Lasting Relationships and 15-Second Friends — Are You a Solo in a Social Media World?

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Strategy, Successful Blog | 16 Comments

15 Days, 15 Seconds

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At dinner last Friday with Beth Kanter, the scholar of social media and tech for nonprofits, used the phrase “a solo in a social media world.” That phrase has stuck with me. I wonder whether social media is changing the relationships I have with my friends?

Beth’s statement came at about the same time that Maki sent me to a study that explains the nature of relationships.

Some friendships are short and fleeting, while others may last years. Although a wide variety of factors go into determining the strength of our relationships, the long-lasting ones seem to share a number of the same characteristics, according to a recent study of a cell phone network.

Lasting relationships have these things in common. The most important of these is reciprocity.

  • The more often we connect with friends in a 15-day period, the stronger our relationship will be.
  • Most strong ties between two people lasted for just one 15-day interval. Only 20% of relationships lasted longer than a year.
  • The strongest factor in lasting relationships is reciprocity — returning a phone call.

It’s a simple thing. When someone calls, writes, comments, links, or asks for help, do we respond or do we let it ride? Lasting relationships last because we are persistent in nurturing them.

By knowing the characteristics of persistence, the researchers could look at the features of the network for the first 15 days, and predict what the network would look like in the future.

Now we have access to a world of online and offline relationships, but we still only have so much time for reciprocity. Does social networking put us in danger of making vast communities of fast 15-day friends — folks we meet today and hardly know in a year? Is social networking causing us to neglect the reciprocity that made our relationships last?

Social networking offers us access to start and spark incredible new relationships. People connect, relate, and do business, who would otherwise never have met. Together we accomplish, build, create, innovate, solve, fix, and nurture. Some of us even fall in love and get married. Social media can have powerful, important, and lasting effects.

BUT, a 140 character touch within 15 seconds isn’t the same as a conversation within 15 days.

Friday, Rick Wolff said, “Someday, somebody’s REALLY going to plead for help on Twitter. . . . ”

Will that tweet be recognized?

Lasting Relationships in a Social Networking World — is that the new balance we have to find?

I don’t want to be a solo in a social media world.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Traditions: Who We Are and What We Value

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Identity and Relationships

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I think about how my world has changed since I was a child. Family traditions, traditions with friends, were liberally scattered throughout my life. Those handed down were savored and serious. Silly ones came about doing something spontaneous. The simple, soft, and sentimental still make me smile. They weave together the relationships and interactions that formed who I am.

But times change. Traditions seem harder to hold onto.

Once extended families held us closer to home, closer together. Now we are more isolated from each other. We change jobs. We move houses. We marry later. We have smaller families. As a culture, we are alone more often and longer.

We leave behind some traditions. National traditions are being questioned or hidden in respect for those who don’t feel reflected within them or who find fault with the values of a given tradition.

Who We Are and What We Value

Traditions take time and investment. Their very nature requires a buy-in at some level. They are a critical cultural benchmark of who we are and what we value.

In the script to “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevye explains the importance of tradition to a culture.

A fiddler on the roof…
Sounds crazy, no?
But here, in our little village of Anatevka,
you might say
every one of us is a fiddler on the roof.
Trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune
without breaking his neck.
It isn’t easy.
You may ask,
why do we stay up there
if it’s so dangerous?
Well, we stay because
Anatevka is our home.
And how do we keep our balance?
That I can tell you in one word!
Tradition!
[snip]
Because of our traditions,
we’ve kept our balance for many, many years.
Here in Anatevka,
we have traditions for everything.
How to sleep.
How to eat.
How to work.
How to wear clothes. . . .
For instance,
we always keep our heads covered,
and always wear a little prayer shawl.
This shows our constant devotion to God.
You may ask,
how did this tradition get started?
I’ll tell you.
I don’t know.
But it’s a tradition.
And because of our traditions,
every one of us knows who he is
and what God expects him to do. . . .
[snip]
Without our traditions,
our lives would be as shaky as
As…
As a fiddler on the roof!

Are we leaving behind traditions without replacing them? Are we leaving behind our sense of self with them? Are we losing track of what we value? What traditions hold us together still?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Time to Spend and to Save

Filed Under Business Life, Community, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 27 Comments

I've been thinking . . .

“Beginning in 2007, most of the United States begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March . . ” This year that is March 11.

The clocks are about to change. I heard a bird yesteday. Soon it will be spring. I hope I get to see it. The tulips are my favorite.

My life has started speeding up. Gee, like it hasn’t been fast all along. Projects are reaching their launch. Big events are happening. SOBcon is one week. My son graduates from college the next. How can time go by faster than it already has?

Spring forward one hour — one hour less. I don’t need less. More might be useful.

Daylight Savings Time. Who is saving mine? I only know who is spending it. That would be me.

Sometimes, without thinking, I spend and save time simultaneously.

We’re on the porch in Massachusetts. My husband is fixing my glasses. My son smiled, “So, you finally found a use for him.”

We’re in the living room in Illinois. I wrote a poem for a kindergarten lesson. “You think you’re five, but you’re only four-thirty,” joked my husband.

I hear my father saying, “If you sleep on the floor, you’ll never have to worry about falling out of bed.”

My my older, older brother called on our 23rd wedding anniversary. “Tell your husband I said he chose wisely.”

When I was small, time was huge, unending, constantly thrusting me forward. But that’s not time, no, not really. Time’s not a moving, unbending force upon me.

Time is a paradox of meaningful or meaningless moments. We can lose track of it We can waste it or wait for our time to be over.

If we’re lucky we find that time is the one thing we can spend by living and save in memories..

Spring back and breathe.

I don’t need to save time, or find time or make more time in my life.

I need to spend more time that I can save as memories.

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via letting me be

Life, Weekends, Memories — Finding Time for the Time of Your Life

Filed Under Business Life, Motivation/Inspiration, SOB Business, Successful Blog | 28 Comments

I've been thinking . . .
One Friday ritual that happens in offices is that people ask What are you doing this weekend? I’ve never been good at small talk in general, but I had to study to answer that question.

I kept a list of responses that sounded somewhat normal.

“I’m going for quiet and relaxation.”

“I think a good book is in order.”

“I have an appointment with my pillow.”

“I’m just so happy to be having a weekend.”

You might note that all of my answers basically say the same thing that my friend, KB, once said, “Liz doesn’t do weekends.”

I used to say, “Hey, I made my quota of decisions at the office. The last thing I want to do is come home to make more of them — decide what to do, where to go, what to eat, where to eat it, when to go there, what to wear.”

So instead I’d stay home and let life happen.

Sometimes life happens in ways worth remembering. Most often it doesn’t. Time just passes.

That’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. I don’t make plans — too many options. I can talk myself out of almost anything.

“Do something.”

“Do what?”

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“How about this. Too crowded.”

“This? Too expensive.”

“This? Too far. . . . too early . . . too late . . . too extravagant . . . too boring . . . too edgy . . . too too.”

I think I should stay home.

I care more about who I do things with than what I do. So when someone suggests anything, I go. Most cool things I’ve done have been because someone invited me.

That sure is a passive way to live life, waiting for it to come to me.

I’m getting back in the driver’s seat. Plans are now part of my personal navigation. I’m finding time for the time of my life.

Life isn’t made of weekends. It’s made of memories.

I’ve decided it’s time to start making some outstanding ones.

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