I’m not only a fan and follower of Tim, I count him as a friend. He mentored early on in my career, and he’s been someone who forces me to think about the world from fresh perspectives.

When I look at the world through the lens of social capital, there’s a clear reminder that digital connections can only take us so far. We cannot merely push out content to others. We cannot claim to benefit because we contributed more flotsam into the stream of communications. Really, that’s both a cruel and lonely approach to communication where we all send messages-in-a-bottle into the ocean and hope someone bothers to read them.

Too often, we use digital technologies to deliver monologues and soliloquies.  That’s true for both individuals and corporations. It doesn’t work, because you don’t build a relationship. That’s why I strive to respond to others at least as much as I write new content. I would rather engage in conversations than stand in a corner and talk to myself.

Too often, we produce content without listening and without communicating. We have to break that habit as individuals, departments, organizations, and communities. It’s not making us any more effective.

Gossip, especially about personal tragedies, is a social form of pornography. It can only poison your psyche and drag down your spirit.

What is “social pornography?” I’m not going to define pornography directly, because it’s a slippery slope. For example, Justice Potter Stewart‘s  maxim on pornography–”I know it when I see it” provided the court system with a highly-subjective opinion rather than a bright-line legal distinction.

If you ask a Kinsey Institute researcher about erotica and pornography, you’re likely to receive a different answer than you’d receive from the average resident of Victorian London (where a woman’s ankles were scandalous when revealed).

Yet, this article isn’t about pornography. It’s about the transmission negativity (and negative affect) through social networks.

People might credibly argue that there’s a very subjective range for gossip. One’s person’s “sharing news” might credibly be another person’s toxic gossip.

However, the social network research of the past decade confirms that behaviors of our first and second degree network connections have a direct impact on our personal moods and behaviors. We are influenced by the people around us.

Therefore, it becomes important to be aware of both your behaviors and those manifested around you:

• What do you say about others?
• Is your intent to lift someone up or to push someone down?
• What do your friends say about their friends?
• What do you perceive as the intent behind their actions and words?

Intentions matter. While schadenfreude (taking pleasure in the suffering of others) may create limited bonding capital with some select listeners, these negative actions erode social capital within the fabric of the whole social network.

Best wishes for a safe and happy new year to everyone.

As my father (a reference librarian) used to say, “You don’t need to know the answer yourself. You just need to know how to find the answer you need.”

Tony essentially models LinkedIn as a cocktail mixer of people he’s met, reserving his recommendations to people he trusts. This model allows him allows him to expand his reach to locate resources within his network who can answer his question. However, number of “connections” does not confer expertise on any single person.

From a social capital perspective, he’s expanded his potential access to information–without immediately creating deeper social capital. He still must find reasons for casual acquaintances and 2nd level contacts to help him locate the answer he needs.

His approach aligns closely what I’ve described many times here. LinkedIn itself is just a network.

• Using Status Updates to Mobilize Social Capital
• LinkedIn Wants You to Learn Social Capital Theory
• Social Networks vs. Social Capital
• What Should My Network Look Like?

If you use any social network passively, you’ll see few benefits, but if you actively invest time into it, you will see a significant return.

Social media and social networking tools can provide a space for learning, but they themselves are only tools. People have to actually use the platforms (to find and answer questions . . . as well as participate in collaborative learning).

From what I’ve seen so far, many learning practitioners have launched a social media tool with a Field of Dreams mindset: “If I create this cool social media learning space, then my learners will find ways to learn together through it.” That approach glosses over fundamental instructional design issues.

Social media provides a platform, but the web-applications themselves shouldn’t be confused with true social capital–the ability to locate and mobilize resources within your network to achieve a goal.

The learners want to achieve goals–such as mastering a skill, solving a problem, or finding an on-demand answer.

Yes, social media can create a space where it will be possible to learn collaboratively. However, that learning doesn’t magically happen. There are several key criteria that must be met:

• The answer (or help) must have already been created; OR
• People must be available and willing to provide on-demand help.

When someone reaches out to you with truly great news or horrible news, take a moment to plan your reply. How can you make your response quick and personal? The personal response strengthens bonds.

For example, this week, I shared some really good news with close friends. I sent out a quick individual note by e-mail to each of them.Within moments, my phone started ringing with people who called to congratulate me.

They took my e-mail and strengthened the bond through a real-time call. I went from feeling good to feeling on cloud-nine because people wanted to celebrate that good news with me.

By increasing the human element of your response, you strengthen the bonds between yourself and the other person. Keep that in mind the next time someone shares good/bad news with you. You’ll make a powerful impact.

I love it when people send me relevant articles. I find all sorts of cool stuff I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. This past week, I received two very cool links from friends.

My friend Gwendolyn Kestrel sent me this cool article about the future of social networking tools. It points out that most social networking sites force us to live in cities (aggregating everyone into one large pool) when we really want to live in villages (small affinity based groups).

Another of my friends, Alesia Clardy, shared a link to What the F**K is Social Media, which provides some healthy up-to-date stats on the power of social media. “If you’re not on the train, it’s already leaving the station.” Very nice graphic design too.

So, here’s my challenge to you. Find out an area that interests someone in your network. Then, start paying attention for articles that would interest them. Brighten someone’s day by sending a relevant, thoughtful article.

Oh, and one quick warning . . . be sure it’s really relevant to the person. Otherwise, you’ll be spamming.

• Physical capital–your stuff and assets
• Human capital–education and experience
• Social capital–your ability to locate and mobilize resources within your network

However, you can convert between any of the four forms of capital.

• Want to transfer human capital into money? Get a job.
• Want to turn physical capital into social capital? Say “yes” when your friend asks to borrow your bicycle for the weekend.
• Want to turn financial capital into human capital? Take a college course. Hire a language tutor. Buy some books relevant to your career and study them.

Here’s one way to think about the four types of capital–they’re like different types of currency. Just like you can convert dollars to euros and rand to rupees.

Let’s continue the metaphor of the bank account, and push it a little further. When you have a checking and savings account, you can make balance transfers. Capital works the same way.

Imagine that you receive an unexpected check in the mail for $1,000 in the mail. The giver has only one requirement. You must invest the money. You cannot “spend” it.

Many people might search for the best performing stocks and mutual funds. However, when you look at the concept of capital, you can make many different types of investments.

Let’s look at a few examples of how you could invest that money.

• Invest in Financial Capital–put the money in your savings account or retirement account
• Invest in Physical Capital–buy an asset that saves you time or increases your productivity
• Invest in Social Capital–treat your friends to dinner or go visit distant friends
• Invest in Human Capital–enroll in a college class, go to a conference, learn a new skill

Each of these choices could be viewed as investments (rather than expenses) under the right circumstances.  The $1,200 dollars you invest today could yield much greater dividends in the future.

We’re always used to thinking about “spending” money. Some of us say we don’t have much money to invest. In fact, in a tight economy, some might say they have “no” money to invest.

Can you think about the money you do spend and find ways to leverage them into investments? It requires you to shift your mindset to a different way of investing your money (and your time).

Stephanie works in San Jose as an attorney who specializes in law on the edge of the digital frontier. She also instinctively understands how to build and mobilize social capital across her network. It’s a practice that’s deeply wired within her.

Early in the evening, Stephanie asked me how I’d become interested in thought-leadership marketing. I replied that it had begun when I was working on a Ph.D. at St. Louis University. The English Department had assigned me to work in the Graduate Writing Center. I helped many Ph.D. candidates find their voice as scholars, and I started to tell the story of the Chinese geophysics student who’d written his dissertation about new seismic findings in the New Madrid Fault Zone (which caused massive 8.x earthquakes during the winter of 1811-12).

At this point, Stephanie looked at me intently. She said, “I have a friend who has gotten stuck on her dissertation proposal, and her committee has given absolute deadline of September. She’s really smart. Would you please help her? Please tell me you can.” Stephanie’s voice was filled with passion. This wasn’t a off-hand request or business referral. Stephanie was committed to her friend’s success.

Coaching graduate students isn’t my current career. I haven’t coached a Ph.D. candidate since 1999.

I said yes to Stephanie’s request, because she’s such a very good friend.

As soon as I said “yes,” Stephanie whipped out her cellphone and called her friend. “I think I found a way to help you with your writing. I’ve got a friend who’s an amazing writing coach and has worked with Ph.D. candidates before. I’m having dinner with him now. Can we come over later tonight?”

Later that night, I met with Stephanie’s friend. She told me that she’d looked for a writing coach in the San Francisco Bay area, but she hadn’t found anyone who’d work with Ph.D. candidates. She was thrilled that Stephanie had found someone to help her (even if the person was visiting from St. Louis).

On Saturday, I met with Stephanie’s friend. We discussed her dissertation proposal and started refining her hypotheses and research plan. By the end of the conversation, we’d come up with a plan to get her “unstuck” and back-on-timeline.

Stephanie put her social capital to work:

• Stephanie’s friend needed help but couldn’t find it in her immediate network (so she told her friends the type of help she needed);
• When Stephanie heard me tell my story, she saw the connection between her friend’s need and my skillset (she located a resource within her network);
• Stephanie mobilized a resource (my past experience) to help her friend;
• Stephanie strengthened the bond between herself and her friend; and
• Stephanie and I strengthened our bond.

Here’s today’s tip. If you try to build a social network solely for your personal benefit, you will eventually fail. You can’t be selfish.

Like Stephanie, you should search for opportunities where you can leverage your social capital to help others.

If you feel that you’re career has stagnated, there’s no quick fix. You need to increase either your human capital (skills, education, and experience) or your social capital (your ability to access and leverage resources within your network).

Human Capital: You could go back to school and gain new skills or a degree.

Social Capital:You could connect to more people or create deeper connections with the people you already  know. In either case, you want to make relevant connections. Frantic shotgun LinkedIn requests to “connect me” won’t work. It takes time to build smart, high-value connections.

If you want to increase the value of your time, you have to make investments–either in your human or social capital. If you’ve already made investments, you can leverage these investments to weather a downturn and even prosper.