I believe the accepted pattern has returned. Many times people take the beginning of a year to review. What was last year like? What do I want to achieve in the coming year. One of the categories of thought that people review is their financial situation.
“Am I better off now than I was this time last year?”
This discussion leads to the phrase “your net worth”, as Pete the Planner says…
Your net worth lets you know whether or not you owe more money than you own, or whether you own more money than you owe. What can be gathered from tracking your net worth? Progress or lack thereof.
I’ve been spending a little bit of time lately on reviewing my financials so this idea has been somewhat top-of-mind for me.
Dead Horse Trotting
Yesterday, I was cruising down the information super-highway when I saw this somewhat decrepit horse making it’s way out of the ditch. The horse looked like it had been beaten quite a bit, but with no Good Samaritans available, we’ll keep beating.
The horse in question is the question of just who and how you should connect with on social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and in this case…LinkedIn.
Chris Theisen and I have had discussions in the past about accepting all connection requests on LinkedIn or being more restrictive. He shared with me a link to an article by Dan Schawbel, “Why I Accept All LinkedIn Contact Requests“, so I began to read.
What’s My Net’ Worth?
As I was reading, my recent thoughts about financial worth began to permeate this social media logic. What is the “value” of my network…. or “What is my net’ worth?”
If I’m more restrictive of my network, are my connections thus deemed more valuable because of some kind of perceived supply and demand factor? Or, am I like Smeagol and overly consumed by my “precious” ring of friends and colleagues?
Now generally my rule of thumb has been the following for each network:
- Twitter – follow if they appear interesting and add them to my “Priority Watch” list to see a pattern to their tweets. If they continue to be someone I want to hear from regularly, they stay on the list. If not, I may remove them from that list and/or unfollow them completely.
- Facebook – only friend people I’m actually friends with or know in person, or that I have worked directly with online.
- Google+ – Follow just about anyone I think is interesting for now
- LinkedIn – similar to Facebook, only connect with them if I actually know them and/or would feel comfortable giving them a recommendation or receiving a recommendation from them for a potential business deal.
Have I been too limiting of my potential network? As Douglas Karr shared in a follow-up post to the article mentioned above, he considers anyone he hasn’t connected with on a social network “potential” something:
You know what I call people that I haven’t connected with in social media? I call them potential customers, potential investors, potential employees, potential interns, potential friends, potential partners, potential vendors, potential mentors and potential colleagues.
I like that line of thinking, so perhaps it’s time for me to loosen up a bit about who I connect with online. Or at least take the time to review my networks and ask the question again…
“Is this network more valuable to me now than it was this same time last year?”
