by Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief of Social Media Strategy at xynoMedia
There's something that' had my mind in a question-mark-state for the past few weeks. It's definitely all about the ego - MY ego to be exact - and I figured, why should I try to figure it out alone when I have you good people?
I'm sure some of you will comment that I need to "get over it", and you'll probably be right. I'm also prepared to get over it once I have a bit of dialogue around what's bugging me.
You've probably guessed by now that I wasn't the most popular person in school when I was younger. I had friends, but I was decidedly NOT a part of the hip crowd.
So, without overly tooting my own horn, I've become sort of well-known in my career. I still prefer to blend into the background and make my moves from behind the scenes, but it's safe to say that people know who I am. Many people who now know who I am, knew me before, but didn't know they knew me because I wasn't someone to know. Am I making sense?
Now, people who snubbed me in the past, call me and send me email. They want to go to lunch and they want to "connect". It's not that I'm not flattered or whatever you want to call it. But, am I limited in my scope to think that this kind of behavior is highly opportunistic? I mean we're all opportunistic a bit, at least I'll speak for myself, but what I'm experiencing is...odd. Now all of a sudden people have time and energy to be bothered.
I am someone who treats everyone the same - quasi-celeb, celeb or not. Maybe I'm expecting people to be/do/act like me?
I've heard other stories about The Facebook Effect, a phenomenon that takes people back to high school with cliques and hurt feelings. That's not really what I'm talking about here (although I have been known to riff on Facebook about how ironic it is that the same people who wouldn't speak to you in high school, want to be friends on Facebook). I'm talking from a purely professional perspective.
For the record, it's not something I'm angry about and I certainly don't loose sleep over it, but I must admit, I am puzzled by this shift in interest. It's also been my experience that social media and social networking in particular enhances out-of-the-woodwork friend requests.
Is this just a matter of people wanting to know if you've "paid your dues" or what? What am I missing? Have you experienced this? Is there an alternate way for me to think about this? Is there an alternate way for me to view/consider these "opportunists"?
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