If You Missed This...

What you're paying attention to is a choice.

As Seth says in this video, the Internet is this giant cocktail party where thousands and thousands of people are busy with activity to keep score: Who's talking about me today? Who's "buzzing" about my business today?

Then the day comes, when you need them to authorize a transaction - or do something on your behalf - all this activity doesn't matter. What matters is where are the real relationships? You know, the people (and they could be customers, too) who are connected to you or you feel connected to by real things.

Like Seth, I have those kinds of relationships - because I worked at cultivating them. Doing worthwhile things for each other, exchanging value (often when no requests were made, out of the pleasure of helping someone).

Networking is always important when it's real, and it's a dreadfully useless distraction when it's fake. It's very easy to be seduced by fake networking - it looks easy, it is easier now that more people have access to the Internet.

Go ahead, measure popularity with whatever tools in fashion at the moment. It just doesn't translate. What translates is what has always worked - genuine, real, relationships with people who would go out of their way to help you, and people you'd go out of your way to support.

If you missed this, here's a brand new opportunity: Go out of your way to support those people you want to have a relationship with. That's how, one day, you are connected by real things.

 

[YouTube 2:12]

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Comments

[Brian Driggs]

Ah, real relationships. That's really what it's all about. I mean, that's why social media has grown like it has in the last few years, isn't it? People feel less marginalized, like they have a voice, which makes interaction seem more meaningful.

Thus, I see the knowledge economy evolving over time to be less attention-driven, more a meaning economy. As lowest common denominator marketing efforts increase the supply of content, demand for 300 words of computer-generated timekill will decrease. People will want more from their digital experience.

Here's to the people looking to do more.

[Valeria Maltoni]

that was part of the conversation I had with Mitch Joel on his Six Pixels podcast Friday. I have been wondering about lack of comments here. If you look at a dozen recent posts, many with meaty questions for the community, there are no or very few comments. (Nor there were in other social networks.) Then you see a bit of the usual fare in terms of content, including the usual provocations... and lo!, dozens of comments. Just thinking out loud here.

[Arek Fressadi]

Valeria,
A friend of mine sent me an email and suggested I take a look at Seth's video on your website, and given your comment above, I'm breaking from my work/ life/ play to thank you for your work. It's interesting to poke around in others lives and find out what they are doing but I'd also like to put this in context. Authenticity encompasses more than just social / business relationships, and in some respects, it is the anomaly that is more fascinating... that 'we' or you can make a living telling people to be authentic-- that's a statement of immense sociological consequence. I don't have to tell the javelina or the coyotes out my back door to be 'authentic.' And I don't recall my grandparents and their friends who survived the depression even considered the concept. When you look at the inundation of information/ marketing hype that most first world humans are confronted with on a daily basis, then you become brainwashed to the fake plastic life espoused as 'success' or happiness, etc. My solution to all this was akin to Greta Garbo, to be left alone so I could hear myself think. No TV, no texting, no more NPR, no papers, magazines... just a few conversations ... I'm not interested in being a recluse, I just find the majority of social interaction meaningless, and what becomes almost painful in some respects, is that it becomes harder and harder to really connect at a core level because of the barrage of social media at our disposal, where people are interacting superficially, like at a cocktail party. I liked that Seth would sleep on someone's couch in New Zealand instead of staying at a nice hotel... meeting for breakfast and then buzzing off. Capisce?
Ciao,
Arek

[scott aughtmon]

How is it that Seth always has a way to say something that SHOULD be obvious, but he says it in a way that seems deep and profound? :) Love his focus on relationships. It's funny to me that this is the key, because that's what's always mattered in life. Glad to see it still does!

[Valeria Maltoni]

So you likely understand why I am puzzled at you using a term created to fake a threat by the typical southern Italian mafia guy in movies (in other words, a *fake* stereotype that would not apply to an Italian raised in the Northern part of reality) to make your point about interacting superficially...

[Valeria Maltoni]

everything is obvious, once you know the answer. Yup, in the real world, reality still matters.