Face to Face on Facebook
(also published on EventsReview http://eventsreview.com/news/point_of_view/918/)
I received a phone call out of the blue some weeks ago from a student in South Africa doing a Ph.D. on sustainable meetings. She had come across my name and wondered if I could give her some guidance. She didn’t really sound like a young student, sounded more mature, but you don’t ask a woman her age, I have been taught, so I was left wondering. It wasn’t a good time to talk anyway, so I gave her Fiona Pelham’s contact details, and we agreed to talk again at a more convenient time.
In the mean time I looked for her on Facebook, as I routinely do with strangers. She promptly accepted my request for friendship and after five minutes of reviewing her profile I knew she was indeed a mature student of 34, I had seen pictures of her family and friends, what books she reads, what music and films she likes, what countries she has visited or lived in, what Facebook groups she belongs to and her really cool 1958 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia sports car.
When we spoke again some days later, I felt that I knew this person, and I expect that she had checked my Facebook profile, so we knew a lot about each other even though we were almost perfect strangers. This is almost a new paradigm, and I am not sure what it really means. When I think of my many good business friends who I have learned to know over the years, there is not one of them that I know as much about as my five minutes Facebook friend. This is weird. What does this mean? We used to say that meeting people in Cyberspace is one thing, but to get to know someone you have to meet face to face, now I am not so sure any more. What does it mean to know someone? Why do I think of some people as business friends and others just as acquaintances? Common interests, values, age and background, something more intangible perhaps, just ‘liking’. What is the probability of me liking someone who is of similar age and background, member of the same groups or societies, enjoys the same music, films and books? Probably quite high. I take particular interest in what people read, didn’t someone say tell me what you read and I will tell you who you are?
Facebook is just one example of many social networking tools and all are part of the so called web 2.0 phenomenon where we have become active contributors to web content, not just passive readers. Where does this leave our traditional meetings and events? Out in the cold I recon - unless we understand and adapt.
It is no coincidence that ‘experiential’ is the hot trend for meetings and events as we enter the web 2.0 era. I was in Copenhagen last Saturday for a board of directors’ annual retreat. We went to this fabulous dinner cabaret show in the old circus building and it annoyed me that we had decided not to bring our spouses as this was an experience I would have liked to share with my wife. I spent all of last week in Brussels with thirteen meeting planners learning ROI from Jack Phillips. E-learning could never have been the same. On the other hand, why would you go to a conference with a string of presentations when speaker – audience interactive sessions are much better on the web. We need to exploit the uniqueness of face-to-face meetings. The thirteen participants from Brussels now have a secret group on Facebook, nobody will know that it even exists without being personally invited. Some have pictures to share, others have follow up questions or experiences to share when putting learning into practice.
I have registered for ‘Learning 2007’ in Orlando next month and I know that I will meet some very interesting people. I know because I have already identified them in the pre-conference online community. I have shared some information about myself, what I am interested in and what I have to offer, and the application returns a chart showing the distance between my profile and that of other participants. For all I know, someone has already developed this kind of application as a Facebook plugin - there are hundreds. It would save me entering personal data in yet another application and I could look for others to meet based on a much richer set of information.
Did you think that Facebook was just fun and games for the young generation? The largest and fastest growing segment of the Facebook 34 million membership is 35+. If you think that relationships are important in business, then Facebook gives you the hard business data. If you think that keeping in touch with friends and family whilst you are hard at work, then you need Facebook. If you have lots of time on your hands, then you may try using only telephone, e-mail and face-to-face meetings, but even if you spend all the hours of the day, you will not be able to develop and maintain relationships like the Savvy Facebook Professional (SFP).
Poke me on Facebook, I’ll poke you back and we can see each others’ profiles for a few days, maybe we’ll become friends.
I received a phone call out of the blue some weeks ago from a student in South Africa doing a Ph.D. on sustainable meetings. She had come across my name and wondered if I could give her some guidance. She didn’t really sound like a young student, sounded more mature, but you don’t ask a woman her age, I have been taught, so I was left wondering. It wasn’t a good time to talk anyway, so I gave her Fiona Pelham’s contact details, and we agreed to talk again at a more convenient time.
In the mean time I looked for her on Facebook, as I routinely do with strangers. She promptly accepted my request for friendship and after five minutes of reviewing her profile I knew she was indeed a mature student of 34, I had seen pictures of her family and friends, what books she reads, what music and films she likes, what countries she has visited or lived in, what Facebook groups she belongs to and her really cool 1958 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia sports car.When we spoke again some days later, I felt that I knew this person, and I expect that she had checked my Facebook profile, so we knew a lot about each other even though we were almost perfect strangers. This is almost a new paradigm, and I am not sure what it really means. When I think of my many good business friends who I have learned to know over the years, there is not one of them that I know as much about as my five minutes Facebook friend. This is weird. What does this mean? We used to say that meeting people in Cyberspace is one thing, but to get to know someone you have to meet face to face, now I am not so sure any more. What does it mean to know someone? Why do I think of some people as business friends and others just as acquaintances? Common interests, values, age and background, something more intangible perhaps, just ‘liking’. What is the probability of me liking someone who is of similar age and background, member of the same groups or societies, enjoys the same music, films and books? Probably quite high. I take particular interest in what people read, didn’t someone say tell me what you read and I will tell you who you are?
Facebook is just one example of many social networking tools and all are part of the so called web 2.0 phenomenon where we have become active contributors to web content, not just passive readers. Where does this leave our traditional meetings and events? Out in the cold I recon - unless we understand and adapt.
It is no coincidence that ‘experiential’ is the hot trend for meetings and events as we enter the web 2.0 era. I was in Copenhagen last Saturday for a board of directors’ annual retreat. We went to this fabulous dinner cabaret show in the old circus building and it annoyed me that we had decided not to bring our spouses as this was an experience I would have liked to share with my wife. I spent all of last week in Brussels with thirteen meeting planners learning ROI from Jack Phillips. E-learning could never have been the same. On the other hand, why would you go to a conference with a string of presentations when speaker – audience interactive sessions are much better on the web. We need to exploit the uniqueness of face-to-face meetings. The thirteen participants from Brussels now have a secret group on Facebook, nobody will know that it even exists without being personally invited. Some have pictures to share, others have follow up questions or experiences to share when putting learning into practice.
I have registered for ‘Learning 2007’ in Orlando next month and I know that I will meet some very interesting people. I know because I have already identified them in the pre-conference online community. I have shared some information about myself, what I am interested in and what I have to offer, and the application returns a chart showing the distance between my profile and that of other participants. For all I know, someone has already developed this kind of application as a Facebook plugin - there are hundreds. It would save me entering personal data in yet another application and I could look for others to meet based on a much richer set of information.
Did you think that Facebook was just fun and games for the young generation? The largest and fastest growing segment of the Facebook 34 million membership is 35+. If you think that relationships are important in business, then Facebook gives you the hard business data. If you think that keeping in touch with friends and family whilst you are hard at work, then you need Facebook. If you have lots of time on your hands, then you may try using only telephone, e-mail and face-to-face meetings, but even if you spend all the hours of the day, you will not be able to develop and maintain relationships like the Savvy Facebook Professional (SFP).
Poke me on Facebook, I’ll poke you back and we can see each others’ profiles for a few days, maybe we’ll become friends.
posted by Elling Hamso at
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
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