Online communities versus social networks

This past Monday blogger, FastCompany journalist and social media expert Marcia Connor tweeted, “So what’s *your* theory on why online communities get little press while social networks get all the buzz?”  Her query was for an article or blog post that she’s working on.  Here’s my take on it.  In more than 140 characters.

Online communities get little press while social networks are all the rage because human beings are multidimensional.  This unique quality is reflected well by social networks and not so well by online communities.  Online communities tend to be vertically organized, calling upon a single facet of their participants, e.g. arthritis sufferer.  The richness of social networking is understanding your high school friend as an accomplished scientist and your boss as a dad.  Social media commands a single persona, but one which is surfaces the multidimensionality of each person.

Social networks also have the added dimension of crowdsourcing upon which tools like website discovery tool StumbleUpon are founded.  You learn about tangentially-related and even unrelated things that are of interest to you from like-minded members of your social networks.

Additionally, social networks blend online and offline (retrobuilt) relationships. Online communities tend to be founded either around a geographic area or around a vertical topic.  This blended mix adds texture and flavor that online communities don’t have.

Finally, the self-directed, unmoderated, “owned by the people” freedom of social networks increases members’ sense of ownership and thus, their connectedness to the network, itself.  Online communities tend to be moderated, or at least owned and run by an individual.

I can’t wait to read Marcia’s analysis of this question…!

The professional Catch-22 of personal transparency

At this point it’s fair to concede that the idea of a lifetime job is a relic from a previous era.  It is widely believed that we are slated to have an average of seven careers in our lifetime–many of which will involve more than one job.  Even when we’re in long-term committed employment relationships, we are still not married to the company.  Ultimately, we’re free agents and need to manage our own career paths, proactively make job changes and build our own skill sets. 

At the same time, when we are employed by a company, we must be, to some extent, representatives of that company.  We are expected to conduct ourselves in ways that are not only ethical, but also appropriate and socially-acceptable.  Bad behaviors reflect poorly upon our employer.  This is even more the case for corporate executives.  I’d argue that the further you get up the chain of command, the more your public face melds with that of your corporation.

So how does this play out in the transparent world of social media where we have a single persona?  Because the personal is the public, it is also the professional.  

One result may be that people become reticent to BE the face of the organizations for which they work.  People may choose to keep silent and not share their opinions and thoughts in public forums.  Noses to the grind and locked behind closed doors, these employees will hinder the information sharing that leads to innovation and will hinder the development of the collaborative culture that is percolating.

Another possibility may be that people will opt out of some or all of the social media conversation to protect their employers and themselves.  My husband, a Hill staffer, has very consiously chosen not to have a Facebook page because he cannot control his contacts’ activities and posts.  An embarrassing comment on his Wall would reflect poorly upon him and thus, upon his employer. As a government employee, his standards are, necessarily, high.

A third outcome is that we may see more and more independent consultants and freelancers who represent their own brands.  Being an independent consultant may be the safest position to be in, and yet the hardest, all at the same time because we can be associated with conflicting client perspectives at the same time. Over the past two weeks I’ve come across two occasions on which I felt the need to put a disclaimer in my communications: ”the views in this post represent my opinions and are not necessarily the perspectives of my clients.”

With our world in the midst of major shift to a more open, honest and transparent culture, shying away from full participation is neither a positive, nor a sustainable, solution.  We need to find ways to be our personal and professional selves within social media.  We can’t afford to lose valuable people or their perspectives.

What’s Personal is What’s Public

It’s not difficult to join the myriad social networks and create our digital persona. At first glance, it seems that you just throw up your picture, your resume, your e-mail address, and voila, you’ve digitized yourself!

A closer look reveals that there are new implications for our personas that were not available to in Web 1.0. We need to carefully understand how this era of social media is different before we “go public” and jump into social media.

In the Web 1.0 world we were like sea turtles: our homes, activities and lives were underwater– not revealed to the public. As sea turtles only come out of the ocean to dig holes and lay eggs, we, too, only appeared only sporadically in the Web 1.0 world: our cameos only showed snippets of our public personas.

Appearing online in the Web 1.0 era was almost akin to appearing in the newspaper: it was impressive and it was specific. Furthermore, it was defined through a moderator: your bio on your employer’s website, your soccer game in your hometown newspaper, the picture of your community choral group’s spring concert. Bits and pieces of your already public self were revealed. For the most part, you had no issue with these highlights–they just augmented the public parts of your persona.

Now in the current era of social media, we all have the communication and presentation tools previously only available to the media and corporations. Therefore, at first glance it seems that we, ourselves, define how and where we want to be presented. This shouldn’t be so different from presenting ourselves in person: how we dress, how we style our hair, what car we drive.

But social media has two additional dimensions that are the antithesis of our offline interactions and Web 1.0 presentations.  First, social media encourages–in fact, requires–transparency and authenticity. These are dimensions that we have become adept at hiding in our physical, offline lives: we have shades on the windows of our houses, we use concealer on our blemishes, we put security screens on our PC monitors.  

In fact, until now, transparency and authenticity have been discouraged in our culture. Presenting an unfinished product was sloppy.  We mimicked the tagline “never let ‘em see you sweat.”  We were expected to appear airbrushed, even before we had access to Photoshop.

Second, social media is, by definition, social. Once you put something out there, it is part of the social media clay and can be molded, changed and sculpted by others. However in the offline world and Web 1.0 era, “collaboration” was a red flag for “cheating.”

Now, there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Social media is changing the way we present ourselves, communicate with others and shape our society. Embracing social media means full disclosure: fully putting yourself out there–experiences, thoughts, reactions, ideas–not just for all to see, but to interact with: improve, change build upon

The good news is that you are as you define yourself: you control your persona. The challenge is that everyone can see you, react to you, collaborate with you.  Be sure you understand the attributes and roles of the social media landscape before you digitize yourself.