First, i admit: i don’t get the business world. Thus, the social norms there are very lost on me. Recently i was faced with a Linked In request that brought this issue to the forefront.
I’m linked to two people that i barely know because of social politeness – Person B & D. Person B had a “friend” (A) that wanted to get person E (“friend” of D’s) to do something for him. I’ve never heard of A or E and only have vague name/product recognition of B&D. Person B passes me this note from A with an attached note saying that he doesn’t know him but it sounds reasonable.
So, as i saw it, i could have:
1) Passed it on, acknowledging that i barely know B to the barely known D and let it be his problem
2) Stopped it, saying that i don’t feel comfortable passing this on not knowing any of the parties
3) Pretended like i’m a ostrich and make it go away by sticking my head in the ground, fingers in ears, eyes closed screaming “i don’t see you”
Now, if you know me, you know that i chose 3. I *HATE* being stuck in the middle of socially awkward situations. All this made me wanna do is run very far away from Linked In. This in turn made me feel supremely guilty because i want Linked In to work for people.
The thing about helping people out in this context is that it’s supposed to make you feel empowered, like you did a good deed. But when you’re stuck in the middle of a chain of unknowns, you’re faced with the explicit feeling that your reputation is being forced through the ringer for people you don’t know. There are a lot of *friends* that i won’t vouch for on a professional level… why should i vouch for people that i don’t know?
I realized that the only way that i’m willing to help out a friend-of-a-friend is when i really care for the well-being of my friend and trust their relationship with that person. And that takes a lot more than a recognizable professional relationship. So, i had a little idea…
Orkut relieves my guilt by letting me mark that i don’t know a person who has be-friended me. I don’t have to say no – i can simply say i don’t know this person. They don’t know it and i don’t have to feel guilty. Although Orkut’s only purpose of this is guilt reduction, Linked In could actually use this approach to their advantage.
For example, why can’t i list all of the people that i know and rather than say how important they are to me, say what kind of requests i’m willing to receive from that end. For example:
1) Willing to take any requests that come down the chain from this person, no matter how many links
2) Willing to take requests from this person and their friends (or perhaps willing to take requests only from the friends who are of this level of value to them…)
3) Willing to take requests from this person only
4) Not willing to receive requests from this person no matter what (a.k.a. supreme guilt reduction based on having to accept them as a friend)
Of course, this would really screw with the graphs and who one could see. But i wonder if it would help people like me who want to run away because of the discomfort.