Building Relationships and Transparency – Is it Really So Different?
Peter van Aartrijk and I recently did an “On Point” Insurance Journal podcast interview with Chris Amherin. Chris of Insurance is Fun had an interesting analogy to share regarding building relationships and transparency. In this guest post he talks about his experience with social networking. Go here to listen to the podcast.
From Chris
Many of those who disdain social networking sites like Facebook offer the same put-downs: “It’s just a bunch of people who clearly don’t have a life sharing thinking everyone else is interested in their every move. Who cares whether you went jogging today What a waste!”
While there are certainly those online denizens who digitally “run off at the mouth”, so what else is new? Those people have always existed, and if you aren’t interested, just do in the digital world what you do in the “real” one – ignore them.
I was never truly drawn to sites like FaceBook because it was the newest, greatest thing or because I have to be on the Web 2.0 cutting edge. Yet I stand before you today a convert, won over by a surprising revelation I had not anticipated.
Rick Morgan planted the seed when he told me I really had no basis to comment yay or nay on social networking until I actually tried it. Point made. Then my father passed away, and at his memorial service I was performing that traditional ritual known to all with big families located in far-flung locations: reconnecting with a plethora of nieces and nephews. As we “caught up”, it gradually dawned that they were all on FaceBook, sharing photos and stories even as we spoke from their iPhones and laptops. Here I was trying to catch up on months or years of news in two days, and I find they had been documenting it all along to each other – I was the one out of the loop. So between Rick and the desire to not let long lapses in physical contact create further communication breakdowns with family, I stepped timidly into the new waters. And what I have found fascinates me: this cutting edge, Web 2.0 tech wonder called FaceBook has digitally recreated the old small town neighborhood!
Here is what I mean. My grandmother used to live in a house in Springfield, Illinois that had this huge front porch. And that porch was the center of the social universe. In the morning and evenings, she would take her coffee, cider and/or knitting and sit on that porch and connect with the neighbors. Folks talked back and forth across the street from their porches, the kids ran around the front yards, and neighbors went by on their errands. Consider our “loser” who actually tweeted or Facebooked he was going jogging. Well, back in grandma’s day, instead of reading about it, you would have actually seen him jog by. Would everyone on the street be interested? Of course not, but back then we would still all have seen him – today we all “read” him. Similarly, back in the neighborhood, you would have known who was fighting, who was staying up late watching TV in the front room, who’s kid hit a homer in that afternoon’s Little League game, who had family in town, who was sick, who had just returned from out of town and who was courting in the front porch swing.
What fascinates me is thanks to this new digital world, I have reconnected to the “old” analog world, and rediscovered a mighty truth: it is ALL of the details and experiences that build relationships. not just the major events. The seemingly trivial is what fills the gaps, fleshes out the understanding, and creates healthy, solid connections with those around us. We are free to sort through the inputs, discarding what we deem valueless, and storing away for posterity what we find personally compelling. But without access to the whole, incomplete information leads to relationships that are subject to manipulation and distortion – and ultimately, a growing distance and alienation from those around us.
In grandma’s day, when nearly all her friends and relatives lived their lives within walking distance, relationships could be built upon long-term, ongoing sight, sound and physical touch. In today’s more mobile and scattered world, such long-term bonding is improbable to impossible, leading to reduction or total loss of relationships with former friends or distant family.
Incredibly, high tech has truly become high touch. And so tonight, instead of taking my diet coke out on the front porch I no longer have, to view the neighborhood where I no longer live, I will do the next best thing: log onto FaceBook. There I will enjoy the pictures, “listen to” the conversations, “see” Rick out for a jog, find out how Donna’s day went, “hear” my niece fighting, then playing games with her kids, and yes, even mutter over some of the inanities. Maybe even an old acquaintance will show up from the past, “moving in” to my neighborhood again without ever leaving Cleveland. And all the while I’ll be humming that old lyric by the Moody Blues: “Lovely to see you again, my friend.”
