Friends & Business

Earlier in the class I said Social Networking is fake, and sometimes it can be. But then today I read an article where the author said that when it comes to business you can also make it a monetized relationship in addition to friendship. I guess then, relationships become less fake, as long as you keep friendship in mind. Nowadays, I find myself easily relating to these topics.

When I started looking for jobs, the first thing people told me to do is think about my friends that were already working because they would be able to give me a hand. And so I did, I looked up all my friends that have a job, contacted them and gave them my resume. As it turns out, I now have people reviewing my resume in different cities and it has eased my application process a lot.

In the same manner, my mom just started a new magazine back home. She’s both the writer and editor. I was talking to her last night and she was telling me how being friends with very different people has helped her perform her job faster and easier. She interviews doctors, politicians and sport players very easily because she knows them outside of work in a social way and so they answer her questions and collaborate with her as friends.

Therefore, I realized that SN is not fake. The people I talked to are my friends. I go out with them, have lunch and talk to them, but they were also able to give me a hand in the business world. I guess that it works like that for many other people in the business world. I've been doing social networking almost all of my life, with out even realizing. Like I said before, where I come from it is a given, not something we study and pay particular attention to.

Am I being used?

Social Networking is superficial. Relationships are built not for who people really are but what they are and represent. The person does not focus on the other person’s personality but rather on what can be obtained from them. These relationships are based not on friendship but on interest. Whenever the person finds that the other is no longer valuable to them, then he or she can be dismissed and when that happens, a whole network can be torn apart. Therefore, I believe there is no real way to measure or evaluate a contact. As I was reading in “Social Network Targets the Enterprise”, I thought to myself how impossible it is to rate them, these relationships are weak and most of the time fake. It can also happen that while one person thinks they are really good friends with the other, the other might be sticking around for her value and information but doesn’t really consider them a friend.

Hence, how can you rate a relationship or a contact that in the first place is not real? Something that seems to be strong can end up being so fragile that it ends up breaking in a second and things fall apart. Where can the line be drawn to know when you are being a friend and when you are being used?