About a month ago, I was in a group, planning a panel discussion for an upcoming conference. It had been suggested that people be invited to question whether business bloggers share personal information on their business blogs. Information blogging versus relationship blogging was at the heart of the question.
I imagined the panel and the audience in the conference room. I thought, “It’s not often that people get to see subjects — other than politics and religion — that would be equally as dividing.” Very soon after the planning discussion, I caught myself picturing the panel. I was filled with knowing that circles for the sides of the panel placed in a Venn diagram would hardly touch. It was hard to foresee that folks would be persuaded to be any closer in outlook.
Two very different world views — one informational, one relational. Each point of view defines the experience differently. Static or dynamic, take your pick.
This elephant is standing on the web.
What is a link? Is a link clicks and traffic and Google rankings? Or does a link represent that I know you, that I’ve read your content, that you’re relevant and of value to me? Is a comment conversation or something I can buy or rent?
We’re living in two Internets. It looks much like the companies we find in the world of brick and mortar. One is about places, information, and data. It’s the buildings in which people work. The other is about people, relationships, and conversation. It’s the people who work in those buildings. One is a structure. The other is social.
A blog post yesterday at confused at calcutta reminds me that we have trouble bringing software and people together.
Something about what he said there made me think about the glazed look people used to give me when I first spoke about any aspect of software as a service. To many people, software is a noun and inanimate as well; to many people, service remains a “doing” word and closer to a verb despite being a noun. And this separation of service from software seems to create a whole series of problems in people’s minds.
Reading that, my mind hears the “Cluetrain Manifesto.” I think of the opening of Daniel Pink’s book, “A Whole New Mind.”
The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind — computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind — creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning maker.
Are you of a new mind? Can you make meaning, create and empathize without revealing something personal?
In the 80 million blogs, maybe you see only the tech blogs, new niches, the tech values being found in databases. Feedburner sold to Google for $100million. Maybe you’ve noticed the wealth of blogs about positivity, personal development, and finding your passion.
Maybe you’re not paying attention.
I’ll put it out there anyway . . . is it about surfing the net or about going deep? If you go deep, are you deeply into information or relationships?
What value has information without relationships?
Liz Strauss writes information about relationships at Successful-Blog.
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