In the olde days, parents would teach their kids when and how to take off their hat, and how to address a town notable. In the early days of the internet, we got netiquette, primarily focused on the new social technologies of e-mail and and bulletin boards, although it now seems to be largely forgotten (maybe we all have internalized the rules?) With the recent explosion of all sorts of new social technologies (from blogs over social networking to Bluejacking …), most of the old techniques don’t quite fit any more and new ones are needed.
Yesterday, I met face-to-face with Jeff Nolan, whose blog I had been reading for some time. As it turned out, he had been reading mine as well. But I did not know that. Blogs create this funny situation where two people may know quite a lot about each other, without either having any idea about the other’s knowledge about themselves. Or having a common acquaintance, or background of any kind. Even if they quote each other occasionally, it may be because they just happened to do a referrer search and read something interesting on a blog that they will never again look at, or they may be genuinely interested in the person behind the blog they quote.
I’m pondering the need for additional social protocols given these new circumstances, even if it is straightforward with somebody like Jeff who is easygoing and part of the same industry and in the same location. It occurred to me yesterday because it was the first time I really had no prior interaction or intermediary …
But in the general case, how do you start a conversation with somebody you know through a blog? "How do you do? Have you solved the XYZ problem?" is not it, even one knows quite a lot about the subject due to the blog. Even the traditional "I’ve heard quite a lot about you" does not work any more because the "heard" requires an intermediary which does not exist either… Or maybe we just need to get used to falling right into the middle of a detailed conversation with people we have never talked to, or e-mailed, or interacted 1-1 before. But then, we don’t know whether or not we can. It’s a weird new world … what am I going to teach my 6-yr old about how to be polite? I guess I can drop the bit about the hat, but that’s where certainty ends …
Updated 2016-08-05: fixed link to RC1855. Also, here’s some updated info on Netiquette.