Connect – Engage – Share and a Cautionary Tale.

Penny Power’s 3 step social networking model is powrful because it works on two levels. Know me, Like me, Follow me describes, on the one hand, the maturation process individuals go through as they spend time networking. On the other hand, it also desc ribes the steps through which relationships move.

Connect, Engage, Share (CES)

Connect, Engage, Share (CES) came about by chance when I commented on a blog at ecademy. Thomas Power pointed out that it made a useful, descriptive model of key behaviours involved in networking, contrasted with the general “what’s in it for me” approach so common in society.

It’s a Loop!

CES complements Penny’s model; hers describes a linear process, similar to a journey while CES is a self-reinforcing loop. After first connecting with somebody, if there appears to be a fit it leads to engagement, as a relationships begins to be established. As it grows, it will lead to sharing because, if the ‘giving’ is only one-way, it is doubtful that it will last very long.

As the strength of the connection deepens, it leads in turn to more engagement and so on, round and round the loop. Eventually connection  evolves into what Thomas has described as “connectedness”,  a state characterised by trust and a willingness to help one another as much as is possible.

Social Media is the Tool that Allows Social Networking

Both models highlight an important issue  – many people in the field focus on the social media and describe what it can do for individuals and organizations. It is easy to forget that social media is a tool and that networking, building relationships, is the purpose. I am certain that the next generation of social media applications will focus on helping you create clusters within your networks so as to focus on the quality of relationships.  We’ve had the width (auto-connect for example), now we need the depth!

What social media and on-line networking do offer is the opportunity for those who may find face-to-face interaction difficult, to interact with other people. So it helps those people with their personal development too!

Clusters

Another reason why I believe that we need the software tools to be able to create the clusters I describe above is that having to do it manually takes a long time. In most, if not all, networks, you first have to carry out a search on keywords, then identify those on the lists that are in your network, then find a way to send a message to them. It’s a lengthy, inefficient process. We need to be able to work smarter!

Warning!

And the salutary tale? Over the last year or so I’ve become immersed in  social networking, often spending 8 to 10 hours a day on sites, blogging, posting comments, sending messages to people inviting them to connect with me or thanking them for their invitations and so on. At the end of the week between Christmas and the New Year, my wife pointed out to me that although we had been working in the same room each day, I had become so absorbed in engaging and sharing on-line that I was neglecting our relationship! I’d been at the PC day after day; we hadn’t gone anything together.

We had long conversations about this; fortunately, we have the kind of relationship  where we can discuss issues like this before they turn into a crisis. But the irony of being a strong advocate of  CES whilst at the same time jeopardizing the most important relationship in my life was not lost on me!

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