Meandering Thoughts

I'm supposed to read this horridly dry book on social research methods tonight. Thus I'm blogging. It seems like the further I get into grad school the less I like reading... A simple 10 page paper full of new ideas or problems can get me thinking and scribbling for hours, stomaching hundreds of pages becomes an exercise in rejection, skim reading or other futile actions. I find my mind spends at least as much time thinking about the various people and social circumstances in my life as it does on research, classes and work combined. I wonder if I should have been a social worker.

Anyway I was thinking about my community informatics concepts class from last semester. I played a rather strong - no overbearing - role in it. It felt like I was in a room full of terrified mutes but looking back on it and knowing what I do now, I think it's largely that people didn't like me. I think I may have actively ruined participation with my intensity. Anyway, it's this reason I need to be in PhD classes, but besides this I was thinking about this and feeling bad. I want to apologize to all of the shy and quiet people and those who might have felt squelched because of my all too often open mouth. But what would I be apologizing for? To make myself feel better. And that's rather shatty. So my current theory is a new metric of apology. Generally, one should only apologize when they will make the other person feel better at least as much as themselves.

This clearly leaves apologizing to (forgiving?) oneself off the docket, but still.

As my studies go, I've come upon another revelation: Facebook was easy.

I mean seriously! I was an insider in to the community (or at least one of them) and could find all kinds of different social and psychological theories that would apply to the way people behave online. Data-collecting techniques were clearcut - find a theory and a bunch of questions, and observe, interview or survey. Done.

Now I'm essentially enacting as a nonprofit consultant for social service institutions. I'm pretty inexperienced and bad when it comes to figuring out their needs - and all of my leadership experience has been with people pretty similar to me (rich students). Suddenly I have to figure out how these places work, design programs for them involving technology training (pretty much on my own, I have 2 other students to help me), and while that, to me, seems like a worthwhile 'project' or challenge, it's considered elementary. Never mind that establishing relationships and workable programming is scary, I'm supposed to evaluate all of this and keep it housed in scholarly questions and theory. My advisor warns me to stay away from being 'too practical' and I increasingly worry that I'm going to turn tale and run back to Internet studies for my dissertation.

Sounds like I need to have a conversation with Ann Bishop, but then she sometimes struggles to find acceptance in academe, and she's a tenured professor.

Once in a while I think about radically changing my trajectory, nabbing an MLS and running off to the nonprofit/saving people world. And then I remember that this economy is (supposedly?) disastrous and I'm wildly privileged. I just don't feel like there's a lot of academic guidance or support for me right now, I guess. Which worked well when I was studying Facebook, the thing I understood and no one else (around me at the time) did, but not so well when I'm trying to study something that's new and uncomfortable to me.

The good news, though, is that my social life has managed to stabilize a bit post-Mandy.

Time to go back to reading...

Connectors, revisited

Some of you may be familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's famous set of archetypes that are the key to social epidemics (social movements that sweep very quickly over a nation or group of people). He outlines salesmen (people who can convince you to do anything) and mavens (people who know a lot and like to share knowledge) and connectors (people who know a lot of people and bridge different types of people/groups together). The notion has gotten a lot of attention and spurred a lot of argument. Regardless of the usefulness of the typology or classification we can generally agree that there are traits in people that might make them connectors (relative) in almost any group.

I was giving this some thought tonight. I've always considered myself a connector - particularly because I'm an extrovert and leader and I know (and like!) a lot (different) of people. I tend to make invitations and initate contact and start groups. But I've often struggled with getting groups to be cohesive once the basic connections between individuals have been formed. It makes me wonder what a connector does, exactly. Like in some sense an alternative measure of a connector is the type of person who would be interested (not just willing and able) to go to an event or break into a new group alone. I'm sure we can think of many people we know that refuse to go to a given event, especially when it's recreational, unless they know someone there. Moreover some go so far as to need certain people there.

And this spurred me to thinking about who those people are. I think there may be another class (if you will) of connectors who don't initiate (usually anyway) or may not be the most outgoing or outspoken. They are instead the ones who still know a lot of people, but know how to make them feel comfortable. I'd like to think I can do this but the reality of my personality is that I'm intense, I'm often overwhelming, and if I really would like a person to be a real friend I expect a lot of them. And this is too much to face up to for some people. I'm often action-oriented and while I like to talk about feelings or 'just hang out' I'm usually more interested in creating something or discussing a topic towards some greater benefit. I'm overtly passionate, and especially interested in people, which is a little freaky sometimes to those who aren't.

Anyway thinking over my friends I can point out several who've been sort of complementary connectors to me. I bring people in and make the initial group/event formation (whatever it is, club, social, class group, etc...) and they end up making that person feel extra comfortable and bringing out the best in them. My X played this role in my life for the past year or so, which ispart of why I'm sort of floundering now trying to figure out what to do with my social life.

So where do I go from here? I suppose I could try to work on making people feel more comfortable, but honestly my personality is what it is, the fragile, picky or undependable ones are always going to be a problem. I think maybe a better direction is to show more appreciation for the connectors I know who make it their job (overtly or covertly) to create a welcoming rapport with others. Meanwhile I can continue to keep a positive hat on.

I won't make any specific shout-outs to people at GSLIS, but there are several of you who I think really fill this role. Thank you.