February 10, 2010 by Robin Dickinson | 141 views | Comments (29)
What has to happen for us to be able to develop ‘mass’ relationships?
Notes:
This post is stimulated by the growth of technology-driven Social Media and builds on the outstanding discussion that contributors to this blog delivered in the previous post: Building relationships: a question of quality over quantity. The quality and richness was so high that I’m now curious to extend the conversation into more speculative thinking.
Your thoughts…
What has to happen for us to be able to develop ‘mass’ relationships?
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29 Responses to this post
February 10, 2010 at 9:49 pm |
I’d say we have to become a brand or ambience people like in a remote sense – like the smell of Kentucky Fried Chicken or perhaps Coco Chanel. Tony Robbins has an essence, for example, that proceeds the man himself, because of his consistent excellence and discipline. Attempting such a feat though (mass relationships) means becoming a commodity as well as a person – and this carries great risks. In the Wizard of Oz, the let down of meeting the great conjuror is profound. So, I’d suggest that seeking to create mass relationships is a brave venture and the one who seeks more noble ends is more likely to succeed by default.
February 11, 2010 at 7:51 pm |
Hey Ben,
So, people become brands – personally accessible brands?!
Let me think this through…
Marketers are always talking about brand development in the vernacular of human relationships.
They talk about trusted brands; how people relate to the brands; the emotional associations with the brand; even linking brand values to personal identity. I am the brand and the brand is me.
The key here will be to understand the boundaries that limit the depth of the relationship with the branded human (sounds clunky).
As with Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk et al, we, the mighty mass, may all have a relationship with them, the supermen and women – it’s just a different type of relationship.
Have I lost the plot here?
Thanks for stimulating the discussion, Ben.
Best to you,
Robin
February 10, 2010 at 10:09 pm |
Mass relationship… hmmm.
We all have a relational matrix, like Jesus. The 5,000, the 120, the 72, the 12, the 3.
Mass realtionship is a pay off between quality and quantity. But we need to use more accurate language:
- depth
- reach
- frequency
(FRY for a new generation perhaps?)
We need a matrix:
Community
Crowd
Congregation
Committed
Core
The further in, the deeper the relationship, the more frequent the relational touch.
February 11, 2010 at 7:56 pm |
Hey Scott,
These are valuable insights. Is it a payoff between quality and quantity? What if we could identify the key qualitative markers – the 80:20 – that really drove the relationship, and focus on them?
Surely, that would be a way of expanding our capability for mass relationships. Especially with all of this amazing technology and connectivity at our fingertips.
Your thoughts?
Best, Robin
February 12, 2010 at 4:13 am |
SOrry Robin, drawing on blank on this!
February 14, 2010 at 5:56 pm |
Then, let’s discuss this on our next Skype call – especially in light of the other fantastic comments on this post.
Talk soon, Robin
February 14, 2010 at 7:00 pm |
Hey Scott, what did you think of Roger’s thinking? (see comment below).
February 11, 2010 at 9:54 pm |
Hi Robin,
I couldn’t help but think of my friend Iggy Pintado and his belief that “every connection is an opportunity” when I read your introduction. Iggy is someone who I believe manages mass relationships very well, and I have encouraged him to comment on this post.
I believe passionately that the “growth of technology-driven Social Media” as you say in your introduction, has made it possible for us to increase the number of relationships we have with others and manage them efficiently.
To answer your question directly, what has to happen for us to develop “mass” relationships is several things:
- early adopters, social media mavens, leaders, business futurists (call them what you will) need to remain as informed as they can about social media/connection technologies. I love playing in this space.
- these people need to be educators, and effectively communicate how these tools can be applied in business and society. Did I mention I love playing in this space?
My view is there are four social media/connection technologies every business person should be acquainted with:
1. Twitter
2. Facebook
3. LinkedIn
4. Blogging with WordPress/Posterous/Blogger
The vast majority of your readers (leaders as you call them) are acquainted with these – a very large proportion of business and society are not.
Effective, informed use of these four have enabled me to develop mass relationships and derive enormous business and personal benefit in my life, including career opportunities, friendship, business advice, lifelong learning and a feeling of doing something that matters in today’s world.
Oh, and I love playing in this space!
Best to you too,
Tony Hollingsworth
February 12, 2010 at 5:56 pm |
Thanks, Tony. You propose useful starting points that are derived from your comprehensive approach to relationship building on and off-line.
I really like your thought about leaders staying up-to-date and educating others.
I suspect the technologies you propose are relatively crude compared to what’s possible in the near and mid-term future.
Tony, now that you’ve whet our appetite, what sort of technological breakthroughs do you envision enabling such mass relationship building in future?
Great to get your leading input.
Best, Robin
February 12, 2010 at 7:23 pm |
Thanks Robin,
What technological breakthroughs do I envision enabling such mass relationship building in the futures? ** dusts off crystal ball **
1. Ubiquitous mobile broadband access. Always-on, always plentiful, always fast internet access, wherever I am in the world.
2. With 1. underway, I can expect my mobile devices to continue to get smarter at figuring out what I’m looking for before I ask. Think of an alert from my mobile device reminding me whilst I am in say Darlinghurst Sydney, that it is my wife’s birthday tomorrow and her favourite store is a few steps away. The store might even remember my purchase history and recommend something new or something on “special” It just got easier for me to get stuff done. Case in point: I am building “mass relationships” with people AND businesses online.
Have a look at emerging “location-based social networks” Players in this space are Google Buzz, Foursquare, Yelp and Gowalla. Foursquare is leading right now, with more people joining, more content being generated and businesses lining up to get involved. Have a look at this: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/foursquare-inks-a-deal-with-zagat/ These technologies are all about connecting people to their communities of interest, be they other people or businesses. I see the “connecting” analogous to “mass relationships” because, to Luke’s point above, the technology is speeding up the time it takes to build disclosure, empathy and trust. How these technologies do that is a bigger discussion I’d be happy to lead.
3. Did I mention Mobile? One reason this is breakthrough is that everyone is getting into it. We no longer have to be at our desks/homes/offices to leverage the technologies that connect us to the people that matter around us. Do you know someone with an iPhone, BlackBerry, iPad, Kindle, iPod Touch? Everyone will know someone, if not themselves. With everyone “into it” – information is being shared by more people, and being accessed in real-time. The other reason it is breakthrough technology is the emerging “augmented reality” applications. WorkSnug is a great example. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z_Q3yl4NjM How this fits into “mass relationships” They are tools that let me connect with more people, more quickly, in a way we haven’t witnessed yet.
Can you imagine yet how breakthrough technologies will enable us to build “mass relationships”? I can! I am just getting started here.
Thanks for motivating me to think and write about that which matters to me.
Best to you, as always,
Tony Hollingsworth
February 14, 2010 at 6:13 pm |
This is top-shelf input, Tony. And as you allude to, a much bigger discussion than this post.
You’ve put some tangible examples on the table for others to build on. Thank you.
It seems to me that the assumptions around what it takes to build a relationship e.g. the time it takes to get to know someone; the time it takes to build empathy and trust, have been based on pre-technological times.
I guess some key questions for me are…will improving technologies reduce the time it takes to build empathy and trust? How?
Great to have your continued input into this topic, Tony.
Best, Robin
February 12, 2010 at 2:03 pm |
Hey Robin,
I’m struggling with the word relationship; particularly with the word mass attached to it. It’s a question of semantics and once again, how one interprets the word i.e. its connotations for the individual.
My own view, and I stress I’m mulling this over further, is that, for most of us, we develop mass connections as opposed to relationships.
For me, a relationship would require disclosure, empathy, trust. These qualities build up over time.
Scott refers to quantity versus quality. This is interesting. Because if there’s an inherent loss of quality then that may suggest a mass system is failing. How to manage that? I don’t have the answers but I think there is a danger that we kid ourselves that we’re building relationships when in fact, they can’t be, because they lack the essential ingredients we’d deem necessary in the off-line world.
Buscaglia said: “Never idealise others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don’t over-analyse your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.”
Maybe our analyses are ultimately futile? Maybe the actual definition of relationship needs to fundamentally change in order to now understand its meaning in the context of Social Media? Or, we just need to agree on what a Social Media relationship actually is. Did I write ‘just’?
This is going to keep me occupied for several days Robin. Your questions really do tap into the very nature of philosophical and psychological discussions and how we develop business, creative and personal relationships using the myriad devices available.
More later!
Best wishes,
Luke
February 14, 2010 at 6:36 pm |
Hey Luke – is this developing into a ‘Russian Doll’ discussion?
Love your thinking here: “Maybe the actual definition of relationship needs to fundamentally change in order to now understand its meaning in the context of Social Media?”
That’s an excellent question.
Language gets murky – imprecise. One person’s relationship is another person’s connection (and visa versa).
Take trust. What does it take for you to trust someone? I’m sure we all have our own definition or ‘rules’.
We’ve just ‘met’ through social media. We’ve tweeted and skyped. We’ve connected, but when does it click into ‘relationship’? Is trust possible without a meeting in-real-life?
Can trust be accelerated using technology?
Great stuff, Luke.
Talk soon.
Robin
February 12, 2010 at 4:36 pm |
Here’s a thought:
Rather than seeing “relationship” as a binary concept (we have one, or we don’t) look at it as a spectrum. This spectrum doesn’t go from darkness to light, but from violet to red (or UV to IR).
So we have a relationship with everyone already. It could be genetic, cultural, social, familial, professional, or just species.
Now when you consider the relationship, you’re not measuring quality as depth of trust, which gives the quantity vs quality dilemma; but rather as contextual.
So I’m likely to trust someone, whom I’ve just met, in a certain context depending on where in the spectrum I relate to them:
If I meet someone from South Africa, (I grew up there) I’ll likely trust their taste in restaurant. If they also did national service like I did, then probably will trust their judgement of a situation. If they went to the same computer college I did, I’ll trust their professional judgement & aptitude. But all this is in context, and I can literally hardly know the person. They could be in the “crowd,” but I’ve applied a spectral community brush to them.
If in the far future we meet another species in space, we’ll unconsciously trust a strange homo-sapiens rather than a known alien. (Avatar? – although we won’t trust the cardboard cut-out bad guy over the erotic feline blue chick)
By thinking about relationship like this we’re free to:
* consider a “stranger” an “unmet friend” – by finding the common spectral colour we establish contextual trust. Think of the Johari Window to establish this colour.
* Discard “us vs them” thinking, which is the root of bigotry and racism (believe me this is hard for most people in the world)
* Manage the quality of relationships in a context. I’ll spend more time with family, because the context is intimate values. But when I spend time with the “masses” I’ll be working on the context of the community, and develop “quality” relationships there too. They’re just different qualities.
I have a blog post on trust and relationships for consultants and managers coming up soon. Watch this space
Thanks Robin, great conversation.
Rog42
February 14, 2010 at 6:45 pm |
Marvelous input, Roger. You’ve taken the thinking to a whole, new level.
The contextual thinking you propose is powerful: “I’m likely to trust someone, whom I’ve just met, in a certain context depending on where in the spectrum I relate to them.”
With this approach Roger, what do you see as the future role of technology in facilitating these contextually relevant, mass relationships?
Best to you, Robin
February 14, 2010 at 6:59 pm |
Hey Roger, we need to discuss the technological opportunities that can leverage this thinking. Have you started scoping out the pictures/schemata?
Robin
February 12, 2010 at 11:19 pm |
I really like the concepts of Roger. Not viewing a relationship as binary; and the points throughout the post sit really well with my/our view of a global family.
Luke
February 14, 2010 at 6:46 pm |
I agree, Luke. It’s terrific thinking, and has got my mind buzzing.
Robin
February 13, 2010 at 10:10 am |
I think Roger Lawrence’s views are right on the money. I think of mass relationships relative to social or commercial context which frames what they mean to me PLUS a framework of how to rationalise/manage them. The colours analogy is priceless.
The analogy I’d use here is my large family. Coming from a big Spanish, Catholic family, I have 22 nieces/nephews. Do I have a “relationship” with each one? Yes. Are they deep, meaningful and frequent? No. They’re just different colours/shades based on “relative” context to the values in my life – family, duty of care, role model and mentor.
I also like Scott Gould’s “filters” of frequency, depth and reach. Useful in putting mass connections into perspective. I still believe context is king here though.
Tony Hollingworth’s highlights the importance of the technology enablers – the mobile/web applications that allow us to manage mass relationships are spot on.
So what value can I add to the mass relationship discussion? Here goes:
Mass relationships are multi-dimensional. In this discussion, the definition seems to be one-to-one relationships x many connections = mass relationships. I propose that mass relationships are: direct/indirect connection(relative relationship) x context(benefit/time/reach) = perceive mass relationship value .
My analogy is this. My brother recently married. Automatically, I had an “assumed” relationship with my new sister-in-law’s family (parents, brothers, sisters) some of whom I’ve met once but did the connect on Facebook/Twitter/Linkedin thing, which I classify as indirect or second degree connections.
Now – I get approached by a direct business connection who asks me if I know someone from a large corporation who could help get a businesc proposal circulated around the company. I recall that one of my new found extended family members (my sister-in-law’s sister) fits the bill. I contact her directly – based on the family context relationship – and introduce her through Linkedin to my direct business connection.
My point? I don’t have a direct relationship with my sister-in-law’s sister but I do have a social media connection to her. I have a real life relationship with my direct business connection. I tapped into this mass relationship network to add some value to hopefully both parties.
If you’re still with me, I do believe that every connection is a potential social or business opportunity (thanks Tony). I value every single connection I have and consider them the palette of colours in my network spectrum (thanks Roger). The value I extract from these mass relationships is relative to context (e.g. family connection plus business opportunity).
Warning: some see this way of thinking as opportunistic and in the extreme, manipulative. I think the world should be more open to the mass expression of thoughts, ideas, experiences and – connections.
I choose to manage my wealth of connections as mass relationships to extract contextual value.
All comments always welcome.
Cheers, Iggy
February 13, 2010 at 10:39 am |
The comments from Iggy and Roger I couldn’t agree more with. What a great discussion this is becoming (a great topic to discuss collaboratively on Google Wave).
When I read Roger’s comment, I was nodding enthusiastically through it all – very will written. Same with yours Iggy – I like the way you both make your case by adding personal anecdotes to inform and educate the readers about how you’ve formed your view – displaying wisdom.
If you haven’t read it yet, I tweeted @rand’s fascinating post about Twitter and Information: “How much will I consume and how much will I create?” which I picked up /via @rossdawson @bigyahu
See http://bit.ly/9PTtbm It’s not so much specifically about managing mass relationships but relevant in the context of how Twitter IS story-telling, and telling stories and sharing facilitates relationship-building.
Good stuff everyone!
Cheers
Tony Hollingsworth
February 14, 2010 at 6:57 pm |
Thanks, Iggy. You’ve really expanded my thinking on this.
What I’m looking for now is for some bright programmer/technology pro to start scoping out the sorts of tools and technology that can leverage the magnificent input you guys have laid out here.
I can’t help but think that the existing tools, as exciting as they are, have barely scratched the surface.
Best to you – and your extended family
,
Robin
February 14, 2010 at 5:07 pm |
I’d encourage you to have a look at this TED talk from 2009:
http://www.ted.com/talks/stefana_broadbent_how_the_internet_enables_intimacy.html
In it, Stefana Broadbent “..shows how communication technology is capable of cultivating deeper relationships, bringing love across barriers like distance and workplace rules.”
February 14, 2010 at 7:01 pm |
Will do, Tony. Thanks for following-up with this excellent link.
Robin
March 9, 2010 at 7:37 am |
I think in order to develop mass relationships you must first be yourself unflinchingly. If you do this people who are interested will respond and then you can build relationships with them. They will in turn tell others about you and they will be curious and check out whats going on, so then you can build your relationship with them. And then the cycle continues.
March 11, 2010 at 5:01 pm |
Thanks, Greg. Your call for authenticity resonates with me. It’s an important truth.
Thanks for your contribution.
Best, Robin
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