You are the weakest link! Not really, I’m just doing Social Service cleanup.

I once questioned myself all the time about what types of content I would put on my primary blog. Would it all be technical content? Or would it include personal content also, such as my music, etc. I finally decided that for my primary blog (http://blog.krichie.com) It would be a mix of both, and I would use appropriate content tagging so you could easily filter on what you wanted to see. As well, a lot of folks way back when told me they enjoyed seeing the lighter side of me, so I stood with that.

If you haven’t visited my blog in a while, you may have noticed that it no longer states “That SharePoint Guy” as it once did. Instead I just changed it to “Random Musings”. I did that for a couple of reasons:

For a long time, I was not even doing much SharePoint work. It didn’t make sense to proclaim myself as that “SharePoint Guy” any longer.
I’d say 50% of my content has nothing to do with SharePoint.

Now this doesn’t mean that I’m not going to continue to post SharePoint content, by all means, when I feel I’ve got something to say about the subject I most certainly will. The folks that follow me in the SharePoint field there, have done so for a long time, and when I post SharePoint content there, it’s not to win some popularity contest, but to rather share my findings and hopefully help others. I do however, get a kick on how some of my SharePoint posts are either a) trackbacked, b) found helpful, c) used to answer forum questions, d) completely repurposed and plagiarized at times.

Regardless, I think the new branding represents me better than the last. Which brings me to the subject of this post.

“How does one define the reason behind the use of any given Social Service?”

I’ve decided over months of debating about it, to clean up my Facebook friends list. The reason? I don’t really know half the people in my friends list there.

When I first joined Facebook, literally none of my family or non-technical friends had any presence there. I joined simply because all of my other SharePoint peeps where there. I used it as an addition to my “Technical/Professional” presence in the web-sphere. I would accept almost any friend request from someone in the SharePoint field.

Of course over time, my family and non-technical friends jumped on the bandwagon with Facebook, etc… but I continued to almost just automatically “Add” some one based on their request, because I saw they were a member of the SharePoint community.

Here’s the problem though…I no longer use Facebook as a primary professional/technical representation of me. It’s completely casual. Does anyone in the SharePoint field truly get ANY kind of real value from my Facebook page? I doubt it very seriously, unless it’s simply a note post from my SharePoint blog postings, or twitter copy from a SharePoint related tweet I’ve made.

Another reason, is there is just too much noise in my Facebook feed from people. Sure, I could utilize custom feeds/lists in Facebook more, but that is just WAY too much trouble to do, to individually select people, remove people, sort those lists etc. But I DO enjoy leaving the page open, and occasionally seeing interesting tidbits…but I have to filter through a lot of crap, from people I just don’t really know before I see it.

I’ve decided to go ahead and start trimming down my list. I made the following post on my wall on Facebook this morning as this:

“Hmm, thinking of cleaning up my friends list. I have a lot of people on the list whom have added me simply because they are in my field, but I don’t really know them. No offense, but if you get removed, don’t take it personally. It probably means we haven’t interacted at all since being added. I won’t be so eager to hit that accept from folks in the future, just because I see your involved in the SharePoint field. Besides, for any real SharePoint content from me, just see my blog.”

It’s been interesting seeing some of the comments show up, and the emails I’ve gotten going “Why, but why!”

Well, like I said…Don’t take it personally! I just want to trim it some. If by chance you get removed, just simply send me another request..BUT when you do, include the reason why you’re requesting? Is it somewhere along the lines of:

Hey, remember me? We met at that SharePoint event back in, blah blah. I’d like to be added back, because I enjoy seeing your wild and crazy posts”
Hey, we used to work together at Microsoft, or this, or that.
Some other good reason on how I know you, or we’ve interacted with in the past.

I’m not opposed to adding you back in, but I can’t remember half the names that are there. It’s not a YOU thing, it’s a me thing. If you find my wall posts on Facebook enjoyable, etc, or can give me a reason why we should be friends, by all means, send me a request.

Otherwise, if it’s just because your interested in my SharePoint related stuff, simply follow me on this blog, or twitter.

The bottom line is, I’m no longer using Facebook as one of my primary Professional/Technical content source points. If I don’t really know you, I don’t see a reason to have you listed. I don’t need to have 2000 friends on Facebook.

For instance, look at LinkedIn. I don’t think I have it configured for ANY content consumption from Twitter, etc. It’s just a standalone professional footprint for me.

As far as Twitter? I dual purpose it for professional/personal and for the most part, I don’t see a drop in my followers.

Bottom line, for my complete professional representation, I would look to my LinkedIn and Blog sites. The rest might just be noise for you.

Some may still find this harsh, and I don’t mean it to be that way. It’s just me re-aligning my social services the way I feel they are best suited.

You are NOT the weakest link Smile I’m just doing some social service cleanup.