Young and restless social networking

No, this is not about the young. Nor is it really about the restless, although in middle age, I am definitely as restless as ever. But stay tuned. First, this note is about a video on YouTube called "Social Networking in Plain English." This is a great little video that gets the points across about social networking in Web 2.0 very nicely. And second, this note is about -- well, read on.

When I was watching the graphics about social networking, it reminded me of a classic example of networking that took place in my life years ago. You start with me, a freshman in college, and I meet a guy named Rex in the reference room of the college library -- and no, I didn't hang around the library much; I was usually practicing piano in practice rooms -- and Rex and I became great friends and still are. We found we enjoyed music, movies, and that when we were young teens, we were both hooked on Dark Shadows. Because of that show, he told me his great dream was to be a writer for daytime drama.

Fast forward to graduate school where every Saturday evening Florence, PhD candidate in music theory, and me, musicology student, ate pizza with sausage, pepperoni, and extra cheese at Joe Bologna's in Lexington. One evening I learned Florence had a cousin named Kay and Kay was not a musician but -- head writer for The Young and the Restless.

Hm.

So I passed along the information to Rex, and he was not too fond of that soap, and was doing work with autistic children anyway, and some time passed, and then one day he called me and asked how to get in touch with Florence (now moved from Lexington) because maybe, just maybe, she would give him Kay's address and Kay and he could talk. So I said sure, and gave him Flo's address.

Well, he now has two or three Emmys from those years on Y&R, and now works for Bold & Beautiful, where he has been nominated for several Emmys. It's hard work, with nearly endless deadlines, but he loves it.

So that real life example of social networking popped into my head when watching the neat little video. I wonder, at least where work is concerned, if social networks such as Facebook can forge these kinds of networks? Certainly I can see how easy it would be to develop some great friendships through these cool tools. Does it help careers? I can see that the potential is there for many interesting relationships to develop. One drawback though -- you can't network socially in a virtual world and still have that wonderful pizza with sausage, pepperoini, and extra cheese.