Are You Generating Social Capital?
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008Julien Smith gave a mindblowing presentation yesterday on trust agents and social capital. I cannot believe I have never heard of him before because his stuff is nothing short of awesome.
Podcamp Montreal: Julien Smith on the Game Of Trust and Social Capital from Daryl Tay on Vimeo.
It got me thinking back to my “Blogs worth reading” feature that ran for a few months but has fizzled out recently. There are a few reasons for this. One was that I was getting very busy in summer with freelance work and just had no time to explore blogs the way I used to, the second is that my Google Reader was already getting overloaded, and thirdly, was that these blogposts just weren’t generating much interest for my blog, traffic-wise.
But Julien’s talk reminded me that sharing these links is creating value and social capital. It’s not about me and my traffic. It’s about sharing these resources to people who might not discover them otherwise, and the value that they bring. Even if that’s just to one person.
Stuff surrounding Social Media Breakfast | Singapore and certain events have affected my love for the local social media space over the last few months, but this really made me think back to why I started the blog, why we were helping each other on Twitter, why we went out on a whim and started Social Media Breakfast | Singapore with nothing but faith that it would work out.
And it was captured in one comment yesterday: Because that’s the kind of world I want to live in.
So this is one true humbling learning experience that I bring back with me from Podcamp Montreal, one that reminds me once again what I love about community: the generosity and sharing.
I hope you’ll think back and remember why you got into this space to begin with, and if where you are now is a far cry from that beginning. If it is, why did that happen, and is that something you want to continue to happen? If it isn’t, what changed?
Tags: blogs worth reading, community, generotisy, google reader, julien smith, pcmtl, podcamp montreal, sharing, social capital, social media breakfast singapore, trust agents
