For over a decade I’ve been part of the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network (MCSMN) Community, initially as a student, then as a contributor, and finally as an advisory board member. During this time, within the social media domain, I have had an opportunity to write a few posts and responses (around 750!), speak and teach at a few conferences, and serve on a couple of committees—so I have had the privilege of giving to the community. But this pales in comparison to what this community gave me: a place—a home—to discuss and share ideas about social media in an exceptionally friendly, professional environment.
With this in mind, and with the formal MCSMN sunsetting July 2021, I will be reflecting (and blogging, the best form of self-reflection) on some of the lessons, concepts, ideas, and processes I have learned through them.
Here’s the first one:
The strength of a digital network can be exponentially strengthened by even a single face-to-face connection.
Let me expand on this.
When I first joined MCSMN, all of my engagement with the community was digital. I would occasionally comment on someone’s blog post, and they would occasionally comment on one of mine, but overall I would describe our digital association as weak. (By a weak connection I mean I wouldn’t have felt comfortable emailing or DM them, and if I did, I wouldn’t have expected a direct response.)
However, after attending one of their first Social Media Residency Bootcamps, one at which I sat down and talked with several of their organizers, I was able to make that very important face-to face connection with them. We all were able to put a face, and more importantly a tone, to a name, and at that point, although I wouldn’t say we were friends (although over time I did develop several longer-term friendships), I think we did understand the other was all about ( at least in terms of social media).
Anyway, it was after this first meeting when my digital engagement dramatically increased within the community in a bidirectional fashion, and if I had to pin down the reason for this, I would say the face-to-face interactions at that single in-person Bootcamp day—interactions which contained nuanced and subconscious verbal inflections, body language interpretation and facial expression pickup—allowed for the creation of a small amount of human-to-human trust which subsequently transferred into a massive improvement in digital trust.
Put simply, I knew these were a good group of people with which to to be associated, and I suspect they knew, by meeting me in-person, I wasn’t a loose cannon (always something to be wary of when managing a community with mostly digital engagement!)
So, what’s the use of this knowledge—that digital trust may be exponentially related to face-to-face trust?
For me, I believe that for many of the public health problems we are facing now, (Covid being one, but others would include the opioid epidemic, obesity, distracted driving, and the like) healthcare organizations need to coordinate their digital response. And what’s required to do this effectively? They (the healthcare organizations) need to digitally trust each other, which means their social gatekeepers (not their CEOs or Medical Directors) need to know—as in face-to-face know—each other, something which can be achieved with just one or two in-person events.