06.30.09
Friends or Not?
Read in Seth’s Blog (Seth Godin) about the difference between friends and friendlies. The friendlies are the ones you have a digital link to but no real connection. It’s the friend who will be more likely to want to buy from you. Because you do friendly behaviors toward him or her–that is, you write back, comment on their posts, and above all you never send a form letter!
Seth’s blog entry made me think of the role of manners in technology. It’s somehow not enough to just “Be nice” just like on dry land. In cyberspace the usual manners have been tweaked. Now it’s less about our polite behaviors, but rather how we are perceived by those behaviors (or by omitting those behaviors).
For example, if you choose to close off your photos on Facebook to comments, that may be a free choice for you. However, what do your viewer/readers think of you when they see that they are not allowed such free choice? Do you appear to them as insecure; you seem to think we would only comment negatively.
If you don’t respond to your @twitter posts that people write, what impression do you give people about you? Are you suddenly unreliable? Do you #FollowFriday those twitterers who routinely FollowFriday you?
Technology has leveled the playing field–at least in the field of manners and tact. The old excuse, “I don’t have TIME to do those things,” will not fly in today’s world. We all officially have no time for this stuff. But your consistent care to your friends and their posts, their comments, their ideas, their freedom of expression–will show that despite your lack of time, you ARE acting. You are being a friend. You know how to, “Get Your SHINE Together!”
