Connected-Thinking

"Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke" - so said Lynda Barry. Love, the all consuming feeling that goes awry several times. But that doesn't stop us from searching for love, searching for friends and searching for that connection - to the world around us. But how do we connect to each other in today's hectic lives? People say that our lives are like an island. But if you look closely even in that analogy, you will find, that an island has trees and the roots of the trees grow deep beneath the surface, till the time they touch - they connect. So even in an island, life is connected.

The very computers and laptops that seem to isolate us form the rest of the world also help us stay in touch via the Social Networking sites.
Take Facebook for example. A social community website, it allows us to create a personal profile and list information about ourselves: our likes and dislikes, our interests, hobbies, pictures and even the name of our dog. God, that's a lot of information.

Social networks harness and channel this information. People can search for us or ask for our hand (in friendship or otherwise) based on shared interests - say a song we like or our favourite holiday destination or our pet.
I have lost count of how many long lost friends these sites helped me connect to. Recently an old school friend "scrapped" in Orkut: "Hey, good to get back in touch with you after all these years; I hope you have forgiven me for that episode in school!" Talk about forgiving, I had even forgotten about the whole incident! I still can't recall. I replied - "I believe in forgive and forget". But the point is, these sites are a fabulous way to you create a closer, more intimate network of friends and to make new friends


Linked In serves primarily as a professional networking site. It is an online network of more than 30 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries - according to their site.
When we join, we can create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Our profile helps us to find and be found by former colleagues, clients and business contacts.
Our network consists of our connections, our connections’ connections, and the people they know, thus forming a huge professional network. In today's world, much more work gets done anyway through the informal horizontal networks than the formal rigid and hierarchical organizational networks.

Businesses realize the power of information dissemination through such informal networks and harness these networks to find potential clients, service providers, subject experts, and partners who come recommended. They recruit people having specific skill sets through these professional networks as well. Here and here are a couple of links to great McKinsey Quarterly articles on social networks. So Linked-In and other such sites give us a great chance to further our professional interests.

While life doesn't always give us a second chance, the internet does give us a Second Life® - a 3-D virtual world created by its residents. Quoting from the site itself:
"
• From the moment you enter the World you'll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you've explored a bit, perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.
• You'll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow Residents. Because Residents retain intellectual property rights in their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other Residents.
• The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the inworld unit of trade, the Linden™ dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden dollar exchanges. "

Many big businesses have a presence in Second life. They use it to host virtual job fairs, to sell actual goods through virtual shops (people can come in and browse the virtual items - they may choose to buy real items matching the virtual ones as well. Ex. Nike, Reebok, etc) and also for branding purposes. In my company, we are trying to use it as a substitute for teleconferences - being "face-to-face" with our colleagues from around the world (that too dressed in funky clothes) is a great feeling.

Another popular site, Twitter allows users to post answers to the question: "What are you doing at this moment?". The "followers" can keep themselves updated about these updates through various channels such as RSS feeds, SMS, emails and so on. Here's Obama's twitter link.

Skype, Myspace, bebo Hi5 are also similar sites that offer different value propositions.

While these sites promise to put us on the path to social bliss, they also bring with them the inherent risk of social embarrassment. Cyber-crime is increasingly on the rise and there is a very high risk of identity theft. Anybody can get access to our pictures and open a fake profile and post dubious messages. There is also the risk of someone getting access to our personal or professional confidential information. Moreover, these sites are so addictive, you can get glued to them and forget the real world. However, judicious use of these sites can certainly open a lot of doors for us. So the next time we have to face the music in real life we can choose instead, to open Facebook in 2nd life and be Linked-In to the world at large