Bill DeRouchey — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:03:14 GMT

Thanks Chris.

On your authenticity question, this could be a naive answer, but the technology could be irrelevant. In any relationship, the burden is on the people to make the relationship authentic. The tech tools can only provide opportunities, reminders, and simple ways for people to connect with each other. But in the end, it’s the words we use, the things we say, the levels we expose that contributes to authenticity. How authentic are relationships that are started by people we meet at work? Say you work with 100 people. You may have casual friendly relationships with 40 of them, but only really really connect with 5. It’s the law of odds. However, the social media, mediums with which to be social, simply provides us more opportunities to find the people we really connect with. After that, it’s up to people to maintain that authentic relationship, whether through software apps, texting, phone calls, traveling, going for coffee, whatever. I really believe that questioning technology’s involvement is the wrong question.

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Bill DeRouchey