What connecting can mean

I’ve mentioned before that I see the word connection thrown around a lot and I’ve question what connection really means in the context of social media. Let me tell you now what I believe it can mean, provided a person is willing to re-orient his/her perspective about it. What connection can mean is the ability to think of other people you can introduce someone to, in order to help both people. You can do this via social media or in-person, but what’s vital is that you actually think about what each person needs, so that they actually can help each other out.

Connection probably sounds like networking, or at least what networking can be, if its done with the goal being to help other people as opposed to just getting referrals from someone. And to me that’s the point of connection. It’s not about you, but about your network and your ability to help you network. And whether you do this via social networking or offline networking the point is that connection doesn’t mean something if you aren’t actually doing some kind of connecting.

I approach connection as a kind of game. Can I find the right person or people for this person’s problem? And usually I can, because I want to know those people anyway, partially to help them out, partially because I want clients, and partially because I can refer them to someone. And that’s what connecting can mean, if we don’t think of it as just an activity showing off how many followers we have or who the most influential person is that you are connected to (Personally I’d like to be the most influential person I know, because then it means other people are coming to me to get help of some sort).

So what does connection mean to you and what can it mean to you? How can you help your social and/or offline network and how will you help them?