Who owns your relationships?

I return from a crashed hard drive and what Dr's thought was Strep (WHEW... I just had a common sinus infection).

While I was away with no computer and feeling miserable I had some time to think. I've been hunting through the deepest darkest depths of facebook, myspace, linkedin, etc. in search of old friends when it hit me, each one of these social networking site is a different contact list. Sure there is some overlap, but really most of us manage three or four contact lists. The sad thing about this whole deal is that, for the most part, we don't even have email addresses for most of my friends, facebook does.

All the information that I want about my relationships his held by someone else. In other words, I don't OWN them. I stop by facebook and I tap into free software to "see" who's on my friend list and all this information stays on Facebook's server.

So, at the end of the day I need facebook to keep in touch with my people. Do you understand how powerful that is? Political fundraisers live and breathe by their contact lists. This is why political endorsements are sooo important. You get access to the endorser's contact list.

What's the moral of the story? Treat your contact list as it should be treated. Be nice to it, don't abuse it (don't let others abuse it either), and feed it, just don't be too promiscuous. Do all these things right, keep a safe backup with real email addresses and your contact list will do wonders for you. You may not be as high falutin' as a presidential canditate but your contacts are still priceless.

Photo by: destinlee