Forget January … 2007 is the year of the connection
Yeah you heard it here first (although trendwatching.com is predicting it for the month of January) this year will see the advent of connecting on line as the premiere method for communicating with people that are both located in and out of our immediate proximity.
Don’t get me wrong the connections we have made without technology will not go away, we will just enhance those connections through tools on the Internet. You will learn more about the world through people then you will the Internet. What you get from these new web 2.0 applications that are popping up is trusted views of what is out there. Your Aunt Jenny’s web links will be available through her del.icio.us account and your long last friends blog will let you know what he was up to over the last 10 years. This is the year.
Today I was contacted by three people within the course of an hour and a half via LinkedIn to connect with them. I know that may not seem like such a strange occurence but take into consideration that the last time I was contacted from someone on LinkedIn (after they found my profile) was over 2 months ago. 3 people contacted me within an hour and a half.
My question, and the krux of my post, did they read the article posted at trendwatching.com (or similar prediction from someone else) and think to themselves “Hey you know what, they are right I need to connect with some people” or better yet did they say “If this is THE thing to do this month, I better get a head start and not be left behind, nobody likes to be late to the fad party”.
Either way I am satisfied because like a good glass of beer, no matter how that pint got into your hands, eventually you will like it. I am glad to see that people (in the mainstream) will be using these tools for communication with their networks, proves that our applications work.