Seems like people should act like new managers - you enter a new environment and introduce yourself briefly, then you listen for "1 month" (that's for a manager - the time is whatever it takes to grok the new social interactions you're encountering). Then you start small and work up. And apologize genuinely when you goof, cause we all do that.
Have fun! - Bob
Nicholas Chase
· 11 months ago
Chris,
I do want my online reputation to be perceived as genuine. I have no need to be a stalker or an agressive marketer. If I find something interesting in my web-crawl tasks I'll tweet it out to people I feel might need the information. Otherwise I try to keep the 'signal to noise ratio' as low as possible.
'Connectedness' is a term I embrace. This is a round globe, and I pass through the same longitude and lattitude in twenty-four hours as everyone else does in their chosen country, state, and city of residence.
Considering that there are no other habitable places within reach at present, I'll do my best to make this place as habitable as possible.
I'll admit, I sometimes wonder if there's "personality type" issues at play, too. For instance, you mentioned Simon Cowell's attitude, but I've always appreciated (meaning, "found value in") his critiques and have always been disgusted by the way others (*cough* Paula *cough*) work so hard to avoid ever speaking an unpleasant truth.
And from what I've read over the years, it seems that our aversion to "stone throwers" is a fairly recent development in our culture's history. Back in the 1800s and earlier, it seems it was far more common to throw verbal and written stones in such cases. Could it be that societal trends in the early 20th century led to certain behaviors (which tend to be exhibited by the more introverted among us) becoming taboo (thus encouraging the introverted to withdraw further from societal interaction)?
We've grown so accustomed to the "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" approach to community interaction that I wonder if maybe we just haven't developed the "muscles" to cope with criticism. I just wonder if maybe what we're actually seeing is a course-correction (which, on occasions, over-compensates).
Whitney
· 11 months ago
My concern is that online, we can hide behind personae, under the guise of developing new personalities, but we free ourselves of the social constraints we use to regulate our behavior in real life. I think if you wouldn't say the thing to someone's face, if you were at a dinner table with them , you should consider whether it needs to be said at all.
And you never go wrong considering people's feelings. This doesn't mean sparing the truth, but it means delivering it in a way where it might actually be heard. For example, if a woman ever asks you whether or not an outfit looks good on her, don't lie- if it is hideous or sub-optimal, just say something like "I'm not sure it's as flattering as (insert outfit/style/garment/thought here)." This way, you tell her how you feel without hurting anyone's feelings. Saying "that makes you look like a rhino" is not kind. you can say everything you need to in life, but the way you deliver the message is as important as its content.
Mary
· 11 months ago
Sounds like you've been unjustly hammered by the bastards of late, Chris, and I'm sure it's unpleasant. The public is all we are; the unwashed and the squeaky clean and all the rest. It's appalling how many creeps and perverts and just plain ignorant people there are ... But then maybe the point is to stretch your compassion and get past it. Nobody anywhere ever does anything except for love. I'm gonna blog on that subject soon.
Bill Cammack
· 11 months ago
I think the major reason why people are like this is that physicality has been removed from socialization. Instead of meeting people f2f, people meet in virtual societies... Ning groups, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo... People also meet via video games, again, not f2f.
This causes people to have less personal respect for you than if you were standing right there in their face. I think you hit the nail on the head. They consider you a NPC. The more interactions occur and the more people build relationships to each other online, the less incentive people have to "act right" and pretty soon it becomes status quo, because "Everybody's Doing It".
If that Burger King / Facebook thing had instead been "Walk up to ten IRL friends of yours and tell them to erase your number from their cell phone", there wouldn't have been many people collecting coupons for Whoppers.
Wyatt
· 11 months ago
I find this is being alleviated somewhat by an increase in openness on social sites. Back when IRC was the primary form of communication, all you had by which to judge a person was their handle, so you treated them as a handle.
Now, on Twitter, for example, I see a picture, a short biography, a full name, and, generally, a link to a blog to learn more about a person. This is still at a remove from an actual person, but it's close enough that I, at least, am more likely to associate the two than not.
This distinction is highlighted when I come across a profile without any of these identifiers. It feels quite alien, and as such I generally have nothing more to do with the person.
Roxanne
· 11 months ago
Well Chris as a 'netter from since the late 80s as well, I certainly see where you are coming from here. The only thing I might add that you didn't address is the human factor as well. Essentially the internet opens us up to a world of people we would not ordinarily hang out with. As a result we are unwittingly exposed to people who are just rude people. Perhaps for some it is an issue of not being exposed to social "netiquette" but that still leaves a whole lot of people who know exactly what they are doing but love the idea of being cloaked in anonymity. These will often be the trolls in a chat room and the rude blog comments from "winnie the pooh". Luckily as in real life these types are not welcome long and when they don't get the attention they crave they eventually leave.
Harold Shaw
· 11 months ago
Chris - very thought provoking post. I have been wandering around the net and the old BBS system and the newer internet for awhile now and understand where you are coming from. It is much easier to "bash" someone here (online) than it is to their face. You might have to defend yourself either verbally or physically if the bashing is too much. On the net you can be whomever you want to be and it doesn't have to bear any relation to who you are in real life (that is really, really scary or fantastically great dependent upon your point of view and there isn't anything anyone can do to you.
If you ruin one online reputation, you can go out and create a new one.
Are we all becoming the equivalent of NPC's in an online fantasy game...when grandpa has an Avatar and the grandkids recognize gramp more from his avatar than his picture is there something wrong with this? I think so, so I changed from an avatar to an actual picture of myself and refuse to go back to the avatar.
I guess this is what concerns me the most...the lack of knowledge about who you are talking to and if they are what they suggest they are. Usually, i have found people are fairly honest, but there have been a few, that worried me more than a little.
In a blog I wrote earlier today about how I have a hard time figuring out how to actually use social media like LinkedIn and Facebook http://agingreluctantly.wordpress.com/2009/01/1.... What boundaries am I comfortable with, because I really don't know who is communicating with me, unless I have actually met them or have had numerous conversations online with that person.
I guess the "old fart" in me is still wary of these social media applications that have come to dominate the internet and how we communicate with others we don't really know. While I have waded out up to my waist in the Web2.0 waters, How much should I open up my life to the "tron world is the questions. I think I am going to stay at this level for a while to get used to the water a little bit more, to see how the water is before I go a little deeper.
Chris if you have any links or suggestions, i would be interested in hear or reading them.
Thanks Harold Shaw - by the way this is my real name and yes I live in Sidney Maine :)
Shannon Ehlers
· 11 months ago
I agree that it is easy to forget personality traits a.k.a. the human aspect (both my own and those of the other guy/gal) when interacting online. Sometimes, I think, it is a function of all that text - we get into a somewhat lawyer-like mode (sorry, lawyers, no offense) with all the reading and responding, and end up treating the interaction sort of like a deposition.
In my own case (pun intended), I often utilize online tools to interact with people whom I cannot interact with in person. I am usually trying to "move some value" (either give value or get value). My basic goal is to generate more value for myself and others than the cost of my monthly connection. This is setting the bar fairly low, but I am, after all, a part-timer at this.
When "lurking" (I like to call it reading) in online places, I generally am using the internet as a listening tool, an information gathering station. When posting comments or forum postings, I am usually trying either to answer a question or to extend a discussion in a meaningful way.
I sometimes forget myself and fall into this "lawyeresque" way of asking or answering questions to make a point - to win an argument. For me, I think it stems from a long-time love of writing for a result. I get value from working questions out by writing, and often get too involved in the solution, forgetting my manners and acting or speaking in ways I'd never consider doing in person, face to face.
Harold Shaw
· 11 months ago
Chris I used the wrong website on my first comment
Long day :)
Steven Woods
· 11 months ago
Chris, I suspect that there are a couple of things that humans are accustomed to that are missing in the online world, even still, that cause us to act like we're interacting with plastic humans. One is the visual. To be fair, video isn't really "there" yet in the sense that you're not interacting (in communities) via video, really. You can use video one-to-one, or broadcast, but not really in communities. We're visual people, and it's in facial expressions and tones of voice that we pick up emotions.
The second, related piece, is the fact that communities are not real-time. Yes, they're fast, but they are still asynchronous. In face to face interactions, you can see emotional responses *very* quickly when you make a social gaffe. This real-time feedback is not there.
Does this change as technology evolves, and online communities become more visual and more real time? Not sure, but I suspect it might.
Ed M
· 11 months ago
Part of the problem I think can be contributed to the medium. Most online communication is all text where in a non-virtual setting communication (talking and listening) occurs on many levels and stages. So for someone new to an online conversation they're communicating with much less information and feedback. As for the established community, again due to the medium, someone new is talking with as much "volume" and "authority" as someone established within the community. Compare this to a physical setting where a stranger enters a party, greeted by an individual one-on-one, shown around the room, introduced to a few more people, finds some common interests or not, introduced to others, and might eventually find and become part of some sort of core crowd. There is a lot of workflow, for lack of a better term, in the physical world.
It is also easier to communicate online. As your mentioned a lot of barriers (some good and some bad) are torn down. So people who would have never communicated in an offline world can now placed face to face which can cause friction.
Thinking about ways to resolve these problems, one important part that is missing in some online conversation is those gradual introductions. These aren't a series of blockades to keep people out but a series of helping hands or introductions into the community. These are basically resources given to members at various levels. For example "New to the community read this", "What is appropriate here and what is not", "Can't find what you are looking for ask here", "Serious discussion about this niche topic discussed here". Why aren't there this resources in some communities? Because it takes time , effort and some skill to produce them and people sometimes aren't willing to contribute. But the upshot is that is helps everyone in the community.
Tanya
· 11 months ago
Chris,
This was a thought provoking post. Like you, I am not new to engaging in online conversations. I was an early adopter to AOL back in the 90's and my internet usage has grown and developed along with the medium itself. Over the past 6 years, I have belonged to one bulletin board and forged solid relationships with the other members of that board. Within the last year, I joined Facebook and LInkedIn and have enjoyed reconnecting with people that I have interacted with in various phases of my life. Again, with both Facebook and LinkedIn, I have found the interactions to be very real and meaningful. There are other 'social networking' sites, however, where I think you find more of the "plastic" persona emerging. Twitter is one such site.
I am not a Twitter hater. Far from it. In fact, I follow and enjoy your posts on Twitter. But, I do think that the format of Twitter encourages exactly the kind of behavior you're discussing in your post. As opposed to message boards or sites like LInkedIn comprised of people connecting with others who share a common interest, sites like Twitter offer the opportunity for anonymity. The user profiles are part of the problem. Limited information and lack of verifiable data about a given user creates a lack of accountability. So, Twitter users--especially those new to the medium--feel free to tweet without fear of repercussion enabling them to be as insensitive or inappropriate as they like. The unfortunate outcome, of course, is the bad apple syndrome. Legitimate and well meaning users who are the recipients/targets of the negative or "plastic" posts are often discouraged from participating, which diminishes the value of the medium as a whole.
I don't think there's an easy answer to this problem and I certainly don't presume to offer a solution. However, it certainly was an interesting issue to ponder.
Best wishes,
Tanya
Robyn McIntyre
· 11 months ago
In social networking, I go back as far as AOL chat rooms and some of the old .alt bulletin boards, but I didn't really become an engaged user until Twitter. Although I belong to the usual suspects in terms of social networking groups, Twitter suits my in and out style and lets me see the conversation continuing around me when I'm out.
Time must be balanced between our on and offline worlds, so to get the full measure of our social media time, we have to make judgments about who we will follow and who will follow us, but even more importantly, with whom we will interact. How we present our thoughts in online communities becomes even more important then, because it's so easy to misinterpret typed conversations.
And it's amazing how much you can tell about someone from a few tweets. What they tweet about, how they address it, what and whom they choose to retweet, to whom they reply and how.
As you pointed out, there are always people who will commit errors when coming into a community: noobs are one group. They just need gentle schooling. Some profiles seem to be all about a product or service, but the tweets say otherwise: they're friendly and inclusive - you and I, they say. Not me and my product.
But the percentage of authentic interactions can never equal 100% because of other groups - people who are unable or unwilling to view others as more than opportunities for greater wealth or status; stone throwers, trolls, and angry people. They won't go away because we haven't evolved beyond that, yet.
I think the changes happening in social media are going to be difficult for many of us. At the beginning, the small community is supportive, friendly, welcoming. Maybe to a fault. As it begins to gain traction, it is bound to attract the schemers, the spiritually bankrupt, the mean-just-for-the-hell of it. They all want to be a part of it, even if only to try to tear it down.
The great thing about communities like Twitter is that, in your online neighborhood, you aren't required to allow them in. You may have to put up with angry Uncle Joe in real life complaining at every family gathering, but online you can refuse entrance to your life to people who make it unpleasant.
I can't make plastic people real or mean people nice, because I can only control my own actions. But to that end, I promise to be as consistently kind, supportive, and communicative as possible. As authentically me as I can be, in as many circumstances as I can. And I promise that I will not knowingly follow anyone who is consistently unkind, angry, unsupportive, exclusive or predatory, nor will I knowingly give them access to any of my online community neighbors.
Patricia
· 11 months ago
I am very new to twitter and I am still not sure anyone reads what I write there. I feel more connected to some of the people who read my blog because they have read about my character and my feelings - they have read about my thoughts and feelings and ideas before they have judged me on appearances. This is a freedom for me. But I am my self in my writing and I don't try to fool or lament or please others. I don't even write what I think others would like to hear - I am writing about all the things that are inside me and I was not allowed to say. Today is Martin Luther King day and I don't attempt to eat something special or have a party - I work at doing something for someone else. Today I listened. I keep hoping to have a conversation with people a discussion, and I do with a few. I was hoping to make enough money to pay my medical bills, but I am very slow at learning how. Other bloggers have been so helpful...and someone wrote on my blog the other day and I instantly wished he would have a conversation with my 29 year old daughter - I just felt they would be wonderful friends. Do I plainly say that or am I interfering? Being mum? learning? I think there is a huge mix of people on the Internet and that diversity is so great I so not wish to squish it for the bad apples, the greedy, the nasty..as Gandhi says, they will lose in the end, they always do..People need time to learn how And they need "celebrities" to give them a gentle nudge sometimes...and if they don't understand, well, everyone else will know quickly!
Bill
· 11 months ago
This article came at just the right time Chris to help reinforce some thoughts I had earlier today as I was working on publishing a 7 article series about some things I had learned about social media/networks/interaction etc. I linked to a few of your past articles in that regard.
There are two things I see that really enhance and make social media and this paradigm shift what it truly can be: Bringing Value to the relationships we are in and being Genuine and yourself in them. Works like a charm both online and offline.
Scott Germaise
· 11 months ago
My take on this is that you're right. But getting wrong. What I mean by that is that online behavior is - in my admittedly subjective opinion - getting better in a lot of ways, not worse.
Like you, I've been in this game awhile. In fact, you mentioned places like Prodigy. Which, if you used it, chances are you used something I either designed, built or managed. From the late 80s' through the 90s as the 'great unwashed' somehow managed to find the "Any Key" and bumble their way online, their newbie behavior was often the equivalent of no shirt or shoes, which is a bit trashy even at the 7-11.
Now, however, online is essentially ambient. While there are still very late adopters coming online, they seem to approach with a bit more trepidation and care. Therefore, the problem that exists now is different then newbies. And you point out some of them in what you classify as Trolls, Stone-Throwers, and Faux Celebrities. Part of the answer will be more closed communities and tools for managing such entities. Even if they're a very small proportion of the online population, like any single-issue person or public they can have an outsized impact. Personally, I think we're just at the very beginning of online community right now. (I say that as a long time industry vet from Prodigy, to About.com to others.) This early period of truly ambient online experience will take some time to get used to. And it will take some time for personal and group controls to come into play ot limit the damage of fools and their followers. But it will happen. It has to happen. Very little humans ever do together grows or thrives without some kind of cooperation; be it though enforceable rules, or at least social norms. There are already plenty of thriving and successful online communities that have such norms established and mechanisms to maintain them. More will follow.
None of what I've said is meant to say their won't be thieves, con artists and worse using online tools to bad purpose. And yes, online does enable some such behaviors that had no prior means to implement bad acts. But for the most part, this behavior isn't any more prevalent online then offline. It's just more visible.
TStrump
· 11 months ago
It's like anything in life - when you're new, you need to respect the social norms. Once you become 'accepted' then maybe, you can get a little more daring with your interactions. It's like this - I wouldn't tell a dirty joke at work, but with my friends, I'd have no problem!
Michael fitzGerald
· 11 months ago
To summarise "In relationship terms, I’m reaching out to shake your hand and you’re trying to put your tongue in my mouth. " I have been drinking at the waterfall of your comments and have concluded that the vivid visual story is the most efficient way of getting a point across. That's why I remember your point about trying to sell too early in a relationship. That's why Katybeths comment on your post on realistic expectations about responding to clients "where is the fire, I don’t see any smoke? with a giggle, I put down the phone and realized I could wait." stuck in my mind whereas the thousands of words from other contributors didn't. Real people are visual and use vivid and entertaining conversation. Now we have the bandwidth why don't we see more videoblogging? and videocommenting?
Mike Elliott
· 11 months ago
I think that anonymous online identities will continue to become increasingly irrelevant to any meaningful online dialogue. In many cases I see anonymous posters, spammers, and those spouting negativity relegated to the periphery of conversations much as one sees an annoying child sent to another room during an adult conversation. We recently launched a niche social networking site and will not activate member accounts without a real name and picture (this can be faked of course but in most cases some cross referencing on things like LinkedIn solves the problem). We are striving for quality versus quantity and while growth may be slow authentic conversations require transparency without which there is no accountability.
The biggest change I've seen in online conversations is the desire by those participants interested in learning and collaborating to be transparent and authentic. Within many of today's online communities being inauthentic sticks out like a sore thumb.
There will always be those who abuse the medium just as there will always be those who abuse the privilege of free speech. However one of the many benefits of online conversations is our ability to selectively ignore those individuals by deleting, unfollowing, blocking, etc. For those doing such things not out of malicious intent but out of ignorance of social etiquette there is some initial tolerance and willingness on the part of community members to steer them in the right direction. For the others I would say good luck in your endeavors and don't be surprised if nobody responds - it's because nobody's listening.
Eva
· 11 months ago
This was very useful to me as a beginner. I have been on the usual myspace/facebook thing but this is an entirely new way of interacting. Its also quite nervewrecking as you feel underscrutiny and exposed! I have to say I have been quite jumpy. I envy the way you Chris, and many others feel comfortable to place so much of YOURSELF & personal life online. So far I have not had the courage to do this due to my locality (NIreland is very small & also the sensitive nature of my job ) People from NIreland are alittle more cautious too in general and we are like that with each other as a result of our history I guess (not always the best quality)! All the same I am appreciating greatly the advice from you & the others in starting out & it has given me alot of courage and support. We all have the ablity both online & offline to develop trust by what a person "puts" out regardless of the agenda. I believe you develop a "feel" for people once you have been on the virtual pathways long enough.
Michelle / chelpixie
· 11 months ago
I haven't been around the net as long but as a community manager and "host" of a somewhat close knit and rather large online community, there are a couple of things that always strike me.
1. When you join, figure out the norms of the community. Those add up to the things that you need to keep in mind in order to earn respect in the community, to build social capital if you will. If you troll, obviously you're not going to be listened to and perhaps even shut out of the community. Same applies if you walk around angry.
2. While the other person may not always agree with you, they are a human being with thoughts and feelings. Don't assume that you know best in every situation, listen, be thoughtful and treat everyone with the respect you want to garner some day.
3. Volunteer. Give to your community. No this isn't mandatory for participation and no I don't mean tweeting your "click on my junk" stuff (hat tip to @AmberCadabra). The Twitter community doesn't consider that giving, but advertising. Take that into consideration with other social networks you become a part.
The last thing I want to say that I'm coming across more often than not lately is the faux celebrities you mention getting bashed for doing something and judged harshly. There's been an assumption that they are out for everything they can get.
This is simply NOT true. Okay there may be SOME self-absorbed people on the 'net, but most of those "celebrities are still human". Most are searching for happiness and success just like me.
If "celebrities" are held on a pedestal, of course they'll disappoint, because the raised expectations and the opinionated "things they should be doing" will crush all the things they ARE accomplishing. Something heavily on my mind given that today Obama will be sworn in.
Now I want to ran on your being realistic about time piece but I'll save that for another day. ;)
Erica
· 11 months ago
Sometimes I do forget that there are real people writing the blogs I follow, and that does allow me to be much more insensitive than I would be in person. Thank you for the reminder.
williamarruda
· 11 months ago
Hello Chris,
As always, a great post. I am not sure about the term faux celebrity, though. A celebrity is someone who is famous or well known. What the internet (and Web 2.0) has done is enable people to be selectively famous - well-known among a specific group of people. This is the future of celebrity. We are living in the age of personal branding where we have the opportunity to build visbility among a focused target audience. That has changed the nature of celebrity. Faux implies artificial or fake - and that is not the case at all. I think those who are selectively famous are more authentic and real than those we think of as celebrities.
Really great post Chris. Sometimes I have a really hard time with Twitter and other various Social Networks because so often you see people taking such cheap shots and saying the meanest things to one another. I try to make it a rule of thumb to never say something about someone online that I wouldn't say to their face.
As big as twitter is, it is still a community and as a community we should build each other up NOT tear each other down. This is not to say that when something is wrong, it should just be ignored, but I think there are ways to handle uncomfortable situations without intentionally trying to hurt people. Why not be constructive instead?
Thanks again Chris!
electricbob
· 11 months ago
In reading these comments, I'm reminded of something that happened to me long ago.
I was leading an engineering team porting our software to UNIX, and one of the tools we used was Lucid Emacs; unfortunately, the graphical interface didn't work on the UNIX system we were using (at the time IBM's AIX). I was new to the Internet back then (probably 1991), but I found a fellow wanderer that also used that tool (he lived in London, I was in Chicago), so we teamed up and ported the graphical system to AIX (he lisped (Emacs is written in Lisp), I did X WIndows (and old graphical interface library), so it worked out well).
We got into a public discussion about event loops - that's too technical for here, but the discussion was a formative experience for me because Richard Stallman (yea, that Richard Stallman of GNU and EFF) flamed me big time.
He lost my respect (more because he felt that kind of interaction was right), and I learned that the Internet is full of creeps just like the real world.
We put up with a lot in life and I figure dealing with creeps online is just part of all that dealing. Its not going away anytime soon.
For me, the question is how to keep from being a creep.
Pixie Stevenson
· 11 months ago
Chris, it sounds like you may be stinging from criticism. I really believe it's a matter of attraction - the old "birds of a feather". I'm attracted to blogs and people that are sending out a message in a voice that I can hear.
Like I replied to David Armano, when you're visual and vocal, you're a larger target for both fans and critics alike. If you have something you're passionate about, you must voice it because you would pay a price within yourself for silence.
KatFrench
· 11 months ago
I remember the old BBS system from my college days, and I remember the chat rooms and discussion boards of the 90s.
I think that the deeper issue is that people in general are profoundly uncomfortable in their own skin, for reasons that would go too far afield for a blog comment. The same folks who enter an online community and interact with folks as if they're NPCs in a role playing game (great metaphor, BTW) were the folks who interacted with other kids in high school as if they were 2-dimensional secondary characters in a John Hughes movie.
Our ego has a very hard time grasping that the other people around us are living, breathing souls--not mirrors or cameras. Online or off.
Doug Firebaugh
· 11 months ago
Amen- there is a learning curve in social media and when you "go over the radar" you are going to be a target for some people that may disagree with you. There is the "Jerk factor" and sometimes it kicks in and you run into a couple of those onlne. But for the most part, if the person understands that everyone has an opinion, then that is all it is- an opinion. Edification and enourangement should be the norm in social media- but sometimes it is the public arguments that get read and viewed the most. Sad but true. Great post and keen insight as usual Chris!
Demian Farnworth
· 11 months ago
"How did we get angry tones to be default?" Unchecked egos. And they'll always be there. Unfortunately.
Rusty Speidel
· 11 months ago
Trust and mutual respect. They transcend all media. You have to earn it no matter what the medium. If I behave in ways that undermine your trust of me, such as hitting on strangers or calling someone out in public for fun, or blurting falsehoods with impunity, then our relationship will never blossom and I my sordid reputation will precede me.
These tools make it a lot easier to communicate, but also to act like an idiot on a grander scale. If we simply treat others online as we would wish to be treated in person, things would be terrific. Sadly, many feel that the rules don't apply to them, especially online.
Mike Pascucci
· 11 months ago
Chris, I think that you sum this up perfectly with one of your beginning statements: "many people misunderstand that the online representation of a person is tied to a real person, with feelings and thoughts". Others also have some great comments about people not feeling comfortable within their own skin, not having proper social skills...... As Social Media and "Community" outreach becomes more and more mainstream, my fear is that this is going to get worse before it gets better. Initially people online within these initial communities knew one another and respected each other. Then newbies came in and disrupted the flow of communication. Now people come and go so often, they do not care what/how they say, because they can just leave and go elsewhere. This reinforces the fact that Community strategies geared towards Management and Moderation need to be at the forefront of any Community strategy. How do you handle certain situations when people confront and threaten one another? Rules need to be established and followed consistently so that a community understands when they are out of bounds. The more visible that we can make and create appropriate and acceptable Community behaviors/morals and establish them, the better off all Community participation will be. Mike
electricbob
· 11 months ago
Mike, I agree that moderation and facilitation are important (although most of our social media implementations today lack a lot of this), how do you implement a set of rules and, more importantly, get folks to follow them? I think this problem is compounded by the newness which for many implies experimentation, which leads to my next question: when is experimentation in social media okay and when is it out of bounds, and who makes that decision, the community? And how does that decision get made?
I think this is most critical for global systems where "we" don't share a common cultural heritage, but its bad enough when we do (as per comments in this thread).
Mike Pascucci
· 11 months ago
Strategies can include numerous ways to assist any launch, concerning assisting members to following the rules and guidelines. But the fact remains that you can not force everyone to read. Unless otherwise noted, most communities do not have an "experimental area" for members to test things. That is why, as others have noted above, new members need to observe and take notice as to the participation and interactions that are occurring within the Community before they simply jump in. I can not think of anything that I would do where I would jump in before I had some information to better prepare myself. If more people where to do this, many situations would be averted. Mike
the communicatrix
· 11 months ago
Okay...frrrreaky!
I've used both of those images before--one for a blog post, the other for a preso.
Great minds, I suppose. But if my baby pix show up here...well, I just don't know, Chris...
recovengineer
· 11 months ago
Chris,
Great thoughts and perspective. I have often lamented the behaviors of many people online. It sometimes looks as if we can hide behind our computers, locked away behind the protective walls of our homes, and throw stones at the rest of the world. Sometimes it seems that people feel safe in behaving rudely or overly aggressively in the online world (sort of like road rage?).
Like MagsMac, I like the idea of building people up rather than tearing them down. I think it's important to realize that real people with real thouhts and feelings are on the other end of our posts, comments, tweets and emails.
Thanks for the reminder. I'm enjoying your tweets and blog posts. Keep up the good work.
Susan Murphy
· 11 months ago
Man, how do you ever shut that mind of yours down - with all this stuff floating around in it?
Here's the funny thing about the perception of people hiding behind their online personas. I've often found that those who do so are equally as "plastic" when I have occasion to meet them in person. Perhaps the difference between the so-called "real" world and cyberspace isn't so far apart after all.
Thinking....
Illya
· 11 months ago
My, it seems liek you hit a nerve with your post judging from the number of comments. I'm not an "old-timer", so maybe I haven't had as many opportunities to have such negative experiences. I managed to come into a group of online people who are very caring, and I have learned a lot from them. Netiquette and culture acceptance are at the top of the list.
On the other hand, venturing into new worlds (i.e. Second Life) on my own was a bit of a shock encountering rather seedy charachters within the first few seconds of arrival. Perhaps online people put on a mask so as to protect themselves instead of truely opening themselves to new encounters.
Lisa Wood
· 11 months ago
Great post, Chris. I try to surround myself with people who I would still hang out with offline. It's nice to see a "big name" show their personal side - because yes, we ARE all still real people with feelings, families, struggles, etc.
Dan
· 11 months ago
This is one of the most important things I have heard said in a long time.
That’s a lot of names you know from the blogs you read or the videos you watch. By “faux,” we’re real people set into a situation where in a limited niche, we’re known for something, and people check in to see what we say.
All Comments
Have fun! - Bob
I do want my online reputation to be perceived as genuine. I have no need to be a stalker or an agressive marketer. If I find something interesting in my web-crawl tasks I'll tweet it out to people I feel might need the information. Otherwise I try to keep the 'signal to noise ratio' as low as possible.
'Connectedness' is a term I embrace. This is a round globe, and I pass through the same longitude and lattitude in twenty-four hours as everyone else does in their chosen country, state, and city of residence.
Considering that there are no other habitable places within reach at present, I'll do my best to make this place as habitable as possible.
Respectfully,
Nicholas Chase
www.twitter.com/nachase
I'll admit, I sometimes wonder if there's "personality type" issues at play, too. For instance, you mentioned Simon Cowell's attitude, but I've always appreciated (meaning, "found value in") his critiques and have always been disgusted by the way others (*cough* Paula *cough*) work so hard to avoid ever speaking an unpleasant truth.
And from what I've read over the years, it seems that our aversion to "stone throwers" is a fairly recent development in our culture's history. Back in the 1800s and earlier, it seems it was far more common to throw verbal and written stones in such cases. Could it be that societal trends in the early 20th century led to certain behaviors (which tend to be exhibited by the more introverted among us) becoming taboo (thus encouraging the introverted to withdraw further from societal interaction)?
We've grown so accustomed to the "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" approach to community interaction that I wonder if maybe we just haven't developed the "muscles" to cope with criticism. I just wonder if maybe what we're actually seeing is a course-correction (which, on occasions, over-compensates).
And you never go wrong considering people's feelings. This doesn't mean sparing the truth, but it means delivering it in a way where it might actually be heard. For example, if a woman ever asks you whether or not an outfit looks good on her, don't lie- if it is hideous or sub-optimal, just say something like "I'm not sure it's as flattering as (insert outfit/style/garment/thought here)." This way, you tell her how you feel without hurting anyone's feelings. Saying "that makes you look like a rhino" is not kind.
you can say everything you need to in life, but the way you deliver the message is as important as its content.
This causes people to have less personal respect for you than if you were standing right there in their face. I think you hit the nail on the head. They consider you a NPC. The more interactions occur and the more people build relationships to each other online, the less incentive people have to "act right" and pretty soon it becomes status quo, because "Everybody's Doing It".
If that Burger King / Facebook thing had instead been "Walk up to ten IRL friends of yours and tell them to erase your number from their cell phone", there wouldn't have been many people collecting coupons for Whoppers.
Now, on Twitter, for example, I see a picture, a short biography, a full name, and, generally, a link to a blog to learn more about a person. This is still at a remove from an actual person, but it's close enough that I, at least, am more likely to associate the two than not.
This distinction is highlighted when I come across a profile without any of these identifiers. It feels quite alien, and as such I generally have nothing more to do with the person.
If you ruin one online reputation, you can go out and create a new one.
Are we all becoming the equivalent of NPC's in an online fantasy game...when grandpa has an Avatar and the grandkids recognize gramp more from his avatar than his picture is there something wrong with this? I think so, so I changed from an avatar to an actual picture of myself and refuse to go back to the avatar.
I guess this is what concerns me the most...the lack of knowledge about who you are talking to and if they are what they suggest they are. Usually, i have found people are fairly honest, but there have been a few, that worried me more than a little.
In a blog I wrote earlier today about how I have a hard time figuring out how to actually use social media like LinkedIn and Facebook http://agingreluctantly.wordpress.com/2009/01/1.... What boundaries am I comfortable with, because I really don't know who is communicating with me, unless I have actually met them or have had numerous conversations online with that person.
I guess the "old fart" in me is still wary of these social media applications that have come to dominate the internet and how we communicate with others we don't really know. While I have waded out up to my waist in the Web2.0 waters, How much should I open up my life to the "tron world is the questions. I think I am going to stay at this level for a while to get used to the water a little bit more, to see how the water is before I go a little deeper.
Chris if you have any links or suggestions, i would be interested in hear or reading them.
Thanks
Harold Shaw - by the way this is my real name and yes I live in Sidney Maine :)
In my own case (pun intended), I often utilize online tools to interact with people whom I cannot interact with in person. I am usually trying to "move some value" (either give value or get value). My basic goal is to generate more value for myself and others than the cost of my monthly connection. This is setting the bar fairly low, but I am, after all, a part-timer at this.
When "lurking" (I like to call it reading) in online places, I generally am using the internet as a listening tool, an information gathering station. When posting comments or forum postings, I am usually trying either to answer a question or to extend a discussion in a meaningful way.
I sometimes forget myself and fall into this "lawyeresque" way of asking or answering questions to make a point - to win an argument. For me, I think it stems from a long-time love of writing for a result. I get value from working questions out by writing, and often get too involved in the solution, forgetting my manners and acting or speaking in ways I'd never consider doing in person, face to face.
Long day :)
I suspect that there are a couple of things that humans are accustomed to that are missing in the online world, even still, that cause us to act like we're interacting with plastic humans. One is the visual. To be fair, video isn't really "there" yet in the sense that you're not interacting (in communities) via video, really. You can use video one-to-one, or broadcast, but not really in communities. We're visual people, and it's in facial expressions and tones of voice that we pick up emotions.
The second, related piece, is the fact that communities are not real-time. Yes, they're fast, but they are still asynchronous. In face to face interactions, you can see emotional responses *very* quickly when you make a social gaffe. This real-time feedback is not there.
Does this change as technology evolves, and online communities become more visual and more real time? Not sure, but I suspect it might.
It is also easier to communicate online. As your mentioned a lot of barriers (some good and some bad) are torn down. So people who would have never communicated in an offline world can now placed face to face which can cause friction.
Thinking about ways to resolve these problems, one important part that is missing in some online conversation is those gradual introductions. These aren't a series of blockades to keep people out but a series of helping hands or introductions into the community. These are basically resources given to members at various levels. For example "New to the community read this", "What is appropriate here and what is not", "Can't find what you are looking for ask here", "Serious discussion about this niche topic discussed here". Why aren't there this resources in some communities? Because it takes time , effort and some skill to produce them and people sometimes aren't willing to contribute. But the upshot is that is helps everyone in the community.
This was a thought provoking post. Like you, I am not new to engaging in online conversations. I was an early adopter to AOL back in the 90's and my internet usage has grown and developed along with the medium itself. Over the past 6 years, I have belonged to one bulletin board and forged solid relationships with the other members of that board. Within the last year, I joined Facebook and LInkedIn and have enjoyed reconnecting with people that I have interacted with in various phases of my life. Again, with both Facebook and LinkedIn, I have found the interactions to be very real and meaningful. There are other 'social networking' sites, however, where I think you find more of the "plastic" persona emerging. Twitter is one such site.
I am not a Twitter hater. Far from it. In fact, I follow and enjoy your posts on Twitter. But, I do think that the format of Twitter encourages exactly the kind of behavior you're discussing in your post. As opposed to message boards or sites like LInkedIn comprised of people connecting with others who share a common interest, sites like Twitter offer the opportunity for anonymity. The user profiles are part of the problem. Limited information and lack of verifiable data about a given user creates a lack of accountability. So, Twitter users--especially those new to the medium--feel free to tweet without fear of repercussion enabling them to be as insensitive or inappropriate as they like. The unfortunate outcome, of course, is the bad apple syndrome. Legitimate and well meaning users who are the recipients/targets of the negative or "plastic" posts are often discouraged from participating, which diminishes the value of the medium as a whole.
I don't think there's an easy answer to this problem and I certainly don't presume to offer a solution. However, it certainly was an interesting issue to ponder.
Best wishes,
Tanya
Time must be balanced between our on and offline worlds, so to get the full measure of our social media time, we have to make judgments about who we will follow and who will follow us, but even more importantly, with whom we will interact. How we present our thoughts in online communities becomes even more important then, because it's so easy to misinterpret typed conversations.
And it's amazing how much you can tell about someone from a few tweets. What they tweet about, how they address it, what and whom they choose to retweet, to whom they reply and how.
As you pointed out, there are always people who will commit errors when coming into a community: noobs are one group. They just need gentle schooling. Some profiles seem to be all about a product or service, but the tweets say otherwise: they're friendly and inclusive - you and I, they say. Not me and my product.
But the percentage of authentic interactions can never equal 100% because of other groups - people who are unable or unwilling to view others as more than opportunities for greater wealth or status; stone throwers, trolls, and angry people. They won't go away because we haven't evolved beyond that, yet.
I think the changes happening in social media are going to be difficult for many of us. At the beginning, the small community is supportive, friendly, welcoming. Maybe to a fault. As it begins to gain traction, it is bound to attract the schemers, the spiritually bankrupt, the mean-just-for-the-hell of it. They all want to be a part of it, even if only to try to tear it down.
The great thing about communities like Twitter is that, in your online neighborhood, you aren't required to allow them in. You may have to put up with angry Uncle Joe in real life complaining at every family gathering, but online you can refuse entrance to your life to people who make it unpleasant.
I can't make plastic people real or mean people nice, because I can only control my own actions. But to that end, I promise to be as consistently kind, supportive, and communicative as possible. As authentically me as I can be, in as many circumstances as I can. And I promise that I will not knowingly follow anyone who is consistently unkind, angry, unsupportive, exclusive or predatory, nor will I knowingly give them access to any of my online community neighbors.
But I am my self in my writing and I don't try to fool or lament or please others. I don't even write what I think others would like to hear - I am writing about all the things that are inside me and I was not allowed to say.
Today is Martin Luther King day and I don't attempt to eat something special or have a party - I work at doing something for someone else. Today I listened.
I keep hoping to have a conversation with people a discussion, and I do with a few. I was hoping to make enough money to pay my medical bills, but I am very slow at learning how.
Other bloggers have been so helpful...and someone wrote on my blog the other day and I instantly wished he would have a conversation with my 29 year old daughter - I just felt they would be wonderful friends. Do I plainly say that or am I interfering? Being mum? learning?
I think there is a huge mix of people on the Internet and that diversity is so great I so not wish to squish it for the bad apples, the greedy, the nasty..as Gandhi says, they will lose in the end, they always do..People need time to learn how
And they need "celebrities" to give them a gentle nudge sometimes...and if they don't understand, well, everyone else will know quickly!
There are two things I see that really enhance and make social media and this paradigm shift what it truly can be: Bringing Value to the relationships we are in and being Genuine and yourself in them. Works like a charm both online and offline.
Like you, I've been in this game awhile. In fact, you mentioned places like Prodigy. Which, if you used it, chances are you used something I either designed, built or managed. From the late 80s' through the 90s as the 'great unwashed' somehow managed to find the "Any Key" and bumble their way online, their newbie behavior was often the equivalent of no shirt or shoes, which is a bit trashy even at the 7-11.
Now, however, online is essentially ambient. While there are still very late adopters coming online, they seem to approach with a bit more trepidation and care. Therefore, the problem that exists now is different then newbies. And you point out some of them in what you classify as Trolls, Stone-Throwers, and Faux Celebrities. Part of the answer will be more closed communities and tools for managing such entities. Even if they're a very small proportion of the online population, like any single-issue person or public they can have an outsized impact. Personally, I think we're just at the very beginning of online community right now. (I say that as a long time industry vet from Prodigy, to About.com to others.) This early period of truly ambient online experience will take some time to get used to. And it will take some time for personal and group controls to come into play ot limit the damage of fools and their followers. But it will happen. It has to happen. Very little humans ever do together grows or thrives without some kind of cooperation; be it though enforceable rules, or at least social norms. There are already plenty of thriving and successful online communities that have such norms established and mechanisms to maintain them. More will follow.
None of what I've said is meant to say their won't be thieves, con artists and worse using online tools to bad purpose. And yes, online does enable some such behaviors that had no prior means to implement bad acts. But for the most part, this behavior isn't any more prevalent online then offline. It's just more visible.
Once you become 'accepted' then maybe, you can get a little more daring with your interactions.
It's like this - I wouldn't tell a dirty joke at work, but with my friends, I'd have no problem!
I have been drinking at the waterfall of your comments and have concluded that the vivid visual story is the most efficient way of getting a point across. That's why I remember your point about trying to sell too early in a relationship. That's why Katybeths comment on your post on realistic expectations about responding to clients "where is the fire, I don’t see any smoke? with a giggle, I put down the phone and realized I could wait." stuck in my mind whereas the thousands of words from other contributors didn't.
Real people are visual and use vivid and entertaining conversation. Now we have the bandwidth why don't we see more videoblogging? and videocommenting?
The biggest change I've seen in online conversations is the desire by those participants interested in learning and collaborating to be transparent and authentic. Within many of today's online communities being inauthentic sticks out like a sore thumb.
There will always be those who abuse the medium just as there will always be those who abuse the privilege of free speech. However one of the many benefits of online conversations is our ability to selectively ignore those individuals by deleting, unfollowing, blocking, etc. For those doing such things not out of malicious intent but out of ignorance of social etiquette there is some initial tolerance and willingness on the part of community members to steer them in the right direction. For the others I would say good luck in your endeavors and don't be surprised if nobody responds - it's because nobody's listening.
We all have the ablity both online & offline to develop trust by what a person "puts" out regardless of the agenda. I believe you develop a "feel" for people once you have been on the virtual pathways long enough.
1. When you join, figure out the norms of the community. Those add up to the things that you need to keep in mind in order to earn respect in the community, to build social capital if you will. If you troll, obviously you're not going to be listened to and perhaps even shut out of the community. Same applies if you walk around angry.
2. While the other person may not always agree with you, they are a human being with thoughts and feelings. Don't assume that you know best in every situation, listen, be thoughtful and treat everyone with the respect you want to garner some day.
3. Volunteer. Give to your community. No this isn't mandatory for participation and no I don't mean tweeting your "click on my junk" stuff (hat tip to
@AmberCadabra). The Twitter community doesn't consider that giving, but advertising. Take that into consideration with other social networks you become a part.
The last thing I want to say that I'm coming across more often than not lately is the faux celebrities you mention getting bashed for doing something and judged harshly. There's been an assumption that they are out for everything they can get.
This is simply NOT true. Okay there may be SOME self-absorbed people on the 'net, but most of those "celebrities are still human". Most are searching for happiness and success just like me.
If "celebrities" are held on a pedestal, of course they'll disappoint, because the raised expectations and the opinionated "things they should be doing" will crush all the things they ARE accomplishing. Something heavily on my mind given that today Obama will be sworn in.
Now I want to ran on your being realistic about time piece but I'll save that for another day. ;)
As always, a great post. I am not sure about the term faux celebrity, though. A celebrity is someone who is famous or well known. What the internet (and Web 2.0) has done is enable people to be selectively famous - well-known among a specific group of people. This is the future of celebrity. We are living in the age of personal branding where we have the opportunity to build visbility among a focused target audience. That has changed the nature of celebrity. Faux implies artificial or fake - and that is not the case at all. I think those who are selectively famous are more authentic and real than those we think of as celebrities.
Best.
William
www.williamarruda.com
As big as twitter is, it is still a community and as a community we should build each other up NOT tear each other down. This is not to say that when something is wrong, it should just be ignored, but I think there are ways to handle uncomfortable situations without intentionally trying to hurt people. Why not be constructive instead?
Thanks again Chris!
I was leading an engineering team porting our software to UNIX, and one of the tools we used was Lucid Emacs; unfortunately, the graphical interface didn't work on the UNIX system we were using (at the time IBM's AIX). I was new to the Internet back then (probably 1991), but I found a fellow wanderer that also used that tool (he lived in London, I was in Chicago), so we teamed up and ported the graphical system to AIX (he lisped (Emacs is written in Lisp), I did X WIndows (and old graphical interface library), so it worked out well).
We got into a public discussion about event loops - that's too technical for here, but the discussion was a formative experience for me because Richard Stallman (yea, that Richard Stallman of GNU and EFF) flamed me big time.
He lost my respect (more because he felt that kind of interaction was right), and I learned that the Internet is full of creeps just like the real world.
We put up with a lot in life and I figure dealing with creeps online is just part of all that dealing. Its not going away anytime soon.
For me, the question is how to keep from being a creep.
Like I replied to David Armano, when you're visual and vocal, you're a larger target for both fans and critics alike. If you have something you're passionate about, you must voice it because you would pay a price within yourself for silence.
I think that the deeper issue is that people in general are profoundly uncomfortable in their own skin, for reasons that would go too far afield for a blog comment. The same folks who enter an online community and interact with folks as if they're NPCs in a role playing game (great metaphor, BTW) were the folks who interacted with other kids in high school as if they were 2-dimensional secondary characters in a John Hughes movie.
Our ego has a very hard time grasping that the other people around us are living, breathing souls--not mirrors or cameras. Online or off.
These tools make it a lot easier to communicate, but also to act like an idiot on a grander scale. If we simply treat others online as we would wish to be treated in person, things would be terrific. Sadly, many feel that the rules don't apply to them, especially online.
I think that you sum this up perfectly with one of your beginning statements:
"many people misunderstand that the online representation of a person is tied to a real person, with feelings and thoughts".
Others also have some great comments about people not feeling comfortable within their own skin, not having proper social skills......
As Social Media and "Community" outreach becomes more and more mainstream, my fear is that this is going to get worse before it gets better. Initially people online within these initial communities knew one another and respected each other. Then newbies came in and disrupted the flow of communication. Now people come and go so often, they do not care what/how they say, because they can just leave and go elsewhere.
This reinforces the fact that Community strategies geared towards Management and Moderation need to be at the forefront of any Community strategy. How do you handle certain situations when people confront and threaten one another? Rules need to be established and followed consistently so that a community understands when they are out of bounds. The more visible that we can make and create appropriate and acceptable Community behaviors/morals and establish them, the better off all Community participation will be.
Mike
I think this is most critical for global systems where "we" don't share a common cultural heritage, but its bad enough when we do (as per comments in this thread).
Mike
I've used both of those images before--one for a blog post, the other for a preso.
Great minds, I suppose. But if my baby pix show up here...well, I just don't know, Chris...
Great thoughts and perspective. I have often lamented the behaviors of many people online. It sometimes looks as if we can hide behind our computers, locked away behind the protective walls of our homes, and throw stones at the rest of the world. Sometimes it seems that people feel safe in behaving rudely or overly aggressively in the online world (sort of like road rage?).
Like MagsMac, I like the idea of building people up rather than tearing them down. I think it's important to realize that real people with real thouhts and feelings are on the other end of our posts, comments, tweets and emails.
Thanks for the reminder. I'm enjoying your tweets and blog posts. Keep up the good work.
Here's the funny thing about the perception of people hiding behind their online personas. I've often found that those who do so are equally as "plastic" when I have occasion to meet them in person. Perhaps the difference between the so-called "real" world and cyberspace isn't so far apart after all.
Thinking....
On the other hand, venturing into new worlds (i.e. Second Life) on my own was a bit of a shock encountering rather seedy charachters within the first few seconds of arrival. Perhaps online people put on a mask so as to protect themselves instead of truely opening themselves to new encounters.
That’s a lot of names you know from the blogs you read or the videos you watch. By “faux,” we’re real people set into a situation where in a limited niche, we’re known for something, and people check in to see what we say.
I love that line, and it is so very true.
r/d