I went to a WITI (Women In Technology International) mixer tonight and made some great connections. I asked several of the women who attended what networking site they used. Pretty much all of them said they used LinkedIn to maintain their professional network and they used Facebook for their personal network. All voiced a concern about mixing their personal and professional posts.
I am connected to people from all walks of my life on Facebook (friends, family, coworkers, clients, music fans, and people from my church congregation), but then that is my style. I am also mindful that posts I put on Facebook, Twitter and other social web sites are up for public display.
Please share your thoughts on this topic.
I'm with you. At least in this part of the country LinkedIn isn't that popular. I suspect that's due to our smaller population base. In addition to friends, I have many people on my Facebook page who are my contacts in the media who I deal with regularly as a part of my work.
ReplyDeleteFacebook, by it's nature, is intended to be a social network, not professional. Because people understand that when they view posts on it, I think it actually creates a closer connection between my media contacts and me, because they become more comfortable with the "human" side of me, not just the professional.
Right now, whether to mix professional and personal is a subjective one made by individual posters. That this topic is being so widely discussed (I've seen it recently on several professional blogs and discussion groups) suggests that a real shift in objective communication standards may be occurring.
ReplyDeleteSocial networking and media has blurred the line between professional and personal. If we are to have a trust economy and take advantage of the broader social discourse these tools provide, participants have to be perceived as real people, not just their professional roles.
While we frequently had little more information about professional contacts to go on in the past, we mostly connected only after direct contact where we could read expressions and body language as well as engage in one-on-one small talk. Now, we connect through so many more channels where we need and increasingly expect to see more of each person, whether we have met in person or not. The small talk and body language is being replaced by glimpses of the person behind the post. After all, how can I trust you if I can only see a tiny portion of who you really are?
The next question emerging in this discussion is how much personal information should you share in professional forums (few seem worried about the reverse case). That we should share personal information at all is scary to many people because the personal details are no longer just one-on-one, ephemeral communication, but potentially part of our permanent, semi-public record.
It's also a difficult question because it that the answer is no longer just about the poster. In a professional context, what is shared should factor in the readers' comfort level as well as the poster's.
For example, in another forum, the community founder, a well-known content management expert, posted a column that shared insights he had gained from both his professional role and in his search for Mr. Right. Most of the recipients did not know he is gay.
The many comments condensed into three types of reactions: "thank you for letting me get to know you better," "I didn't need to know that about you," and a smattering of replies to specific content that ignored the personal-professional mix. People in the second category were not critical about what was shared, but that it was shared at all. Such personal information in what they considered a professional forum was clearly unexpected and uncomfortable for them.
While I publicly commended the author for being willing to set an open, personal tone in his community in another context (I host a discussion group about user-generated content within his community), I have to admit that I pause before revealing personal information online in any forum. However, if I hide all vestiges of who I am as a person, I still send a message about myself--one I am even less comfortable with.
So I'm cautious about what I post, but in general, think that sharing some information is preferable to revealing only one dimension of who I am as a person. Similar to Alan's experience, the benefits of strengthening my human connections to people in my networks outweigh the concerns of not being strictly "professional."
Hi Karen,
ReplyDeleteThank you for these insights. Maybe we need to have a mission statement for our social media presence. Then the information we share will support the goal. I see a Dilbert cartoon coming...
Mira