Friends? Don’t expect them online
September 25th, 2007Connecting online with like-minded people (both professionally and personally) has changed peoples’ business and private lives and I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet. Whether it is through online collaborations (such as “The Age of Conversation“) or through applications like LinkedIn and Facebook. But are they friendships?
Lewis Green doesn’t think so. He writes: “Virtual is good. Reality is better” and I agree. Friendship between people requires meeting in the flesh and not once, but many times. I don’t have more than a handful of friends and they are people I know very, very well. However I have many acquaintances, colleagues and business contacts.
There is nothing wrong with that. Relationships need a starting point and a path to grow into friendships. The hardest part for most people is precisely that; a starting point.
If you are building a business, if you are a marketer, a significant part of your life is focused on creating those first steps on that path; an opportunity to start a conversation, to gain a foothold of someone’s attention and interest.
