you interact with. I grew up around guys who worked construction but in my life now I haven’t talked to a construction worker in ages. Because construction workers don’t do the things I do, they don’t hang out in the places I hang out and they don’t talk about the things I talk about.
  
  Your example makes that point better than I ever could. You’ve taken your very rare experience (working in an industry that is “blog friendly”) and applied it to the rest of the world. A lot of industries aren’t like that and in fact a lot of industries commonly consult lawyers and marketing firms who frown on open public expression. If a 35 year old School Teacher came to you and said “I live paycheck to paycheck, I have two kids and I’m thinking about starting a blog about teaching” would you advise he do so? I wouldn’t. Because all it takes is a few angry parents to read that blog and make a big enough fuss. Then you have a Principal who is weighing that fuss (and his job) against the job of one teacher and decides to fire the guy/girl. You might have 25 job offers lined up but the 35 year old teacher with 2 kids probably doesn’t.
  That kind of thing happens all the time. Not everyone respects “well thought out essays” and a lot of people are reactionaries.
  
  Larry Summers was the President of Harvard and he lost his job for putting forth a hypothesis based on scientific research. He suggested that innate differences between men and women MIGHT be ONE reason why fewer women are in math and science careers. Not as his opinion but based on conclusions that were backed up by research that was being discussed in a meeting where the goal was to find a way to get more women into math and sciences. If the President of Harvard can be pushed out of his job for giving his opinion as a world renowned economist than anyone can pay the price for putting their opinion out in public.
  
  ...wow, that turned out to be pretty long...
  reply
• 

  ceonyc

  5 months ago

  First, you don't really know anything about my experiences.
  
  I've only been in tech for a couple of years and I started out as a
  finance major in the highly regulated and very tight lipped world of
  corporate pension investing. Trust me, I'm well aware that there's a
  world beyond tech that isn't blog friendly. Telling me I'm not
  representative of every user is Web 101... thanks, I know that, and so
  does Fred, believe it or not.
  
  I absolutely believe that anyone in any industry can start a successful
  blog that puts them in a highly sought after career position. I mean,
  if you can't help yourself from saying things that could get you fired,
  than you should absolutely never be allowed to go to an industry
  conference.
  
  And yes, I would absolutely advocate that that 35 year old start a blog
  about teaching. I teach, too, by the way (and live paycheck to paycheck
  myself...)
  
  In fact, MANY teachers are blogging. I've spoken to them because, at my
  previous company, a bunch of teachers randomly (and unintentially on our
  part) started using our product and so we reached out to many of them to
  understand what they were using it for.
  
  Think of it this way. Now that we have cellphone video, would you ever
  advocate that teachers only read out of a textbook in class and never
  share his personal experience, for fear of saying something that will
  piss a parent off? That's ridiculous, because for the 1 or 2 teachers
  whose job you might save by being ultraconservative, you'll miss out on
  millions of potential interactions between teachers and students that
  are the basis for lasting relationships.
  
  And the same thing goes for anything else a teacher might do. When I
  helped Fordham start a career mentoring program between alumni and
  students, they were so worried about the mentors taking the students to
  inappropriate places that they nearly bagged the program. They were so
  worried about the downside, that they nearly canceled what turned out to
  be a great opportunity for 100 pairs of business students and alumni
  connecting over a three month period.
  
  Gary Vee is a great example. The guy owns a liquor store. Was the
  liquor store industry blog friendly? No, not at all. Does he bash
  wines on his site that he's supposed to be selling at the store?
  Sure... but his honesty and authenticity are winning customers in a big way.
  
  Is it riskless? Of course not. However, if you're just going to live
  life keeping your mouth shut all the time in fear, what's the point?
  reply
• 

  falicon

  5 months ago

  I think it all depends on what you use a given service for...I agree about facebook and it's more about keeping in touch with people you know (or once knew and lost)...but I think one of the core ideas of LinkedIn is still to help you "meet the strangers"...less so than it originally was, but I still think that's at it's core...
  
  In areas like match.com and dating sites, of course meeting strangers is sort of the whole idea...and I think even with projects like PATH 101 (and related job/career searching sites) you would be interested in introducing strangers and so it would be at the core of those projects...
  
  I think that just because something is a 'social network' doesn't mean it's for meeting strangers...sometimes it's just for being social with your friends...sometimes it's for being social in general...and sometimes it's just for getting spammed to death!
  reply
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  Whitney Hess

  5 months ago

  Maybe I was one of those people you were talking to in AOL chat rooms late at night. I got my first Mac in the 5th grade (age 10) and had my own phone line. I would log on when I got home from school and would be up past 2 AM most nights chatting to perfect strangers.
  
  Fifteen years later, the only strangers I talk to online are on Twitter. And they're not perfect strangers either, they're friends of friends that I just haven't met yet.
  
  My AOL profile said a lot about who I am -- my age/sex/location, where I grew up, my favorite movies/books/TV shows, hobbies, activities. Sure, pretty similar information to a Facebook profile. But what it didn't include was: my name, my photo, my phone number, where I went to school, or any other truly personally identifiable information. There was absolutely no way I could be found. It felt safe.
  
  Talking to strangers online during the most impressionable years of my life no doubt contributed to the person I am today. Particularly as an only child with two working parents. But had my friends been computer nerds like me with AOL accounts and private telephone lines, chances are I would have been up late every night talking to them -- not to some 40-year-old weirdo in Minnesota.
  
  What was really happening was that I was craving connection. Attention. I had to get it from anywhere I could find, and there was a box on my computer that I could sit in front of and play a never-ending game of what-will-happen-next. Better than a TV show or a book, I was a player. I could affect the outcome. And it felt powerful and electrifying.
  
  Now that virtually everyone we know in the real world is online, the need to seek out strangers isn't as great. Between email, our buddy lists, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Flickr, etc... we're always communicating, always sharing, and that thirst for connection is consistently quenched.
  
  But sometimes, every now and then, the hankering for a stranger is still there.
  reply
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  ceonyc

  5 months ago

  Obviously, we had the same experience with AOL. :)
  
  You summed it up perfectly!
  
  Hankering for a stranger sounds creepy, but I get what you mean. ;)
  reply