Over the course of the past year, I’ve had the pleasure to foster several new vendor partnerships (B2B). In each case, an invitation to join their LinkedIn networks followed our initial project conversations.
On the heels of one recent exchange, it occurred to me that an invitation to make social media alliances/associations had become a gesture grounded in normalcy – no different than adding contact info to a rolodex or data-base in the old days. Online life and offline life have aligned: tool in some cases, skill in others.
It also occurs to me that although this mode of relationship-building requires little lift, it shares far deeper insight into folks who are all but strangers initially. For me, it has the makings of an unspoken trust initiator. Without much effort, you have some credibility with one other.
That is not to say the natural soul connection or skill of building bonds and relationships is replaced, or for that matter lessened (indeed the opposite), but it does allow a more instant comfort with each other. You can see other comments and recommendations and understand in a snapshot the basics of their expertise.
For example, reading that one of my new vendor contacts was the owner of a very well-established and respected “Print Solutions Innovator,” along with several other key phrases, instantly added to the impression that we likely had similar work ethic and were dead-on for product fit. It was also very interesting to see what groups and associations he valued enough to join. Subsequently, this vendor (and his team) has become a highly valued partner, not just a vendor.
It reminds me of a video I ran across recently (which, by the way, I ran into by browsing beyond the LinkedIn page I was invited to and onto the Facebook wall of another potential freelance partner). It compares everything you need to know about social media to online dating. In the description of TEDxAtlanta – Sally Hogshead – How to Fascinate it says, “In today’s world of 9-second attention spans, our introductions mean more-than-ever before. Sally Hogshead reveals the seven triggers of fascination and how to get others to fall in love with your ideas, instantly.” In reality, when we are forging any vendor relationship, we are inviting each other at first to fascinate with the knowledge or expertise we are seeking in each other and must ultimately share to achieve excellent products for clients.
Of course, the “real” life vs. online/online vs. “real” life notion has not just occurred to me. The Washington Times recently ran an article, DE BORCHGRAVE: Embracing Web 3.0, by Arnaud de Borchgrave. He suggests that social networks are tapped out, since we have all reached that moment in time when everything we do online is just part of everyday life – something we no longer plan or think about, but simply do. I don’t think that proves social networks are tapped out (just simply become a staple vehicle used as part of everyday life) but the rest of his statement about us having reached Web 3.0 makes perfect sense to me: “Web 3.0 is that moment when you forget you’re doing any of this stuff. It’s when using the Internet becomes so casual, so much a part of your natural life, that you don’t think about it anymore. … You no longer have the conscious sense of a dividing line between the real and the online world.”
For those of us who cut our teeth on pre-internet production values, adapted to the advent of “The World Wide Web” and embraced “Web 2.0” as a pretty cool tool that we all played a part in creating, the motto of being a jack of all trades and a master of many still fits. This new online comfort and normalcy is just another facet. Experience is, after all, a culmination of what comes naturally over time.