Communicating in the connection ecomony

A few days ago I got a bit of flack on the Quality debate. I’m bored with that topic, so I won’t go there, but a few interesting things came out of that posting (and a few in the past that have been turning over in my mind), that I felt I wanted share with you as a community, especially as understanding and promoting the connection economy is so integral to what the TT.biz community is about.

My biggest soap box in business is relationships. It is not necessarily about liking the person or relating to them, it is about trusting and respecting them. When you have that you can achieve so much more, less painlessly and more efficiently.

We all know that the connection economy is about forming relationships, often with people that we may never set eyes on. So how we interact with them on the forums available to us, determines how successful that relationship will be. That means the tone of the emails, the blog posts etc will determine what sort of relationship you form. When we say something – are we smiling, are we frowning, can it be interpreted in another way? When I first started using the chat forum I hated those “silly� emoticons (I am so not a frilly funky nick nacky person), but I soon started to realize that I need them to convey what I was saying. I am very assertive and can be very intense, so unless people can see my face, they don’t know whether I am being serious or pulling their leg, especially those that know me.

To get back to my original point (sorry I am a girl and we think tend think in round-about-ways at times), if people feel threatened or offended or insulted they wont engage and the relationship wont be formed. We don’t necessarily mean to come across like that in our posts but we do because we don’t stop and think before we hit the publish button. Sorry Graeme, I don’t like picking on people in public, but this was too clear an example to miss – “partly wrong” has exactly the same meaning as “partly right” but has a very different experience for me as the reader. I have a thick skin, so can give as good as I get, but that is the sort of stuff that keeps others from participating in the conversation – they see that and think “what if they think that what I think is wrong or stupid”. People will avoid confrontation simply by keeping quiet and by definition on a blog that means not engaging and so a relationship is not formed. That is not to say that there are not people out there reading the blog, but they are not engaging – so the blog does serve as a sort of radio or e-mag that you scroll through or tune into, but to be a true relationship it needs to be mutual.

There have been a few posts on this blog, by women specifically, that implied that there may be a nervousness/reluctance to put opinions or comments on the blog for all to see. This would be really unfortunate because as one of the biggest trends that needs understanding – getting inside the female brain is essential to understanding our desires and needs – and for the purpose of this blog, that is from a business perspective only �

TT.biz has taken the mantle of championing Generation Theory and the Connection Economy and similar future trends, so I think that it should be important that we are not dismissive of people that don’t get what we are “preachingâ€?. If our goal is to bring business into the 21st Century by educating and guiding them, we need to be encouraging and supporting them and not dismissing their uncertainty and fear. This is a huge paradigm shift for some people, not necessarily only the Boomers or the Silents, I have Gen Xer friends that are afraid to download anything off the net, not to mention shop or bank. I won’t work with people that are arrogant, and I don’t think I am alone (this is a women’s world trend – be aware of it), so it is important that we don’t come across as arrogant when we post. Especially if we want to learn about how to engage with these people. We need the dialogue.

On the women’s trend subject. Conflict can be healthy, but beware of how you present yourself in that conflict. Women won’t go to war unless we absolutely have to because we don’t like conflict, (but woe betide the enemy when we do march).

I think it would be fair to say that we are all learning from each other. Futureneering (did I get that word right Graeme, and where the heck did you find it?) is very new, and simply by definition means that every step we take is a pioneering one, both as a network and as students and teachers of trends. It was never going to be simple and easy, but buckle up for one hell of a ride.

Finally, I want to comment on a really nice experience that came out of this – I “connectedâ€? with two fellow bloggers. They both sent me emails encouraging me to keep challenging the status quo, because that is what makes the Talent Team better. That is called good “customer serviceâ€?/ relationship building – it was taking it outside and saying “thank you for your contributionsâ€? and that is the kind of pat on the back that a public blog thank you can’t beat. So thanks guys.

Now if someone would please tell me how to post this blinking post so that it only shows the first para and then (…more) that would really help.

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