most of the things we need to do would be possible."
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"If coaches and consultants could share expertise and access to clients, most of the things we need to do would be possible." Online Collaboration |
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You can do business with anyone. Goods or services are exchanged for money. You don't need to know who you dealing with. Usually when you buy something you have no idea who you dealt with. But if you are collaborating with other people WHO they are is everything. Now your own reputation and future is on the line. When I first saw these bands I noticed that they are racially segregated. (That's not strictly true.) They also share an age, and they choose to dress alike. They are "close" to each other, culturally and musically. |  | |
| I think that tells us why online collaboration is proving so difficult. It's hard, online to develop that closeness. | |||
Here's and example from science | |||
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Symbolic Atom |
Scientists tell us that we cannot imagine what atoms are really like. But they do have a centre, and they are mostly empty space, and they are made up by a set of electrons, more or less closely held together. An atom is a set of electrical particles of no size held together by both strong and weak relationships. Groups of people are joined in similar mysterious ways, sometimes closely bonded and sometimes loosely contained. Strong connections make us powerful actors in the world, but most of our new ideas and inspiration comes from weak connections. |
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Local Body Politics |
A children's group |
An adult group |
An online network |
| Here's a back-grounder on my own networking. | |||
 | In the process of building the web site New Zealand Dances (Closed 2000) I wrote over 1000 web pages and more than 700 people contributed letters or photos or information to the site. I wasn't thinking about "networking" or building a large valuable network, it was simply a necessary part of the site maintenance work. (I thought I was building a customer base.) | ||
 | I was introduced to Ryze in 2002. I didn't understand it. I didn't join. "What a waste of time I told myself." (I couldn't see what Ryze was useful for.) Ryze is a very efficient way to discuss topics of interest, to learn about the world and to learn about people. In the process you change who you are, you become broader and more tolerant and a better leader. | ||
 | LinkedIn started in 2004. I joined inside the first year, but I didn't have many connections and it wasn't very useful to me. (Notice that I dropped the ball a second time.) It was the movement of Ryze members to LinkedIn that helped me to get my network growing. Then I realized the potential of LinkedIn for New Zealand and I started to deliberately build a large network. I sent out thousands of invitations, most of which were never accepted. (Others dropping the ball.) | ||
 | The latest tool I recommend is Twitter. Twitter is very good at helping to make that distant relationship a little more personal and stronger. That's what this page is about. We must find ways to build strong networks, with a proper respect for both tight and loose connections. | ||
| The Apoptosis Concept | |||
| This concept comes from cell biology and it's more fully explained here. Briefly, the cells in your body communicate with each other, and the body detects cells which are malformed, and a "die signal" from other cells turns the malformed cell off. This process is how you maintain a healthy body over many years. When the process fails we get cancers, malformed cells that refuse to die. That idea has lots of relevance to online networking. People are very generous and cooperative online, but also very sensitive to anyone who is "malfunctioning". There is a strict online social protocol, unwritten, which those of us who've been active for a long time understand, even if we cannot quite explain it. Everyone has to learn the rules. You do so by participating. You do so by copying what the best people do. You absorb good behaviour, and you try to emulate the people you admire. People from the world of commerce or from the criminal world, as online newbies, don't have any regard for these rules. Usually their exploitive activities are spotted as fraudulent quite quickly. Online newbies, particularly people with "professional training" are vulnerable when they first begin to work online. You can't learn social behaviour in a class, nor from a book, you have to learn by full immersion, you absorb online social knowledge by participation. | |||
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Please feel free to comment on networking and collaboration. 
Copyright © Open Future Limited, December, 2009. All rights reserved. | |||
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