Networking is the one key to the knowledge economy. If it all started with the web 1.0 of information posting, the web 2.0 of interconnections has leveraged the sharing opportunities to no limit, just a question of organizing your work so that you do not get overwhelmed. On top of that, it has broken barriers to entry into socializing, as the founder of FaceBook shows so clearly himself; it gives opportunity to enter circles that you would never have dreamed you could break in, and for all people, socialites as well as social reclusive kinds, to organize easily your networking. Remember times where you had to rely on the « doubling strategy » (each contact gives two) to move forward, you suddenly get the full web society in a pinch!
The world is not enough; go beyond friends, colleagues and clients to competition! Social networks allows not only to address search that were impossible before: finding someone you lost touch with, getting information on a person you are going to meet that day, completing some work on any topic (as long as you keep your critical mind aligned…), finding financial support from venture capitalists and shareholder associations; further, you can now openly share innovation and creativity through « coopetition », an acronym created with the web and associating competition and cooperation. Yes, you can deploy all of your knowledge through the web and manage to take a quantum leap, thanks to that little piece of information you were missing and you got easy. No need to keep cloistered into your own abode when the world is out there to open you up; from social to business, it is a world of opportunity!
But too much information kills information… unless you are focused…
Time is of the essence, be short and sweet.
Clarity of messages is paramount, ensure immediate reading.
Organisation of search and answers has to prevail, stay within reachable limits.
On the recipient side, clean up your spasms; it is worth than junk mail!
Mail chains are the worst; at least paper chains were expensive…
All these can be counter-examples of web productivity; the labyrinth can easily haunt you as you progress through the web; a spider is there to eat you alive as you get entangled in the far reaches of its own creation. Thus you always have to think about the strategy to deploy before you throw yourself in it; companies know how destructive it is to have employees spend 30% on the web as they go from app to app and never manage to extricate themselves!
Beware of the IT paranoia… If George Orwell depicted Big Brother masterfully in his novel « 1984 », it is funny that the plot was set in the one country where, twenty-five years later than the title indicates, you are being watched most in World Capitals; someone wrote that you get filmed 400 times in any one day… better smile if you wish to leave a good image of yourself! Anyway, no one can escape the constant overlook of « Big Brother », call it « security systems » of all sorts. Our physical steps are overly scanned, our words are decrypted in huge search engines, our exchanges are seen all over the globe but go back to the second paragraph and think about staying simple. If I can understand the IT paranoia of the past, I loath the IT impediment of the present and call for the IT openness of the future! IT departments are often themselves overwhelmed with the web 2.0 technology and need proper forward thinking to help executives at the helm make the right decisions and enter the future without fear.
No question that we are lucky to have such a powerful tool at our disposal; it is all a matter of moderation. This is why a new technology born out of speed of information could benefit from proper training at the base: what, where, when, what, why, how and with what means? That is the old Latin rhetoric (Quintilian’s) method to any good analysis; apply it to web 2.0.
