e-Volution of Online Relations – A Personal Retropective

It was around 1997 or 98 when I first saw the power of online relations gaining steam.  I was part of the taper/trader community surrounding the greatest band in the land, The Grateful Dead – and the offshoot projects going on at the time.  I had become a part of a few groups online where realtionships were being built, explored and matured – and was amazed at how familiar each member of these fairly large groups seemed – we’re talking maybe 200 in one of them, and 50 in another.

We all had a common thread to hold us together – much like the niche communities and online networks springing up daily 10 years later.  At the time, it took some reckoning to fathom how this would all turn out.  We all seemed to be best of friends online, where I thought perhaps the regular norms and mores and rules of relationships maybe didn’t impose as much.  We’d found a nirvana of online relationship bliss – everyone was either getting along, or when disagreements happened, civil discourse followed with rational outcomes, almost always.

Then, the acid test (or the internet test) came along.  Someone suggested an in person gathering.  We began to discuss the potentials – the where, the how, the when.  As it began to crystalize, I began to get nervous – what would these people be like when we didn’t have thousands of miles and billions of bytes seperating us?  Would we all get along famously like we had been?  Or would this be a huge investment in effort, time and budget, only to find the utopian mindset shattered after a weekend?

With baited breath, I left for that first in person gathering along with my brother.  We arrived and met all the folks we’d known online for about 2 years by then.  The faces and names and personalities came together and it was, by the time an hour had gone by, a lifetime of friendship later.  The internet had truly done something even concerts and other familiar venues could not – it had brought together and melded a group of like minded, personable friends – and built something to last.  By the end of the weekend, none of us wanted to leave.  Now, 10 years later, my only regret is not being able to make it back to the same gathering each summer.

This was the beginning of the e-Volution of online relations for me.  This type of experience is what many people now find in Facebook, on MySpace and on other online resources – and especially within the internal groups that cater to specific interests.  This is the way of Gen Y, the Millenials and the next generations to come.  While it is still foreign for my parents to even understand “online friends,” I surely don’t have any trouble both accepting and condoning my teenage daughter’s online friends – they are as real to me as they are to her as I understand that concept very well.

Still, I have trepidation.  I have concerns.  Because the flipside of the coin is that as more and more people insert themselves in the online equation, there is more and more likelihood that bad apples will turn up in even the niche barrels.  With that said, we’re undeniably in a world of finding new people to know online all the time – and being referred to people online almost as much as in person, if we frequent the social and business networks.  The pendulum keeps swinging; the needle keeps climbing – and the trend keeps growing.  Now, it is more important than ever to be found properly online – to be reputable and findable – and to make sure the people searching for you find the person they were “referred to.”  I know what people will find when they Google Me – and you should too.  Check it out.  Do it now.  Your new business partner, old classmate or best friend you didn’t know yesterday could be a click away from searching for you.

Andy “Google Me” Greider is a marketing consultant and new business director with Carroll/White and radio show host of business growth solutions show, Uniqueness is Power. Andy is also Brand Manager with qAlias, plus he is a Self Promotion maven, serial entrepreneur, author, blogger, and inventor of the Gorelephant, first e-Impressions and networthing.