The Case for Converging Your Personal/Professional Networks

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Do you "cross the streams?" In other words, do you co-mingle your personal and professional social networks? This is a tough question to answer. In this essay (which is also my Adage column next week), I present the pro-side of the argument. I also opened up this discussion on Facebook.

As I travel the world, however, I am hearing distinct argument for keeping these separate. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and I discussed this yesterday. He (correctly) called me "an edge case." So with this in mind, consider this Part I. In Part II I will look at the case against "crossing the streams."

As always, I am eager for your views. Help me learn. This is a very confusing topic for many people.

Professional, Personal Social Circles Converge...and Confuse

About a year ago I became Facebook friends with Rob, the dealer sold me my car in 2007. Now I don't have any connection Rob other than this single transaction. Yet whenever I bring in my wheels for service, he is able to recall some nugget from my activity stream. You see, Rob is smart. He is using social networking to maintain a level of "ambient awareness" about his customers' total lives and he lets us do the same about him. This instills trust. And trust is the future of business. In all likelihood this helps him drive more sales.

Social networking is rapidly blurring the edges between our professional and personal spheres. Many of us co-mingle colleagues, clients, friends and family within our social networks. Others do not.

While the long term effects are uncertain, this convergence is creating mass confusion among marketers and other corporate types who for years have worked to ensure these circles remain separate. They maybe fighting a losing battle since this train left the station long ago.

The days of us yelling "yabba dabba doo," sliding down the dinosaur's tail and leaving work behind at five are long over. Thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices, we are constantly connected to our work. On the flip side, we don't hesitate to stay close to our personal networks while we're in the office.

Social networking is amplifying and accelerating this existing trend. It's forcing all of us to make choices about how public we are willing to be - and what, if any boundaries we want to maintain between our networks. Regardless of your individual stance, this subtle, yet important change is going to reshape how you and your colleagues do business.

The societal norm, it seems, is tilting more toward what thinker Jeff Jarvis calls "new publicness." This is especially true among younger workers. And while there are certainly major pitfalls - ask anyone who lost their job over questionable Facebook photos from a weekend party - there are clear benefits as well. Caveats aside, I believe that that those who allow these circles to overlap will build stronger ties all around. At our heart, we're all human beings, not automatons. If we open up and let our customers, colleagues and partners see even just a little bit of our total activity streams, we will break down barriers, instill trust and more lasting business relationships.

This isn't black and white of course. Each individual will have to decide just how public he/she wishes to be and to what end. This is why Twitter, a public channel, may not be right for everyone. Yet Facebook, which allows the user to tailor his/her specific updates just to a single network, could be.

The good news, however, is that publicness is not an all or nothing equation. You can start small, as many are. Some employees, for example, are solely using internal social networking tools like Yammer to update their colleagues on their day-to-day activities. Other more extroverted types, meanwhile are tweeting their passions. Some even log their total lives on FourSquare, all in full view of their professional and personal networks.

Ultimately this is an individual choice and it must take into account a lot of factors, including corporate policies and industry norms. But in an age where transparency begets trust, there's a lot to be gained on an individual and institutional level for those who decide in some way to live some of their lives in public and converge networks. Just ask Rob, who I will definitely buy from again.

Comments

[Josh Moore]

Hi Steve,I have been experimenting with this over the last few months. My conclusion is as follows:Work/life separation is dead. Work/life integration is now coming into play.It might be because I am an entrepreneur (and Gen-Y) but there has been a number of benefits already for work-life integration:- People who know me buy into my stuff based on their knowledge of me.- People who don't know me get to see full transparency.- I can manage less accounts (I have been trying to juggle three pages and one profile on facebook. Integrating them all makes for more efficiency).- People not interested in certain parts of my life don't have to worry. On facebook, etc these move down the stream very quickly and are replaced by other's comments.People buy into a leader before they buy into a vision. My opinion is that if you have something to hide on a personal level then you should not post it anywhere online to begin with.Keep up the great work.JM

[Julie Fogg]

I do business with people that I like. Sometimes it takes personal interaction to determine if someone should win my larger business opportunities. I also allow the prospects of my company to interact with me and/or my team for the same reason.

[Sherrilynne Starkie]

I couldn't agree with you more Steve. It's the personal stuff that makes keeping in touch interesting. Keeping it strictly professional is...well...just boring.

[Tom Kuplic]

I think this follows from Josh's comments, but mixing the personal and professional helped me land a new job. That's the great benefit to crossing the streams to start creating a "personal brand." Companies and future woworkers see you and know you can use emerging media and they are looking for those qualities in new hires. Thanks for the great post.TK

[Robbie]

Thanks for the great blog Steve. It's an interesting debate and I can see why people do cross the streams - and the practice seems to be rampant. from a personal viewpoint, I hate the idea. Facebook, is my most used social media and it's the space where I interact with my friends and loved ones. I have some colleagues on Facebook too, but only the ones who I count and trust as friends, because there are attittudes I project and things I say on Facebook that I don't want my wider business contact base to know about or see. It's a personal place and I dread the day when it gets taken over for business ends. There are better places to do that like, LinkedIn. If I see friends posting news or information about their business more than a few times, I cut 'em off

[kitschqueen]

I'm a 20- something and where I work many of my colleagues from different generations have been skeptical about Twitter because they think of Twitter as primarily a social network in terms of your personal life. They have expressed fear about getting involved there because of how it would look professionally, i.e. would it hurt my chances of promotion? The attitude seemed to be that mixing your personal and professional life with "total strangers" was a bad idea. I know some of these people interact socially with their coworkers here so I think the perception is that unless you already have a connection to a person then it's best to treat them solely in a professional manner. But for me, I see this as a way to increase your professional circle. If you can connect with someone in a personal way it could lead to a deeper professional connection.

[webgoddess]

I am someone who has taken advantage of Jenny Levine's accessibility in the social sphere for her work expertise, and I am firmly on the "cross the streams" side of the divide. I find it incredibly helpful to be able to DM Jenny in order to get help from her and I find it nice to think that the people who follow me from work are getting the same benefits. Someone upstream said that their personal friends wouldn't be interested in their work-related status updates, and I occasionally get questions from friends as to whether I'm actually speaking English when I start to get techie in my FB statuses, but I've not had anyone complain too loudly yet! This is sort of related to a recent Read/Write/Web article on letting your personal self shine through on work-related accounts, and I (no surprise, I imagine) also believe that I am who I am, regardless of whether I'm working or not, so I have no problem with colleagues getting a taste of my personal life - should they so choose.

[AxisPR]

This is an interesting debate and I suppose it really does depend on your industry and whether the personal information you share is deemed as 'acceptable'.As a few people have mentioned, allowing business associates into your personal life could make you more likeable and strengthen the connection - obviously the complete opposite could happen.Having two separate accounts obviously removes this issue as controlled 'work-friendly' info. can be distributed via one stream and personal info. directed elsewhere - but does this defeat the object of social sharing? Yes, think about what you are saying, but surely complete regulation removes the personal element, the driver of social media?Working in the media industry, I have a lot more room in terms of what information I can share, I image for some, in other industries it is a much more delicate matter. This decision, I believe, is entirely subjective of your role and the attitude of your business associates.

[seekgeek]

'In Part II I will look at the case against "crossing the streams." 'Still waiting for Part II Steve...

[Steve Rubel]

I know. I am behind!

[dfgvtrh]

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/3-ways-to-use-facebook-insights-to-your-ad...