ericcarroll.org

Openness seems to be a popular topic or something I'm more in tune with lately.

Michael Wilson, CEO of Small World Labs has a post about his personal life that made me think about how we approach offline and online relationships.

I first saw mention of his post on Twitter and after reading his article, another poster on Twitter was asking for prayer for her 4-day old niece who was having tests run on her heart. I recognized that this brought her online, Twitter relationship to a different level with most people as she just shared something personal like MIchael did. I was more than happy to pray for her niece and told her so. Now she has a stronger bond with some people in the Twitter-verse.

I think most of us would agree that what you write online has it's rewards and consequences, depending on what you write and who is reading. It takes time to get comfortable with a medium, group of people or individuals to go out on a limb. Typically, I think we have to have something happen, excellent or terrible, that pushes us to write or tell someone about.

Obviously, caution is advised when saying anything online just as you would to someone in person. We typically go through this dance of seeing what others are comfortable with and feeling them out for where they are or what they are like. Once we've found out how they prefer to dance (if at all), we're free to breathe easier and go a little deeper in our conversation and relationship.

Like most married couples, my wife and I did the same thing. We met at a college church function at a park in Amarillo (Olsen Park). We've often joked about the content of our initial conversations. One of the earlier conversations turned to the topic of home-schoolers. Jennifer said that most home-schoolers she had ever known were rather strange and always socially inept. She laid it out there. I told her I was home-schooled from 5th grade through high school. I still give her a hard time about that. Then she typically changes the subject by reminding me that I pegged her with a tennis ball from across the court (it was a wild serve and an accident, but I think she still wonders). I guess I took the phrase "hitting on" literally, what with me being socially inept and all.

Anyway, Jennifer and I started off as friends and spent a lot of time talking to each other, often late at night. The more time we spent with each other, the more comfortable we became. The more comfortable we became, the more we trusted each other. Almost nine years of marriage and three kids later, we still stay up late talking now. Back then, staying up late was the choice of a couple of college students. Now, we do it because with the kids, church activities, and running businesses of our own, it's hard to get the time to talk otherwise.

All of this came about because we made a conscious effort to be open with each other. I believe the same is and can be utilized online as well. If a company or organization takes the stiff, aloof approach to online relationships, not many, if any, people will respond well to them. There's a certain balance of enough information to be interesting and not so much that you're turned off. In order to generate more interest in something you are involved in or just yourself in general, you have to be willing to share what's going on, at some point and time. That doesn't mean you take over and never let others respond. I've shared this a lot lately, but growing up, I had a pastor, that always said, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

This is true for personal and business relationships. The best relationships and experiences I've had came from sharing my thoughts, feelings, and experiences and also listening to others about their own. The people that I trust most are also the ones that have trusted me with their personal and business highs and lows.

How about you? How do you measure how much information to share? How do you translate the offline conversation techniques to an online medium? I'm curious to hear from others (yeah, both of you that actually read this blog).

Amended

Some of the things I said in my comments to Michael seemed fitting to repeat here:

There's two sides to openness that I've learned to recognize:
I Need Help: If I don't share my problem, nobody will know I need help. If nobody knows I need help, nobody will offer to help me.

I Can Help: If someone opens up about a problem, acknowledge it and ask if they want help. Don't assume they do. Some people want to vent while others are seeking help. If you can't offer the help they need, introduce them to someone that can. By doing so, you are helping them.