Ever heard of Johari’s Window?
I used it back in the 80′s and 90′s when I was a sales manager working for a large insurance company in field sales.
If you are curious you can find out all about Johari’s Window here, but to paraphrase it’s basically a technique created by two guys in the 1950′s called Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham (hence JoHari). It was originally devised to help people with their mental instability, but, it’s used a lot now by businesses as a heuristic exercise.
It’s effectively using what you know about yourself, and what others know about you to expand your knowledge into blind spots of information you don’t know about yourself.
I’ve used what I learned back then in today’s real world environment of social media. I’ve used the technique to broaden the networks I take part in, and, as a result, I have expanded my circle of friends significantly both online and in life.
In applying some of the Johari’s Window technique I formulated a strategy for connecting with people online.
When it comes to social networks providing me with suggestions of people to connect with on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ these are the rules I work to :
If someone adds me to Facebook and knows more than 50 of the people I know, I add them. That applies even if I don’t know that person. Chances are, although I don’t know them personally, I SHOULD know them, they have some influence in my personal or professional sphere and 50 of my friends are unlikely to be wrong in allowing the person into their list of contacts. I call that “statistical significance”.
If someone adds me to LinkedIn the same number applies, even if they say that I am a “Friend”.
On Twitter it’s slightly different, but I tend to follow back if people have some solid people who I know are following the person adding me. There is no hard or fast minimum number. If I could find an easier way of finding out how many people were already friends with someone who would make life a lot easier.
Google+ I am looking for people who share at least 20 people in common before I add someone to a circle in return for them adding me.
I know in time, as Google+ expands that number will increase, but it’s stood me in good stead thus far.
Those are my rules for people adding me.
When suggestions are made by Facebook or LinkedIn on people I should add I tend to follow the same rules for me adding them.
So, only adding people I KNOW is fundamentally wrong using my rules and Johari’s Window techniques.
If we only spoke to people who we already know, then social networks would be obsolete.
Which brings me to the REAL reason for my rant.
When I logged into my Facebook account today, I saw a message saying I was blocked from adding friends for 7 days.
So, despite having spent a ton of time building a network of 2800 friends on Facebook over the past few years, and yes I do know the majority of them in real life, I am being treated like a spammer.
The irony is, I stopped pro-actively adding people based on my Johari’s Window technique over a month ago. It’s taken Facebook this long to catch me and to poo poo my technique.
In the last month I’ve been working on giving back to the people I have as friends, by creating a Facebook Group for Performance Base Marketing and being more pro-active in helping people with problems in other groups, many of whom I don’t know, but I have added them to enable me to have a private conversation, and not in an open group.
How ironic then, if it is these very people who have reported me and put me on the “Facebook Naughty List” for 7 days. And then, just to add insult, I need to tick a confirmation box, and then get taken to another community area where the real hardened crimes committed on Facebook take place. https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards. I’ve looked at the list and can’t see my offense.
So, all I can do is say I am sorry I tried to add some Myers-Briggs, Jung and the subconscious to something so black and white, or is it 1′s and 0′s.
I received the same “warning” from LinkedIn, a few months back, just because I turned my attention to building out my LinkedIn network in a short burst over Christmas, and not doing it, “their way”, gradually, over a long period.
I’m actually annoyed at having to use social media the way the owners of the tools intended.
Not everyone is dialled to use your service the same way, that should be factored in to how you handle the usage patterns.
So, if for some reason my Facebook or LinkedIn presence vanishes, you can reach me over at Google+ or via email through the contact form on this site.
Have you experienced this sort of treatment before?
Am I being too sensitive?
Is this harsh?
If you have done it, how did it make you feel?
