I am reading the book The Human Brand, by Chis Malone and Susan T. Fiske. I had to underline the sentence, “Social Media aren’t so much changing the rules of business as they are restoring those rules of their natural order of social accountability.” I had to think about this statement. I’m still thinking as I’m writing this.
Restoring Rules of Natural Order
I am reading the book The Human Brand, by Chis Malone and Susan T. Fiske. I had to underline the sentence, “Social Media aren’t so much changing the rules of business as they are restoring those rules of their natural order of social accountability.” I had to think about this statement. I’m still thinking as I’m writing this.
Really? Okay, I can see this point of the statement. I find myself conversing with people I went to high school with on Facebook that I never said a word to back then. Now we have things in common. We have classmates in common that we have lost. We have grandchildren. We might have businesses with similar challenges. We love jigsaw puzzles. In other words, we have a lot in common just because we grew up in the same town and we graduated in the same year. I know that has nothing to do with natural order, or does it?
Now I am wondering, how far does ‘Natural Order’ go back. I am not qualified to make true analysis of this. Yet I do give myself the permission to scrutinize my own reflections.
I choose to go back to my family’s heritage and what I know about my grandparents. My family came from West Virginia. I was raised in Florida since I was an infant but I know about my West Virginia heritage. To be completely honest, I only know what I was told and what I saw in the two weeks a year I spend up there every year of my life until I went to college in Tennessee.
What I know should be no surprise to anyone. Most of my relatives of the past, and I have many, stayed and married on or near their hometown. They kept up their their day to day business at the corner grocery store, church or family dinners. Grant it, I don’t break bread with my classmates, but I keep up with what is going on with their lives. Before social media, I had no idea who was doing what, even though I live only two hours from my hometown.
There was a void of connection before Facebook. I am not a Facebook proponent nor do I have stock in the company. I am just contemplating how social media has changed our lives. I like the connection, the inclusiveness that I feel it gives me. And if I can avoid calling someone on the phone yet connect and converse with them, I am happy to do so. I can even see pictures of my nieces children growing up and new grandbabies of classmates. It reminds me of the Girl Scout Brownie song we used to sing; “Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.”
I do use social media for my company, Urban E Recycling. I’m not sure if I’m using it effectively. I do know people are seeing it. People tell me they are anyway; and the analysis looks okay. I’ve actually made friends via my posts on Facebook and Linkedin. Silver and gold have I none, but I do have friends and customers, or as Facebook calls them, ‘fans’.
