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 particularly my own epiphanies. And mistakes.
See if any of my journey resonates. And please: I’m totally addicted, and would absolutely love to hear from you. Network with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo, Doostang, whatever. Jim.Olver@mason.wm.edu.
LinkedIn was my introduction to professional networking. Someone invited me to join their LinkedIn network. I didn’t “get it,” but I joined. And over time, I got network invitations, sometimes from folks I hadn’t talked with for years, and that was really cool. So I got curious, and started fishing 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 scales 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 in my network to share a job opportunity with the rest of my network. Less than a week later, I got an email from another alum who was moving toward the second round of interviews for that job. That is incredibly gratifying.
Facebook is a different but equally important story. A couple years ago, I read all the press about Facebook and figured I’d better understand this phenomenon, particularly since I have three 20-something sons. So I created an account, looked around awhile, and concluded, “this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”
A few months later, I started getting “friended” by current 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. 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’ve had to consider the etiquette with Facebook. For example, in the full blush of my initial enthusiasm I “friended” all my current students. One – God bless her – had the nerve to tell me that my invite was… “creepy.” Can you be a “friend” and still assign a grade? And at least one alum confessed that they “cleaned” their page before accepting my friend request. Maybe that’s a service to them.
OK, so that’s the journey. What’s the point?
From a professional standpoint, you and I are in the most difficult business environment since the Great Depression. We need each other, and we have some amazing tools to help each other.
From a personal standpoint, you’ve got a great tool for keeping up with each other. And with your faculty. This may surprise you. My assumption when I was a student was that any contact with a faculty member was an imposition. I don’t think it works that way at W&M. When an alum reaches out to me, it makes my day. And I think that’s true for most of us. What you do when you contact us is validate how we have chosen to spend our lives. We want to stay in dialog with you.
That’s one view, anyway.
Jim
