You Are Who Your...Links Are

I’m going out to San Francisco for Halloween to visit some of my best friends.  Although many of my close friends are still scattered around the country, from the DC area, to Boston, to Chicago, to Portland, there is an ever-growing contingent migrating back to the Bay Area.  So while I’m excited to dress up as a vampire while eating as much sourdough as I can manage, I’m more excited to be doing this in the company of some of the people I care about most dearly.  It’s been a few months since my last cross-country voyage -- and it probably would’ve been sooner if it weren’t for the REW Summit (thanks a lot, Morgan!)....but more about The Summit in a bit :-)

The San Francisco contingent is made up of college buddies whom I’ve known for 10 years now.  I tend to get too philosophical whne it comes to questions of friendship...I probably think too much.  “What makes a friend?”  It’s a good question and I’m sure we’ve all asked it before, whether in the context of one person (i.e., “Is this guy a friend”) or in a larger context in contemplating friendship as a whole.  Although I’ve yet to fully figure out the answer to these questions, I know that I’m lucky enough to have many people in my life who I can point to as true friends.  Back to the San Francisco crew – I know any of them would do just about anything for me and vice versa.  They don’t have to prove anything to me, nor me to them -- and that’s precisely the point; nothing is expected in return for a ride to airport, or picking up a round of drinks, or even a kind word.  We trust and, yes, love each other like brothers, and know we all prosper from being together.  And undoubtedly, we’re all much better people for knowing each other.

Another gift my best friends have given me is the ability to know what to look for in a friend (even if I can’t define it).  So while I missed my monthly trip out to the Bay Area because of the REW Summit, I was rewarded with a wealth of knowledge, and more importantly, the foundations of many other friendships.  For instance, besides strengthening my relationship with Morgan, I also am benefiting from bouncing ideas off of Brian Kinkade and I loved running in Nanaimo with Jay Parham…just to name a couple of the people I can now call friends.   I also got the distinct pleasure of getting to know Eric Blackwell, whose inspiring class on online social networking and the importance on building “real” relationships before anything else is probably the reason I’m writing this post (for better or for worse!).

The question for me is why are some of my colleagues spending time and effort on people who aren’t friends?  In a business sense, I’m referring to large-scale, industry specific "organized reciprocal network linking".  You know, the next generation of “I’ll be your friend, if you’ll be mine”.  I’m by no means an authority on anything SEO, but it’s my understanding that in terms of these networks, Google wants you to be more “authentic” when it comes to friends.  It’d be my guess, that if you’re in this thing for the long haul, it makes more sense to stick with those you know and trust -- to link out to those friends when you read something great they’ve posted.  And, taking it a step further, giving your friends these “shout-outs”, expecting nothing in return.  Could it be, that just like in the “real world”, keeping it to those you trust and whose opinions you value, will not only make you a better “person” in Google’s eyes but will also give you more time to develop rewarding relationships that go well beyond the scope of links?

Contributing Blogger - Kevin Koitz

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