Social Networking: It's Everywhere

Social Networking isn't a new concept...we've had forums and blogs for a while now. Classmates.com is today a "golden oldie."

Yet the modern form of social networking (what I like to call the "Real-Time Status Updates Movement") is pretty young. And we as a society are having some trouble integrating it into our daily lives.

Major sports events are restricting Twittering during games.

A recent headline in the UK claims social media is costing businesses $2.25 billion dollars a year. How so? Apparently employees are updating their Facebook status instead of doing their job.

Google just launched Social Search--just what we need, another tool to help us sort through the social muck of our friends, relatives, and colleagues.

But the growth of Social Networking, and I am referring to Facebook and Twitter specifically, didn't explode until the past year. Twitter struggled into 2008. Facebook began as a connection site for college students and didn't really branch out into other demographics until 2007.

My View as a Father and an Employee

I'm a relatively new Social Networker. My 3 kids have MySpace and Facebook accounts and one of them has a Twitter account. Feeling the need to know what they were up to online, I decided to open a Facebook Account last Christmas. My initial thoughts were to just have an account so I could monitor them.

However, I must admit that I have been sucked into social networking as millions of others.

After initially getting an account, my children added me to their accounts as a friend. Then bam: my kids' friends were adding me, their parents were adding me, and friends from 20 years ago were adding me. My Social Network Web was born. And so I got into it. I started searching out people I had lost contact with over the years. Now suddenly they were back in my life.

I learned quickly that people do not use discretion when disseminating information online.

Recently, I decided to make a permanent schedule change within my company. Neither I nor my management team has announced it to my department. However, the news somehow leaked and a former employee asked me online when I was moving to my new schedule. My personal business was advertised to everyone online (which includes several of my peers) before I had the opportunity to let anyone know.

And I think this highlights a common problem with Social Media. How can you mix personal and business? What do you really want to know about the people you work with? And what would you rather not have your boss find out about you?

Social Networking has some wonderful tools. Just make sure you use a little common sense and discretion. Not all information needs to be advertised to everyone in your Friends List.