Month: July 2007

In various forums, internal and external, I’ve found myself arguing for the business justification for using Facebook. I even looked up when it was I first discovered I was surprised that Euan Semple was using Facebook professionally. That post was barely 60 days ago… May 1st. Before then, I was Facebookless. (Thank you, Euan, for turning me on, man.)

Jeff Nolan started a Facebook group for his Venture Chronicles blog recently. I joined it, not knowing what to expect , but I love Jeff’s blog, so I thought… humm– this can only lead to something good. I asked Jeff what he expected to get out of it. He said,

“I didn’t really have any expectation and was pleasantly surprised to
see that 50 people joined my group over the weekend. I’m hoping it will
become more discussion forum and persistent “posting” for things like photos
and files. Mostly I’m trying to keep an open mind to see where it goes
before having a POV to push toward.”

So, like Jeff, I decided to start a “Friends of ITSinsider blog” group on Facebook. Who knows who will show up and where it will lead… but, it’s a layer closer to the reader community that may be interesting. I’m definitely open to it. Plus, it’s not a stretch to predict that my regular readers (the hundreds of readers on feeds, for instance) who like my blog would probably like each other. In this way, I can act not only as a communicator, but as a facilitator or gateway to others who share similar interests.

This diagram to the left is an example of a social network diagram. It comes to us courtesy of Hal Richman who has started a group on Facebook called “Convergence of social and business networking.” It shows the interrelationships between social networks. This group is doing some interesting work, and I’m curious to see where their research is headed. Dennis McDonald, one of my favorite bloggers, is a part of this group and has recently posted a graphical map of his online networking tools he is using for personal and business use.

Now, there has been some discussion lately about whether bloggers are the new popstars… I don’t advocate that we all start our own fan clubs, but taking community to the next level where we can really start making the connections go deeper and further– that just makes a lot of sense to me.

Hope to see you on the Facebook group (first 25 members get to see that secret video of the Enterprise Irregulars hotly debating 70s rock bands…)

UPDATE:  Psyche!  Just a c’mon.  That video is in the vault.  Those guys would surely excommunicate me in a NY minute…