ATK: real-world AFK (away from keyboard)

AFK (away from keyboard) is “in-world” speak for the state of your SecondLife avatar when you’re not operating him/her.  I’ve also heard this state referred to as “asleep” or ”latent.” 

I sought out this terminology a week or so ago when I noticed the opposite phenomenon.  I was with a group of social media cronies  at a conference or happy hour or breakfast and realized that we were the opposite of AFK–ATK: attached to keyboard. 

There was a lull in conversation while we all hung our heads–like sleeping avatars–to tweet, text or type.  We had checked out of the real world and were only existing in the virtual/online world.  In this group, this ATK behavior was completely socially acceptable.  In the technology, social media and web communities, there is an unspoken understanding when you step out of the in-person conversation and go ATK.  It’s almost like we live in a hybrid online-offline world.

However, in the non-tech, regular offline world, going ATK is NOT acceptable.  To your family, colleagues and friends, you may appear as exciting and conversation an avatar that’s AFK.

Inability to comment on comments stifles the conversation

I just finished reading Keith Burtis’ great guest post on Chris Brogan’s blog, “Twitter- To Converse or to Broadcast-THAT is the Question.”  As I scrolled and skimmed through the comments to get down to the bottom and add my own comment, it dawned on me how strange it is that the participatory medium of blogs that are all about conversation and collaboration do not allow people to comment on comments.

Sure, you can explicitly refer to what commenter “Starfish” said when you, yourself, are commenting, but this requires others to scroll back up and try to find “Starfish’s” comment, then scroll back down to your comment and then down again to insert their own comment.  This is cumbersome, not collaborative.

I often find the same challenge in using Twitter: I @reply to someone’s tweet to start or continue a conversation, but maybe I’ve been in meetings for the past two hours and the tweet that I’m latching on to is a tweet from much earlier that day.  I feel the need to sort of recap the initial tweet and then add my insight or addition–tough in 140 characters.  From being on the other side of some of @replies I know it’s sometimes difficult to to figure out to which tweetstream they’re referring.

As I commented–yes, linearly, because what other choice did I have?–on Keith’s post, the broadcast problem is threefold.  First, we Digital Immigrants, are still getting our sea legs when it comes to participatory media.  Collaboration is not our comfort zone.  We want try out the latest social networking tool, but find it uncomfortable to put ourselves out there, trust “strangers,” and give away our ideas for free.  It’s a cultural issue. 

The second issue is the adoption continuum.  Remember 1994 when email was still fairly new?  Little by little friends and family members were ”getting on email,” as we said back in the day.  The user habit was to write an email letter–yep, these were long messages–to your friend.  Then once you’d gone back and forth a few times and had nothing else to say, the “forwards” would start.  From jokes, to consumer warnings, to limericks, you were one recipient on your friend’s mass distribution list.  At first this was funny and you, too, would forward these inane messages along to your friends who were “on email.”  But “funny” quickly soured and turned into annoying.  You moved on.  You started using email as a productive communication tool rather than as a toy.  It became a seamless part of your daily communications.

The same adoption continuum exists for social media.  First we sign up for a service and then probably forget about it for awhile.  Then we passively observe the landscape.  Next we dip our toes in and blurt and broadcast, “I had pizza for lunch!”  Then we settle in and start sharing useful and mildly interesting information with our followers…but we’re still operating in a 1.0 broadcast paradigm.  As we build our follower networks, we begin to see the value of social media.  Suddenly we “get it”: we have this mindshift that it’s not about us, it’s about them.  Broadcast is about increasing value for the creator; social media is about increasing value for everyone else.

The third and final piece of the broadcast problem is that the blog and microblog platform infrastructures are, too, still evolving and are not yet truly conducive to the collaboration that their content is trying to encourage.  I’d be interested in hearing if anyone knows of a blogging platform that truly facilitates collaborative discussions.  I can envision a clickable mindmapping kind of visualization.

The key to finding time for social media: replacement

So my husband, Paul, has lost 5-10 pounds over the past year or so.  It’s happened gradually and he attributes it not to a diet, but rather, to a shift in his food selection that he refers to as “replacement.”  He’s not eating less food, just replacing many of the refined carbohydrates he was eating with unsaturated fats and protein, e.g. rather reaching for a cookie, he’ll grab a handful of almonds; instead of a sandwich, he’ll have a salad with double turkey.  Believe it or not, Paul’s concept of replacement is a relevant lesson for organizations and individuals dipping their toes into the sea of social media.

I had the pleasure of grabbing coffee (no, no muffin or croissant with it) this morning with long-time contact and SVP at Fleishman-Hillard Digital, Dan Horowitz.  Conversation flowed from FH Digital’s terrific That Guy website and campaign for military health client Tricare, to the work that I do with DoD’s New Media Directorate, to the challenge of finding the time to actively maintaining a social media presence.  Dan explained that one of the biggest challenges in working with clients is getting them to understand that to do some of the social media “stuff,” they have to stop doing some of the traditional “stuff”: replacement.

Whether you are an individual or are reading this in your role with a corporation, organization or government agency, you can’t keep doing what you were doing and also fully participate in the world of social media.  There is not enough time.  Social media needs to replace a portion of your old media time and resources. 

Even if there were a hypothetical situation in which you actually had unlimited time and resources, the concept of replacement still holds true because the relationships that you will build and maintain through social media makes some portion of your old outreach, PR, customer care and other communications functions, obsolete.  This means that they need to be replaced.  Replacement can help you/your organization, too, to become leaner by focusing on what’s really valuable and usable rather than on the empty calories of some old communications.

Social Networking Breeds Positive Offline Interaction

Chris Brogan wrote a good post this morning entitled The Me Game, in which he shares successful networking tips.  As I commented on his blog, it reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: how the open, transparent and inclusive norms and etiquette of social media are impacting our behaviors–and thus the culture–of the offline world.  I find that the honest, friendly and helpful culture of my social network conversations and interactions breed their offline counterparts.  For example, when I tweet or post comments on someone’s blog and then receive positive comments, suggestions and feedback online (oftentimes from people who are strangers to me in the offline world) it encourages me to be more altruistic offline.  I find myself letting cars in front of me in traffic, smiling more at people on the street and holding doors.

The Social Networker’s Dilemma

We’ve all been there.  You receive a connection request on Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, or another social network from someone you met at a networking event or conference.  You chatted for a few minutes, didn’t have any immediate reason to be in touch, but exchanged business cards.  Now she wants to connect to you on a social network.  You’re conflicted: yes, you’re contacts, but do you want to be connected? 

Some people try to reconcile this dilemma by simply using different networks for different purposes, e.g. Facebook for personal contacts and LinkedIn for business contacts.  While a noble attempt at making order out of chaos, multiple personality disorder is not sustainable: in the 2.0 world, we have a single persona.  Eventually, your personal and professional selves will overlap so much that you will concede and become one with yourself again.

So, until recently, when you received an invitation to connect, you chose to accept or not to accept.  It was fairly simple, but the lack of a common set of objective “relationship” definitions made many of us queasy. So, most social networks added shades of gray: they provide us with the opportunity to define our relationships.  For example, on Plaxo, you can be “business contacts,” “family” or “friends.”  LinkedIn and Facebook offer even more relationship choices.  This added dimension is a bit of a relief, but actually has created a more complex challenge: the Social Networkers’ Dilemma.

Let’s take the situation in which someone you met though work invites you as a “friend” on Plaxo.  You don’t feel comfortable accepting the invitation because you don’t consider this person to be a “friend”: you’ve never shared a meal together, you’ve never been to his house–you don’t even know if he’s married or single.  But you think: will downgrading the acceptance to a relationship of “business contacts” be an insult? 

What you don’t know–what you don’t see–is that this guy only invited you as a “friend” because HE didn’t want to insult YOU by inviting you as a “business contact.” And so we have the Social Networker’s Dilemma.

The truth is that neither of you feel the other one is a “friend” but think that you should connect as “friends” because you don’t want to hurt the other’s feelings or embarrass yourself.  In the Social Networker’s Dilemma, both participants are trying to be deferential and polite, but would really both fare better from honesty.  

• If you decline the relationship or ignore the invitation (which is, in effect, declining the relationship), you limit the size, scope and potential of your social network as well as the other person’s network by not connecting with one another.
• If you accept the invitation as proposed, you expand your social network’s size, but actually dilute the strength of your social network by weakening the underpinnings of trust of the network.
• If you downgrade the relationship to reflect your true relationship, you both get what you really want: a valuable, expanded and true social network.

Why do we find ourselves in this dilemma?  This dilemma happens because both parties are playing a 2.0 game by 1.0 rules.  Both parties are putting the social facades of politeness and deference first.  However, social networking is part of the 2.0 world–a world governed by openness, transparency and truth.  Practicing 2.0 values will put you–and your contacts–in the best scenario in this game of retrobuilding and social digitization.