Considering 'Networking Reconsidered'

I read a blog by John Hagel III and John Seely Brown, ‘Networking Reconsidered’. I agree with their argument that the importance is being active, in knowing ‘how to participate in knowledge flows’. The premises starts from that this is a changing world and consequently there is a need to change the way we interact with each other. (Although, not as often as I would like, but when I can), writing for this site is also my attempt to participate in the knowledge flows. The blog then went on to discuss the importance of accessing tacit knowledge and argued that the route of accessing tacit knowledge is through adopting a learning disposition, contrasting this with the classical networking approach.

The classical networking approach, which they describe as ‘Push’, is the process by which one ‘identifies the people who could be helpful to you and find ways to introduce yourself to those people’. We usually find this interaction in the real world. Undoubtedly, there are people who use online social networking sites as ‘Push’ for widening their sphere, getting pleasure out of the ever increasing visitor numbers, of ‘friends’ and ‘contacts’.

However, we will find some aspects of a learning disposition relationships in online social networking environment as it requires (inherently) our ‘willingness to disclose vulnerabilities’ and expose and bare one’s thoughts to attract others. Unlike ‘Pushing’, the online social networking site is largely designed to do ‘Pulling’, attracting the like minds to share explicit as well as tacit (I dare say) knowledge. This is certainly my approach to writing and posting blogs.