q: What do you call someone who joins communities, adds friends and generally uses social networking tools to promote their own interests solely?

a: a community freeloader

Now, promoting your interests within a community isn’t a bad thing, per se. Having strong networks of people is a great advantage to furthering your causes, getting advice, meeting the right contacts to further your career and getting folks out to your events. However, where it becomes problematic is when you lose the balance of DEPOSIT and WITHDRAWAL in that Social Capital bank account of yours.

Balancing Your Social Capital Accounts

Now, I don’t want to reduce every interaction we human beings have with another person to being a transaction, but, in effect, it is. If I ask a friend for a favor, she is bound oblige. However, if I ask that same friend for ten favors, she may start to feel like I’ve depleted my ‘allowance’ on my account with her. Of course, with different people, we have more leeway. With our close friends and family we have loads of Social Capital to withdraw from and as our relationships get more casual, the less influence and favor we carry with others.

For instance, have you ever heard yourself saying, “I don’t want to use up my favors with him” or “It’s time to cash in those favors”? Well, whether we are aware of it or not, there is a transaction - even if it isn’t always direct or equally reciprocated - that happens between people. In the book that I’m currently reading, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, Matt Ridley points out that this isn’t unique to our culture or even to us as human beings. Tit-for-tat is a common tool for community balance amongst many cultures as well as animal groups. It ensures that people both contribute as well as benefit to the commons.

It is actually a very positive part of our relationships - especially when we do a favor for someone without expecting it in immediate return. Those favors add up to a great deal of future Social Capital. And that Social Capital goes a long way in the future.

What I’ve observed in the various communities I’ve been part of is the entrance of community freeloaders, or, really, the types of people who just withdrawal their Social Capital until their totally whuffie poor, then wonder why they aren’t getting ahead. These people are what economists call ‘rational fools’:

…far from being altruistic, the cooperative person is merely looking out to his long-term self-interest, rather than the short term….Amartya Sen has called the caricature of the short-sighted self-interested person a ‘rational fool’. If the rational fool turns out to be taking short-sighted decisions then he is not being rational, just short sighted. He is indeed a fool who fails to consider the (long term) effect of his actions… - p.137

It is rational (economically) to take advantages of people in the short-term to make gains, but as Ridley points out, it is the generous villagers who are almost always the dominant ones. (p. 98)

Deposits and Withdrawals

So what kinds of actions are DEPOSITS and what kind of actions are WITHDRAWALS? Well, it really does depend on the community and the individuals you interact with. For instance, most people would probably feel good about helping out an even casual acquaintance with an introduction to another acquaintance. Some may put a caveat on the introduction (”I don’t know him too well, but he comes highly recommended”, etc.). Of course, the size of that favor also matters to whether the withdrawal is too large for the relationship. If someone I just met asked me to introduce them to Jimmy Wales, I would probably feel that was a little presumptive and would need them to spend more time establishing their trustworthiness with me before I passed that introduction along as a misfired introduction may hurt my own reputation with Jimmy. But most first favors may actually be a deposit (leaving me with the feeling of having done something nice for someone else, I warm up to the person), then start to become withdrawals after that point.

But if we were to speak in general terms about what is a DEPOSIT and what is a WITHDRAWAL, I would present the following table:

Of course, this list isn’t conclusive, the withdrawals aren’t all for the same amount and there are alot of grey areas for people, but you get the gist. What the things in the DEPOSIT column have in common is that they are reciprocal, relationship-building actions, whereas, the WITHDRAWAL column is about personal gain. Now, of course, there is personal gain in the relationships, but it is a long-term gain, rather than the short-term gains of the WITHDRAWAL column.

And don’t get me wrong, promoting your events, asking for connections and telling people about your company are totally viable, real and legitimate actions that are and should be performed within networks and communities every day. The trick is, just like a bank account, make sure you have a healthy account balance (ie. more deposited than withdrawn). As well, much like a personal bank account, it is beneficial to carry a higher balance. You never know when you’ll have a rainy day.

For those of you who are concerned with the possibility of raising your own Social Capital, it’s pretty simple, really. There are three major ways to do it and they all intersect:

1. Be Nice
2. Be Notable
3. Be Networked

The Spread Love Project is firmly rooted in the first, Be Nice, because in the world of community, nice guys (and gals) DO finish first. That backstabbing crookery that sometimes happens when trying to raise financial capital (see the song: Money, by the O’Jays for examples ;) ) works antithetically to community building and the raising of social capital.

Being Nice just means that you act positively towards others. Some ways you can be nice are:

• Help someone out when they need it
• Make someone feel good about themselves
• Use some of your social capital (wisely) to help someone else raise their own
• Donate your time, money and/or expertise to a community project
• Listen to others
• Let others lead

Being nice doesn’t mean that you have to be a patsy, though. You can be strong and opinionated and nice all at once. In fact, don’t mistake being nice for letting others take advantage of you. Recognizing where someone crosses the line between being a recipient of your kindness and being an energy sucker is mondo important.

Being Notable means that you create something that enhances peoples lives in a significant way. You may be a music composer writing melodies that help people fall in love or a person who designs small gadgets to stop those irritating little things from happening in our lives, thus relieving stress. Either way and every way in between, you are doing something that is notable.

When people introduce you at a party, they say, “This is so and so, you know [that cool thing you invented]? She invented it!”

Zing! INSTANT social capital!

It’s what people are looking for when they ask you, “So, where do you work?” or “What clients have you worked with?” when they first meet you. If you give them something they can recognize as being significant, it raises their idea of who you are. Of course, much of this is superficial and in order to continue to gain social capital from these exchanges, you must continue to produce stuff that makes people happy, but doing notable things is a great way to build social capital.

Being Networked is strongly connected to the first two and especially being nice. Being networked means that you know and are connected to many people - mostly through loose connections. According to SC theorists, bridging capital, or the lightweight, looser connections are actually stronger for raising social capital whereas bonding capital, or the deeply bonded connections you have are better for maintaining social capital.

Of course, the only way to build positive bridges with people is through being nice or being notable, so without #1 or #2 accompanying #3, it’s much harder to raise social capital through networking.

Networking can happen on or offline and I’ve met many people through the variety of online social networks I’m part of. Most of the time I don’t pay much attention to someone who has sent me a friend request somewhere, but if they send me a note to frame their request and it makes sense, I will connect with them. The beauty of social networks like Twitter or Flickr is that by being ‘friends’ or contacts, I get to know the person through the content they create. Through Twitter, a person’s regular updates will give me a sense of what they are doing and what they are working on, which may lead to some sort of overlap with projects I’m working on, or could also lead to my understanding of how to further connect that person to others they may have projects in common with. Through Flickr, I will see the world through the eyes of my new contact, which also could lead to me understanding and connecting through their point of view. Perhaps my new contact is a brilliant photographer. Then I will bond with them over their notability, or their ability to move me through their art form.

There is still nothing like offline networking, though, to build those bridging ties. Meetups with people who share your interests, reading groups, professional networking events and volunteering are just some of the ways you can meet and build bonds with people in person. I know one of my biggest downfalls is collecting someone’s information (on business card, etc.) and forgetting why later on. Using a program like Highrise helps keep people you meet straight. I also try to make a point of adding them on Twitter or Facebook shortly after we meet so I can build context around our meeting.

On a personal and a professional level, if you are looking to build social capital in order to be more influential (one of the benefits of having social capital) and be connected to various opportunities (maybe getting that dream job or meeting the woman/man of your dreams), being nice, notable and/or networked will help you achieve this.

]]> http://spreadloveproject.com/2007/10/30/3-ways-to-raise-social-capital/feed/ http://spreadloveproject.com/2007/09/22/social-capitalists/ http://spreadloveproject.com/2007/09/22/social-capitalists/#comments Sat, 22 Sep 2007 03:58:58 +0000 missrogue http://spreadloveproject.com/2007/09/22/social-capitalists/ From Wikipedia:

Social capital is a core concept in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, and sociology, defined as the advantage created by a person’s location in a structure of relationships. “By analogy with physical capital and human capital - tools and training that enhance human productivity - the core idea of social capital theory is that social networks have value. Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a college education (human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so too social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups”. It explains how some people gain more success in a particular setting through their superior connections to other people.

Ways to raise social capital:

• Give it away. Help others connect. Use it for doing nice things for others.
• Use it wisely. Never betray trust or use it haphazardly.
• Produce awesome stuff that people admire. Make beautiful art. Code the next cool website.
• Spread love. Make others feel great about themselves.
• Be human. Be accessible. Listen. Treat everyone with similar respect.

Ways to lose social capital:

• Horde it. Only use it for your own benefit or refuse to spend it.
• Show it off. Try to pull weight with your social capital. “Don’t you know who I am?”
• Try to take credit for other people’s good work.
• Take advantage of others who are trusting.
• Badmouth other people. Especially those with alot of social capital.
• Be snobby. Only act nice to those who can do something for you.

A Social Capitalist does alot of raising social capital and avoids losing social capital. Social Capitalists definitely spend more time giving it away in positive directions, building trust. A Social Capitalist is, by nature, more concerned with helping others raise social capital.

List yourself on the Social Capitalist wiki page if you think this sounds like you.

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