Today's post isn't typical Savvy fare, but even if you're here for marketing advice, you may want to read on. It's not as big a gap as you might think between personal and professional or even customer relations on the Web.
Yesterday, my friend Mark W. Schaefer published a very candid post on his blog {grow} (temporarily renamed {growl} ... you'll have to read the post's comments to get the joke) that included excerpts from an email I'd sent him after reading his piece, Social Media and the Big Conversation Fail. The post has sparked chats - both on and offline - about how "real" our social personas and relationships are.
There are so many layers to this, it makes my head hurt. The human impact of the social Web is a seriously broad topic that has been dissected, analyzed, and mused upon ad nauseam, perhaps culminating - at least for the moment - in the movie, The Social Network. The debates get old, but that doesn't make the cultural changes we're going through any less real.
The net-net of my heart-on-sleeve rambling to Mark is that, for all the lip service we give connection, conversation, and community, the social Web remains a place where we put only our best foot forward. Like the wizard of the Emerald City, we create flawless and impressive versions of ourselves. We inhabit these carefully crafted avatars like a second, if not always natural, skin. Each time we cross from the real world to the virtual one, we shed the unappealing parts of our personalities, leaving only the glossy bits showing.
There are exceptions, of course - people who "let it all hang out." But, in almost all cases, even these confessions are contrived. They are designed to make a point, elicit a specific response, build affinity, or simply entertain. They transform personality into platform. On the social Web, we too often become both product and marketer, always "on," even when we're being "authentic."
But the news isn't all tragic.
Real friendships do evolve out of these virtual spaces. We discover them when we speak not to the masses, but to an individual. In the same way you can't have a real relationship with the student body, for instance, you can't have a real relationship with your social network. You need to find not your Right People, but your right person. Each time you glimpse a spark of real connection, you have to stop, cup it in your hands, and tend it until it either bursts into flame or flickers out. A machine can build a list, but if you want to build a friendship, you have to step outside your avatar and be your whole, human self - flaws and all.
That's what each of us here did at Savvy. Eighteen months ago, we playfully named ourselves the "Savvy Sisters," but today that moniker is much more than just branding. It's a testament to the bonds that have developed over the course of forum conversations, building a blog, sharing resources, supporting each other's professional endeavors, and - finally - pulling back the curtain to reveal the sometimes frail, sometimes faulty, always fabulous human beings that push and pull the levers. We've gone way beyond "appropriate" and "PC." We share bad days, bad moods, bad decisions, and bad jokes. I know any one of my "sisters" would have my back - online or off. And, let me tell you, when we do have the chance to get together, the hugs are as real as any hugs I've ever given or received.
So enjoy the social Web for what it is - part frat house, part university, part cult, part networking event - and don't feel too much like you're looking for "love" in all the wrong places. The love is there, but you can only find it one person at a time.
What's your experience with building real relationships on the Web? Is it something you're even interested in? How do you think the situation differs for people who are here in a purely social capacity vs. those that are here both socially and professionally?
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