It's okay to say "no" to an online connection
06:51, 11 February 2009
.. Posted in Communication, Outreach and General Mngmt.. Link
When the popularity of the World Wide Web exploded in the late 1990s and every individual and organization decided they each needed a web site, requests abounded for link exchanges: "I'll link to your web site if you will link to mine."
At first, it was an always-say-yes proposition. But nonprofit organizations in particular realized quickly that it wasn't a good idea to link to anyone who asked: what if the request was from a corporation engaged in activities that went against the mission of the nonprofit? or if the request came from an individual who had material on his or her web site that insults particular groups of people, or encourages people to break the law? Many organizations developed web link policies; for instance, a nonprofit would link to a web page if its content was directly, obviously related to the mission of the organization.
Now, the popularity of online networking sites is exploding, with everyone, including many nonprofits, in a rush to build up their online profiles on various platforms and to build a high number of online "friends." But is it really appropriate for you to accept every invitation to connect to your profile on an online networking site?
It's not only your nonprofit that needs to think strategically its online networking presence (something I've blogged about before) - you, as a volunteer or staff member at a nonprofit organization, need to think about the purpose of your own online networking as well. If you link to anyone, anytime, on any platform, with no criteria for what connections mean to you, don't be surprised if you find yourself over time lacking motivation to network online, as linking becomes mechanical instead of influential, without any meaning behind your connections. Your links become just numbers, rather than real connections to with which to share and collaborate.
LinkedIn is a professional networking site. My Linkin connections are real connections: they are current and former co-workers and clients, volunteers I've supervised or worked with, people who have attended a workshop I've presented, classmates, and various other people I've worked with in such a way that I would be able to say something about them, people whose work I'm very familiar with, or people who are familiar with my work. If, instead, I connected to absolutely anyone who asked, the connections would not mean anything to me or anyone else; they would be just numbers.
By contrast, I'm not sure how I would feel about certain professional colleagues wanting to connect to me via my main online social networking profile. Do I really want former supervisors to get regular, automatic updates about my vacations, political causes with which I'm involved, and which Buffy: The Vampire Slayer character I'm most like? Ofcourse, with sites like Google, it's quite easy for anyone, including potential employers, to find out just about anything about anyone - but, IMO, there's a difference in being able to find information about me if you go looking for it and are willing to dig awhile, versus getting an automatic electronic update about what I thought of Tropic Thunder.
Consider developing your own linking policy for your online networking activities. What do you want your links on professional sites like LinkedIn to say about you, versus your connections on make-a-difference networks like Change.org, versus your online social networking on FaceBook or MySpace? There have never been absolute lines in our lives where work and volunteering ends and social activities begin, of course, and you will always have gray areas, but it's still worth thinking about, to keep your online connections true connections, with some kind of real value to them.
When you say no to an online connection, consider offering an alternative. For instance, to people who ask to link to me on Linkedin whom I don't know, I offer the alternative of getting to know each other online professionally, inviting the person to:
-- email comments to me about my work whenever they like, and to share their work with me for comments as well
-- read and reply to my blog entries, and to share his or her blog address with me
-- read my posts on online discussions and reply to them on or off-list, and let me know about their own online communities that they are a part of and that I might be interested in
-- etc.
For my FaceBook profile, I accept anyone who asks, as it's not my primary online social networking profile; I confess that I set it up only to reserve my name on the network (so no one else could). But it's not how I keep friends updated about my personal life. Where is my primary online social networking profile? If you are a real friend, you know already...
