It’s official: The paperback version of Consequential Strangers will be available on July 26. Look for a new subtitle, a new cover, and new cover quotes. You saw all here first! I’m on the road for the next few weeks and won’t be sharing much here.
I thought about the work of neuropsychologist John Cacioppo, co-author, with William Patrick of Loneliness: The New Science of Human Connection as I watched this video put out by the Mental Health Foundation in Great Britain, which highlights the findings of a new study, The Lonely Society.
The antidote for loneliness is to connect with consequential strangers. Having a “tribe,” John told me when I interviewed him for the book, is the flip side of social isolation. All of us experience loneliness at times, but it is most dramatic–and we are most vulnerable–during major life transitions when a dependable “circle of support” is disrupted. In this film, for example, the woman lost her CS at work when she had a baby. Continue Reading »
Okay, I’ll admit it: I have no idea whether Amsterdam really is the best city for meeting new people because I personally have no way of comparing it to every other city in the world, just the ones I’ve visited or lived in. Business Week declared it Numbe 13 in the world in 2006 and again in 2007, and, according to an Amsterdam tourism site, it ranked 13 in 2008, too (they noted, not suprisingly, that it ranked even higher in the past–however, recent construction projects have caused unusual traffic problems, making it a bit less livable. Short of paying several thousand dollars to obtain this year’s ranking, I can safely assume that the city’s still up there. These “official” rankings naturally take into account education, health, climate, crime, and such, but I think sociability– how easy it is to connect with people — should be considered, too. (Granted, if citizens are healthy, happy, well-educated and not worrying about getting mugged, they’re obviously going to be more willing to engage!)
I only spent three days in Amsterdam–another reason I’m not expert! Still, there are many reasons I have for suggesting that it is a high on the CS index. Note how appropriately the café (above, left) is named. (And by “café” I don’t mean a cannibus coffee shop!). The fact is, Amsterdam seems to have been designed for schmoozing. Continue Reading »
I can’t believe I launched another blog. What could I have been thinking? Only a few months ago, I was bemoaning the hype around social media, wondering how to get back to my writer self. But I realized it wasn’t the blogging that got me crazy; it was the disappointment that I didn’t have much of an audience (which didn’t prevent me from feeling deeply grateful to the six of you who did tune in!). I kept saying to friends, “Blogging is like sending an email into the Universe, but you have no way of knowing who’s read it.”
So here I am again, now with two blogs–Consequential Strangers and MotherU–each representing a totally different part of my life. I’ll funnel some ideas into in one blog, some in the other, and with others, such this one, I’ll be “bipostal,” contributing to both sites. I’ll express my thoughts and hope that they resonate somewhere in the Universe, share my expertise and hope that it helps. But I’ve let go of the expectation.
I’m not the only bi-postal blogger out there, according to some recent stats on blogging. Approximately half of us are working on at least our second blog, and 68% have been blogging for two years or more. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde’s famous quote about second marriages, “Second blogs are the triumph of hope over experience.” Continue Reading »
I’m back in Paris, on the prowl for a new set of consequential strangers–following my own advice about what it takes for a place to feel comfortable.
It’s not easy here (see this post about my last trip), and the challenge has made me think about what I have to do to connect in a city–this city. New York is different for me, not only because I speak the language there, but also because I know the unwritten social rules of the city–how to read the “body idiom” and do what Irving Goffman called the “face work.” But one doesn’t have to be a sociologist to see that Parisians have a different social playbook than Americans–and I don’t have a copy! Therefore, I keep reminding myself of the basics of face-to-face connection–skills we don’t exercise in front of our computers. Continue Reading »
I always wondered how the notion of consequential strangers would translate in other countries. To my surprise, a Taiwanese publisher was one of the first to buy the rights. The cover (right) inspired this post. But it also got me thinking: Americans are generally considered among the most friendly citizens of the world, more willing to talk to strangers than say, the French or the English. And yet, despite cultural conventions, the concept seems to resonate with people outside the U. S. as much as it does here. My hunch is that it’s about connection, not culture. Continue Reading »
This email, entitled “Thanks,” which is currently circulating the Internet with billions of other “warnings” and “pleas,” ended up in my in-box. I’ve edited it slightly edited for length–it’s my “best of.” If you know who wrote it, I’d love to congratulate him or her! Continue Reading »
A quick post to alert you to 21 Ways to Make Meaningful Connections, a piece I wrote for beliefnet, in which I draw from the book–and add a few new ideas that have occurred to me in my post-publication ruminations!
Sandy (not her real name) was “moved to tears” after hearing me talk about the importance of connecting with consequential strangers in our everyday life. She later explained in an email:
[My tears were] about my husband. I realized when you were talking about how these consequential strangers enrich our lives that my husband (a stay-at-home dad) hasn’t taken advantage of the consequential strangers he has access to, which has led to depression. I also realized that b/c my experiences are so rich and different from his (I get to meet people like you!) that he’s missing out and I just want him to be able to share experiences and “people” with me b/c it will enrich both of us, as a couple.
Sandy’s story brought to mind a point I often make about CS and marriage: Outsiders can make a marriage stronger! Continue Reading »
Last Friday (March 12), at Cengage Learning‘s 2010 “Course Technology Conference,” an annual gathering of college IT teachers, I talked about the importance of connection, engagement, communication, and relationship development in the classroom–skills that educators often consider “soft.” The points I made are relevant to any classroom, workplace, institution, or organization.
Pay attention to the small moments. Life is an ongoing series of casual, everyday interactions that add up. You don’t hear the sound of strings swelling in the background when something important is about to happen. So if you don’t pay attention, you might miss moments that matter. A brief talk in the hallway, an email from a former colleague, a Facebook response to a comment, a few minutes spent helping someone else–each conversation results in a bit of information, insight, clarity, a feeling of being connected, or a good laugh. And the more you notice them, the more you make them happen.
Celebrate diversity. An odd by-product of political correctness is that although it supposedly eradicates offensive language related to gender, race, religion, sexuality, and the like, it can also limit the celebration of differences. A community collage classroom, for example, is a rich font of diversity, and everyone–the taxi cab driver, the single mother, the house painter–brings something different to the table–and to each other’s lives. Different perspectives enrich us. That’s why the Occupation Test, has a range of jobs, up and down the socio-economic ladder. As sociologist Bonnie Erickson, having a diverse social convoy is “like enrolling in a liberal arts college and getting a degree in a little of almost everything.”
Use relationships, not rewards, to motivate. Actually, relationships are the best reward. In the classroom, in the workplace, at home, or any setting where people are expected to cooperate and contribute, the goal is to join with instead of laud over, to position yourself at the center, rather than rule from on high. Read this post by Howard Rheingold in which he talks about dealing with students’ divided attention in the classroom by heightening their awareness and asking them to participate with him. Smart corporate managers take a similar approach with their workers. For that matter, so do smart parents! A relationally-engaged person is a partner and an ally. (I talked about the dangers of not engaging in How GM Lost Touch With Its CS.)
Today, the ability to communicate, share, and be open to others’ ideas are essential. To think of these as “soft skills” is dismissive. Every decision we make, every piece of information we acquire, every insight, every project that needs completion involves interactions with others–face-to-face and/or online. We are all in it together.
Important Note: Howard Rheingold has developed the Social Media Classroom and Collaboratory, a free online resource for students and teachers. Arguably, we all need to explore what he considers the five key “Internet literacies”: attention, participation, collaboration, network awareness, and crap detection! It’s worth a look.
