The Power of the Social Network

Today I attended the funeral for the mother of a friend I have known since high school. After high school we connected intermittently, and in recent years have become closer. So close that she is the godmother to my daughter.

My friend does not have a profile of Facebook , but I do and through this profile I have connected with quite a few classmates. Today, with her permission, I sent a message through Facebook to these classmates with the funeral information. Now, think about it, I sent the message the day of the event - kind of short notice. What I figured is that a few people may be interested in signing the online guestbook, so I provided the information.

One of our classmates saw the message and made the trip from Manhattan, circumventing all the crazy construction. How amazing! We all haven't seen each other in 20 years, and this woman made it a point to show our friend how much she cared - and she wouldn't have known about the funeral without the network.

Facebook also exemplifies the concept of 6 degrees of separation. I recently went through an old phonebook and searched on Facebook for some of these long-lost friends. I found an old boyfriend, someone who I hadn't seen in about 13 years and we "connected". After the connection, we find out that we have a mutual friend - and we didn't know this back when we were dating.

I have been using LinkedIn to connect with the connections of connections who work within the recruiting industry, and it has been an interesting process. Most people have been very kind and forthcoming and willing to help me reach a desired contact - and primarily because of my relationship with a mutual "connection" ("colleague" is sometimes still too strong a word).

Social networks are re-defining human interaction. It allows us to interface and hide as desired, which can be good and bad - almost like Caller ID. At Verify-ED, we are constantly looking at ways to utilize social networks to support our business strategy and we are amazed at our many options.

1 year from now, if I ever review this post, I am curious as to the effect of social networks. Hmmm, sounds like I need to put a task in MS Outlook to check next year.