I now have as many contacts on Facebook as I do on LinkedIn. Why am I telling you this? Because to me it really underlines the recent explosive success of Facebook.
I’ve had my Facebook account for approximately 4 or 5 months, and my network seems to grow at a steady rate, showing no signs of stagnation.
My LinkedIn account is a couple of years old and grew very slowly up until the point when I signed up to Facebook. Since then it has stagnated completely.
And who is in my respective networks? Is it LinkedIn for business and Facebook for fun? Not even close! both networks are a mish mash of friends, clients, co-workers from back in the day, family and the guys I work with now. And if you ask me, that’s the way it should be.
Cause essentially, who am I to decide which contacts could be relevant to whom, right? I mean there’s a very real chance that one of my friends or family members could have something to offer to a client or co-worker of mine, right?
What I’m saying, really, is that the distinction between private contacts and business contacts is futile – I gave it up quite a while back, and it was a weight off my shoulders!
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Well put and you’re absolutely right. I ought to give the distinction up myself especially when it comes to my phone contacts. Jeez it’s difficult to handle two phones
…But what about the distinction between work life and private life in general? Where do you put yourself in relation to that?
Yeah, that’s where it becomes tricky, right? I thought about going in to that, but decided it was too complicated – so thanx for twisting my arm
Ideally, I suppose it would be good to be able to distinguish between the two, but I haven’t found a way to do that.
I love what i do for a living. It used to be something I did for fun (still is). So should I just stop doing it because the clock strikes 5? I don’t think so.
Some of my personal friends are among the very best at what they do – they do stuff that’s related to what I do. Should I not recommend them to my professional contacts? I think I should.
I have always had a good relationship to my colleagues, so shouldn’t I be able to maintain that after hours too? I think so.
And shouldn’t the same be the case for clients?
I can’t switch off my brain anyway, so why not just accept the fact that sometimes I keep thinking about work when I’m off, and sometimes I think about friends and family when I’m working.
I don’t know – what’s the anthropologists view?