Social Invention or Social InTERvention?

I’m someone who lives what they work, and works what they live. I can’t help it. I’ve always been that way.

But I know a lot of people who successfully separate their professional lives from their personal ones. As companies strive to bring more “work / life” balance  into corporate culture (and I think this is a good thing) is these lines are becoming less defined. As we, as companies, organizations and individuals, use social technologies to share and post information related to our interests or business, we inadvertently blur these lines even more.

Most recently, one of the projects that I’m involved in [and quite enthusiastically I might add] is asking a select group of employees to use their own social profiles to communicate company information and brand voice to their networks as it relates to their personal interests and ideas. Personally, I think this is a wonderfully innovative method for a company to use employees, who are already active in social media, to not only provide public relations but to also help direct customer service questions / issues to appropriate channels,  enforce go-to-market-messaging, and humanize the company overall. But this also means that traditional separation of business from personal lives no longer exist.

And this begs the question: Are we creating a culture of social invention or one that will ultimately need a social intervention? I’m not making this stuff up, folks. Trust me, as I’m writing this, I’m sitting here thinking “Yep, I qualify for a social intervention.”

Here are my personal top ten signs you might need a social intervention:

1. You know more about what’s going on in the lives of your Facebook family than you do your real life family.
2. Instead of counting sheep at night, you’re counting tweeps.
3. Your cellphone sleeps with you more than anybody else does.
4. The first thing and last things you do in the day are to check your Facebook or Twitter updates.
5. You have a complete multi-enterprise social networking system where you post in one place and it automatically populates to all of your social network profiles.
6. You take a picture of your kids and the first thing they ask is if you’re going to post it to Facebook.
7. All of your friends know that the fastest way they can reach you is by sending you a message or tweet.
8. You no longer carry a business card or curriculum vitae because you just direct people to your LinkedIn profile.
9. You hold your family, high school or college reunions via Facebook.
10. Your therapist is one of your Facebook friends.

Just food for thought here…reflective thoughts from a self-professed social media addict. If you’re a social media addict, feel free to profess it here too! And add your own “sign” of social media addiction.

Now, I have to go write on my therapist’s Facebook wall.   See you in the tweeties!