I’ve been thinking about the terminology that we use to describe our relationships on various social networks. I “follow” people on Twitter and people “follow” me back. I have “friends” on Facebook. I am “linked” to people on LinkedIn. The “follow” relationship is the one I find most fascinating.
When you “follow” someone, you:
Accept them as a guide or leader
Imitate or follow their example
Watch their movement or progress
While I understand that my “followers” on Twitter probably don’t see me as a leader, there are certainly people on Twitter who I “follow” because I consider them thought leaders and I want to know what they’re reading and thinking. Think about it. We never say that we “follow” a Web site, company or newsletter, but we do say that we “follow” someone’s blog. I know I consider it a high compliment when someone tells me that they “follow” my blog.
In the book Tribes, marketing guru Seth Godin tells us it’s human nature to want to be part of a group that shares a common passion and recognizes the same leader; in other words, most of us want to be part of a tribe. Further, Seth believes that using the Web and social networking tools, everyone can now find or assemble a tribe and lead it.
So I say to each of you and your organizations: People want to follow, are you ready to lead?
In honor of Earth Day, I want to share a story about our recent office closing at Matrix Group, and how we tried to do it in the most sustainable, community-minded way possible. Closing our Arlington, VA office was a bittersweet milestone. After years of working fully remotely and knowing that remote work was here to stay for us, it didn’t...
On Monday, March 31st, Matrix Group said goodbye to our office on the 3rd floor of 2611 South Clark Street in Crystal City. We moved into this space in July 2019, a mere nine months before the pandemic began. This new office was light-filled, full of collaborative spaces, decorated with purple splashes and Star Wars toys, and full of the latest...
CEO Joanna Pineda and I have a running joke that whenever we see “delve” and “embark” used in the same paragraph (even better if it’s the same sentence) we wager a lot that AI was involved in the drafting. If you've been using AI tools like ChatGPT for content creation, you’ve probably noticed this, too. AI definitely favors certain words -...
