The Collision of Social and Professional Worlds

Last night I was reading Megan Berry’s article about how her social and professional lives are beginning to overlap. There has been a sudden influx of Facebook users that are not 20-somethings that are there for business networking. While I openly accept this new reality, I also sympathize with Megan’s situation in which she is having to think about what she writes and what pictures she posts since some of her co-workers may end up seeing the more personal side of her life. Her suggestions (as I have suggested previously as well) is to allow Facebook users to differentiate between social contacts and professional contacts and separate your profile based on that. I fully support this motion but I doubt Facebook will do this anytime soon. If they did, it would officially be the end of LinkedIn. There is also another slightly uncomfortable aspect of this new influx of users that Megan touches on in her article. As the older crowd meshes with the younger crowd, new definitions of social interaction are rapidly being defined. I personally greet most people with open arms (except for those that are either too young to have anything in common or have certain tendencies that suggest they may be crazy). I know many other people are hesitant to build these new connections so freely. Social networking has just crossed generations and those that are involved are rapidly trying to define the new rules of interaction. While it can sometimes be uncomfortable, I think these are very exciting times!

 



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5 Comments »

  1. [...] The real killer application will enable the differentiation of professional from social profiles (as I mentioned two days ago). While this application doesn’t go all the way it is a great step in the right direction. [...]

    Pingback by The LinkedIn Killer? - The Unofficial Facebook Blog — July 27, 2007 @ 8:02 am

  2. This functionality wouldn't just be useful for work collegues / professional contacts, but also as more people of all ages join facebook, it would be great for separating family members from friends. Also somewhat akin to the current 'limited profile' which is a bit well, limited; more control over what causal acquaintances can see versus close friends. Anyways facebook / app developers MAKE THIS! Lol!

    Comment by Ruth — July 27, 2007 @ 2:21 pm

  3. This functionality wouldn't just be useful for work collegues / professional contacts, but also as more people of all ages join facebook, it would be great for separating family members from friends. Also somewhat akin to the current 'limited profile' which is a bit well, limited; more control over what causal acquaintances can see versus close friends. Anyways facebook / app developers MAKE THIS! Lol!

    Comment by Ruth — July 27, 2007 @ 3:21 pm

  4. [...] The Collision of Social and Professional Worlds – The Unofficial Facebook Blog This is a big issue around how you decide to manage your on-line identity and the difficulty in separating business and personal networks. Read also the link to Megan Berry in the article – it will make you feel old (if you are a 30 something) (tags: facebook networking) No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI Leave a comment Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> [...]

    Pingback by The social media revolution (in 15 minutes) — July 27, 2007 @ 4:27 pm

  5. [...] news updates about my activities I am more likely to monitor my activities just as I was when my social and professional worlds collided. I suggested the creation of an application where all of my social contacts were provided access to [...]

    Pingback by My Mom Is On Facebook - The Unofficial Facebook Blog — August 8, 2007 @ 9:45 am

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