Christopher S. Penn – Marketing AI Keynote Speaker

Association is not recommendation

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by

Christopher S Penn
in
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Guido Stein asked a terrific question in this Twitter conversation:

cspenn: @chrisbrogan I am stingy with my recommendations, but when I recommend something, I *mean* it. High bar, but kudos if you reach it.
GuidoS: @cspenn how can you be stingy about recommendations but not about people in your network? Isn’t association partly an endorsement?

To some, perhaps. In the slightly warped perspective of the ninja, association isn’t recommendation. Association is information. If you look at the folks who follow me on Twitter, who are friends on Facebook, who are contacts on LinkedIn, you’ll find an enormous variety of folks, from Asian cooks to college students, from presidents and CEOs to exotic dancers, from independent musicians to search engine optimization wizards. All of these people that are in my network are folks I ‘associate’ with, but more importantly, each of them has unique perspectives and information that I find helpful.

There’s an old ninja expression relating literally to seeing in the dark – the lower you go, the more you can see. Try it at night sometime. It’s a metaphor as well – the closer to the ground, to the real people doing real stuff, you can get, the more you can see. It’s easy from a financial or economics perspective to look at macro stuff like GDP, the Dow Jones, etc. but if you want some real insight, you need to put boots on the ground and see what’s really happening. You can only do that through association, through making lots of acquaintances across the spectrum of people out there.

Recommendation is different – recommendation to me means that I have experience with some aspect of the person, product, or service, and when I recommend something, I confer a bit of whatever trust you have in me to that person, place, or thing. In this crazy world we live in, trust is exceedingly scarce, exceedingly rare, and something that you should absolutely be stingy with.

Associate with lots of people. Associate to learn, to grow, to share your experiences. Recommend only when you want to confer trust, because if you blow it on a recommendation, you betray that trust a little, and as everyone from Presidents to CEOs to the broken hearted know or are finding out, trust is very, very hard to recover.

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Comments

6 responses to “Association is not recommendation”

  1. Guido from Boston Avatar
    Guido from Boston

    ok… I agree with you about the trust/recommendation angle. But, social networks like linked in, facebook, and twitter create a connection between you and many others. This connection is not only visible in volume of status updates from your connections but also as a directory of folks who associate with you.

    First, the issue of value/volume… Especially when using twitter you can be overwhelmed by the amount of posting that goes on, isn't it important to not follow back everyone who follows you? Shouldn't you be stingy with follows? Doesn't your following also count as endorsement?

    Second, the issue of people who associate with you. Having had headhunters call me at my place of business from looking me up in linked In I have become very cautious of who is associated with me on linked in. Apparently some people don't understand that the whole purpose of linked in is more about connecting through your network, not just collecting info about you. Hence, someone associating to you become a bit of an endorsement as well, no?

    Can't wait to here your thoughts, (twitter is no place for a in-depth conversation where you need to present examples)

    Reply
  2. Christopher S. Penn Avatar
    Christopher S. Penn

    I don't view following back as an endorsement, more of a subscription and a way to direct message. But that's how I approach it – some people view it as an endorsement. However, when you follow back thousands of people, it's pretty clear you're not endorsing all of them.

    As for people who pester you – immediately disconnect. The follow/friend association is not necessarily an endorsement, but unfollowing or breaking connections clearly is an un-endorsement of their lack of any redeeming value.

    Reply
  3. Guido from Boston Avatar
    Guido from Boston

    ok… I agree with you about the trust/recommendation angle. But, social networks like linked in, facebook, and twitter create a connection between you and many others. This connection is not only visible in volume of status updates from your connections but also as a directory of folks who associate with you.

    First, the issue of value/volume… Especially when using twitter you can be overwhelmed by the amount of posting that goes on, isn't it important to not follow back everyone who follows you? Shouldn't you be stingy with follows? Doesn't your following also count as endorsement?

    Second, the issue of people who associate with you. Having had headhunters call me at my place of business from looking me up in linked In I have become very cautious of who is associated with me on linked in. Apparently some people don't understand that the whole purpose of linked in is more about connecting through your network, not just collecting info about you. Hence, someone associating to you become a bit of an endorsement as well, no?

    Can't wait to here your thoughts, (twitter is no place for a in-depth conversation where you need to present examples)

    Reply
  4. Guido from Boston Avatar
    Guido from Boston

    ok… I agree with you about the trust/recommendation angle. But, social networks like linked in, facebook, and twitter create a connection between you and many others. This connection is not only visible in volume of status updates from your connections but also as a directory of folks who associate with you.

    First, the issue of value/volume… Especially when using twitter you can be overwhelmed by the amount of posting that goes on, isn't it important to not follow back everyone who follows you? Shouldn't you be stingy with follows? Doesn't your following also count as endorsement?

    Second, the issue of people who associate with you. Having had headhunters call me at my place of business from looking me up in linked In I have become very cautious of who is associated with me on linked in. Apparently some people don't understand that the whole purpose of linked in is more about connecting through your network, not just collecting info about you. Hence, someone associating to you become a bit of an endorsement as well, no?

    Can't wait to here your thoughts, (twitter is no place for a in-depth conversation where you need to present examples)

    Reply
  5. Christopher S. Penn Avatar
    Christopher S. Penn

    I don't view following back as an endorsement, more of a subscription and a way to direct message. But that's how I approach it – some people view it as an endorsement. However, when you follow back thousands of people, it's pretty clear you're not endorsing all of them.

    As for people who pester you – immediately disconnect. The follow/friend association is not necessarily an endorsement, but unfollowing or breaking connections clearly is an un-endorsement of their lack of any redeeming value.

    Reply
  6. Christopher S. Penn Avatar
    Christopher S. Penn

    I don’t view following back as an endorsement, more of a subscription and a way to direct message. But that’s how I approach it – some people view it as an endorsement. However, when you follow back thousands of people, it’s pretty clear you’re not endorsing all of them.

    As for people who pester you – immediately disconnect. The follow/friend association is not necessarily an endorsement, but unfollowing or breaking connections clearly is an un-endorsement of their lack of any redeeming value.

    Reply

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