PierG,
Great question... A lot of us are still trying to sort this stuff out. I think of "touch base" as personal, one-to-one.
For me, it depends on the nature of the social interaction, and the "relationship." If it's public, it's not touching base: commenting on someone's status on Facebook isn't really a substitute for a one-to-one correspondence. Writing on their wall, sharing something of professional interest, is more akin to the MT touch base email. Having a dialog on their wall regarding a job change, that's touching base.
Twitter, by virtue of its public nature, is never a substitute for "touch base." Twitter is a broadcast medium.
Neither email nor social networking can match a phone call, of course. And I admit freely that I'm not as diligent in touching base as I should be. So in that sense, Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, Yammer, etc, are better than nothing. But it's not touching base, unless it's personal.
John Hack
Submitted by Tom Hausmann on Tuesday February 23rd, 2010 12:14 pm
...not a substitute for staying in touch.
I find it hard to stay in touch more frequently than every few months with 200+ people. For example, a number of people in the MT community have joined my LinkedIn profile. We send email periodically but do not exchange information and "add value" with each interaction...sometimes it's a simple "I'm OK and hope you are too."
In my view, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Keep building relationships--it is amazing the serendipitous events that occur.
Submitted by E Fox on Thursday April 1st, 2010 1:32 am
Perhaps
PierG,
Great question... A lot of us are still trying to sort this stuff out. I think of "touch base" as personal, one-to-one.
For me, it depends on the nature of the social interaction, and the "relationship." If it's public, it's not touching base: commenting on someone's status on Facebook isn't really a substitute for a one-to-one correspondence. Writing on their wall, sharing something of professional interest, is more akin to the MT touch base email. Having a dialog on their wall regarding a job change, that's touching base.
Twitter, by virtue of its public nature, is never a substitute for "touch base." Twitter is a broadcast medium.
Neither email nor social networking can match a phone call, of course. And I admit freely that I'm not as diligent in touching base as I should be. So in that sense, Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, Yammer, etc, are better than nothing. But it's not touching base, unless it's personal.
John Hack
It is a start, but...
...not a substitute for staying in touch.
I find it hard to stay in touch more frequently than every few months with 200+ people. For example, a number of people in the MT community have joined my LinkedIn profile. We send email periodically but do not exchange information and "add value" with each interaction...sometimes it's a simple "I'm OK and hope you are too."
In my view, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Keep building relationships--it is amazing the serendipitous events that occur.
I plan to take my contacts
I plan to take my contacts off of facebook and linkedin and put them in my outlook contacts and work with them that way.