Its Good To Connect – But Its Even Better To Talk

Published March 21, 2010

I don’t know exactly when or which company it was that said, in their TV adverts etc., "Its Good To Talk" – I have a feeling it was Sean Bean for a mobile phone network – but anyway… Slightly irrelevant. Moving on.

Pink Floyd, at the start of a track called Keep Talking on The Division Bell album, used an quote that was perfect (in 1994) that went "For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals – Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination – We learned to talk…"

We learned to talk…

It is good to talk (now its bugging me – who said that?) but, in this zillion miles an hours web based world we live in, we hardly ever do – talk. We do everything else. We shop, we read, we research, we ‘socialise’ (to a certain extent – I’m coming back to that), we watch, we listen, we learn, we rant – and, from what I’m told – there are others who do much much more but I’m not going there – at least, not on a Sunday.

But, do we ever really connect?

I suppose while you’re reading this you could easily think "oh dear, Martin’s on a downer and needs a swift kick up the arse" and you’d be right. Well observed. I get like this – reflective - after a busy week, a fabulous event, or whatever – I suppose its the "calm after the storm". Adrenaline pumping and I’m not ready to come down just yet.

Many readers won’t go beyond the point where they realise there’s some ‘feelings’ going on here so….

However, to You – Thanks for sticking with me. Let’s continue…

Okay, let’s face some hard truths:

Most people on our friends and followers list (people we’re virtually connected to) don’t give two hoots whether we’ve having a bad hair day, lost our job, got toothache or pranged the car. With so much ‘bad news’ on the TV, the radio and every magazine and newspaper we see, and so, most of these ‘connected’ folks only want to be involved in fun things – talking about being or getting drunk, arranging the next bash or promoting their new business venture – assuming that their friends are going to be so interested that they’ll retweet, cross-post, join the group, become a fan and, by doing so, become evangelists for whatever is going on – for some financial benefit.

But, come on, we have grasped this online social life with both hands so surely we need to accept that if we’re involved in ‘online relationships’ we should involve ourselves in the happy, fun things and the not so fun, not so happy things. Are we (or have we become) so blinkered with all this ‘social’ networking that we ignore a friends cry for help? Because the ‘back’ button or the ‘close’ button is so easily accessible and it’s so easy to ignore, avoid, not get involved – is that just a cop-out – a way of avoiding ‘reality’?

Before we had ‘social networks’ we were all human first.

So what if your bad hair day was pretty serious? What if you had lost your job and didn’t know what you were going to do? What if something catastrophic happened in your life and you needed some help – you need your ‘friends’ to help. Not with money but with support, advice, guidance… a shoulder to cry on?

How many of your followers and friends would be dialling your number and asking how they could help? How many would email you (no, I don’t mean DM or dump a ‘hope you are okay‘ message on your facebook wall) with the offer of a chat if you want it? How many would show up at your house, drag you out for lunch and tell you everything’s gonna be alright?

Probably not many, right? But one or two would, wouldn’t they? But, beyond business, beyond the self-promotion and branding…

it’s the real connections that matter most, isn’t it?

Businesses crumble. Businesses close and start everyday. Businesses lose customers and get new ones. Business connections, regardless how loyal they seem, can become fickle and customers or prospects can easily be pulled in the direction of a new brand, a louder brand, a more colourful brand. Business connections are only as good as your most recent interaction and don’t have the solidity and foundation of true ‘friendships’ – because in business, nobody really cares beyond the pounds, shillings and pence…

The lines are blurred but we need to see what matters deeply to us. The more connections we have, the more connections it can lead to. Again, great and totally true for businesses building a ‘brand’ online and for the brand marketing a product or service – it gets the word out and keeps that brand in the time line – exactly what I advocate and teach in my ‘business’ life. But it all means diddly squat when you want to reach out and be ‘friends’. So…

Who’ll be there for you? Real friends don’t jump ship.

When you look through your lists (yes, we’ve all got them) you might see that you’ve built a great little business because you have loads and loads of connections (and that, in itself, is good – but only for business) and, as a result, you get loads of people clicking through your content whenever you post something on your blog or send a new video to YouTube – but I’m talking about the ‘human connections’ the ‘friend connections’ – people who don’t give a damn about your business or "what’s in it for them" to be friends with you.

Does your tens of thousands of followers matter when your cat dies? Is any of your ‘fans’ going to bring you a cup of sugar when you’re broke? Will one of your bebo buddies pop round and drive you to see your Granny in hospital? Probably not.

I’ve completely lost track of where I was going with this so let me try to wind up by saying: Business is great. I Love it. I love building business connections and helping my clients do the same, but

It’s not all business all the time

Reach out to your friends often. Keep in touch with them. It is so easy to be forgotten if your not involved in the conversation. Its easy to become ‘unknown’ in your circle of ‘friends’ if you never be ‘you’.

Take off your business hat now and then and talk as if you’re sat around having a peach schnapps at your best friends BBQ because our real friend connections – the ones you could cry down the phone to or scream at but hug a few minutes later – that is what really matters.

We were human before all the online ‘social networking’.

"For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals – Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination – We learned to talk…"

It’s such a shame that so many people have forgotten that we were human first and we’ll still be human long after ‘social networking’ and ‘social media’ are etched into the history books and we’ve all moved on to something new.

It’s good to talk!

Martin Koss – thinking out loud…

I don't mean to be so opinionated and argumentative, it's just me…