Hey friends, I was reading Jon’s blog about how “staying in touch matters,” and it made me think about my personal journey through professional and social networking sites, and my own epiphanies. And mistakes.
See if any of my journey resonates. And please: join my networks! I’d love to hear from you.
Anyway…
LinkedIn was my introduction to professional networking. Someone invited me to join their LinkedIn network. I didn’t “get it,” but I complied. And over time, I got network invitations, sometimes from folks I hadn’t talked with for years. That was really cool, so I got curious and started actively looking for former classmates and students. Many of you are in my network (now 630+) as a result of that fishing expedition, and by the end I was hooked myself.
LinkedIn and related networking sites (like Doostang and Plaxo) scale information on skill sets and relevant job opportunities in a way that would have been impossible just a few years ago. Here’s a very specific example. Last week, I got a request from an alum to share a job opportunity with the rest of my LinkedIn network. Yesterday, I got an email from another alum who was interviewing for that job. That is really gratifying.
Facebook is a different but equally important story. Some time back, I read all the press about Facebook and figured I’d better understand this social networking phenomenon. So I created an account, looked around awhile, and concluded, “this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Then I started getting “friended” by students, prospects, and alums… many of whom commented on how totally lame my Facebook page was. So one weekend, I decided to address that critique by uploading videos, pictures, links to YouTube pages…
My wife came by while I was doing this. She looked at my page, and said…”this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”
A week later, my wife had 50+ friends on her Facebook page (I’ve got about 360).
And last week, I was found by an old friend I haven’t seen or heard from since 1978. That is powerful.
I’m still struggling with Facebook etiquette. For example, in my initial enthusiasm I “friended” all my current students. One – God bless her – informed me that my invite was… well, creepy. Can you say “no” to someone who’s going to assign you a grade? So I’m learning to let students invite me rather than vice versa. On the bright side, an alum confessed to cleaning up their page before accepting my friend request. That’s a good thing.
OK, so that’s the journey. What’s the point?
From a professional standpoint, you and I are in the most difficult period since the Great Depression. As the Mason community, we now have some amazing tools to network. From a personal standpoint, you’ve got a great tool for keeping up with each other. And with us.
One last point. When I was a student, I assumed I was imposing when I reached out to faculty. It probably wasn’t true then, and it’s certainly not true at W&M. When an alum reaches out to me, it makes my day. We want to stay in dialog with you.
So “friend” me!
