This past spring, Steffan Antonas, a compadre of mine, wrote a great blog post Encouraging Randomness and Accelerating Serendipity. Steffan discussing the Twitter and blogging culture
You should really take a moment and read Steffan’s entire blog post and leave him a comment too. Go ahead, I’ll wait here while you read and comment on his. It’ll be worth it.
Encouraging Randomness and Accelerating Serendipity
Steffan says:
I’m a big believer in the power of engineering randomness into my life – it’s one of the main reasons I blog and use social media. I firmly believe that getting yourself out there, engaging the world with an open mind and exploring the unknown is the best way to live because it leads invariably to positive experiences, new connections and new opportunity and possibility. In particular, I’ve found that Twitter is an awesome tool for accelerating the process of injecting random online experiences into my life and turning them into a source of offline fun, opportunity and possibility.
Isn’t that really what is happening in social media? Those of us that use Blogs, Facebook, Friendfeed, LinkedIn, Twitter know that the Web 2.0 culture is fascinating and allows people a chance to have a voice. We enjoy the connections we make and nurture them.
Steffan’s belief in the power of engineering randomness and accelerating serendipity resonates with me. Steffan got the phrase accelerating serendipity from Tara Hunt, another great blogger I recommend who wrote the book The Whuffie Factor.
Here’s what I wrote on Steffan’s blog:
I really like that phrase: “I’m accelerating serendipity.” That wraps it up very nicely.
Ultimately, I believe we all crave community and connections, and technology, especially social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning and Twitter, has given us new ways to connect with others, no matter where they are. It’s those connections that we crave. I also see social media akin to picking up the phone, having a meeting, or joining a community organization, it’s a touchpoint and a mechanism for conversation. People forge relationships with other people, not with a brand, a business or technology. Contrary to popular belief, social networking sites tend to augment, rather than replace, offline interactions. One of the reasons why social media sites are so successful is their focus on supporting offline networks over online-only relationships.
How is this possible? Before, the notion of “keeping in touch” was hard work. It required one if not both parties to actively pursue contact on an at least somewhat regular basis. Communication required time and planning. Social networking sites, on the other hand, are designed for easy, lightweight, ad hoc communication. They’re designed for “Accelerating Serendipity” as you’ve said! Good stuff Steffan!
How do you describe your online connections and relationships? Do you have any tips for maintaining and nurturing your online connections? Share them.
I’ll bite.
Jeff – Thanks for the shout out and I’m so glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks for sharing it.
So you and I have had several great conversations about this, but I want to have a related-but-important one here that I think will also resonate with you on “maintaining and nurturing your online connections”. It’s this in a nutshell…
I find that too many people online focus on interacting on big blogs and outlets and on getting the attention of influencers and almost completely ignore their friend’s blogs and work. Do you see this happening? I find that this has the following effects: Their contributions go unnoticed, the quality of the discussions they have is greatly reduced and they don’t create strong relationships. It seems like such a backwards way of embracing the tools. Do you see evidence of this on the social web? Your thoughts on this are appreciated…
@Steffan:
Thanks for stopping by and adding to the conversation.
I too have seen that some people only leave posts on “marquee name” blogs and ignore other lesser knower bloggers. When I find a post that resonates with me or even one that is completely opposite of my views, I want to leave a comment and I want to share that post with others.
I think conversation about topics and issues is a good thing and I see the social web as the neighborhood front porch. It’s a place to congregate, share thoughts and perspectives, and even engage in healthy disagreements. We all become stronger from those discussions.
Continuing the front porch theme, when we become exclusive, forget to include certain neighbors, overlooking or omitting other voices, we don’t get the full picture and we are missing an opportunity to expand our horizons. Not including others in the discussion causes us all to suffer.
Thanks again Steffan.
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