Since this is my first time blogging at the Greater IBM Connection, I'd like to start by introducing myself. I am the Chief Scientist and co-founder of Endeca, a leader and pioneer in enterprise information access. I studied computer science and math at MIT and CMU, and I interleaved my studies with summers and a full year at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, NY. I'm also a blogger, posting at The Noisy Channel about the practical problems of interacting with information.

But enough about me and on to the topic of my first post here, which is "friending" vs. making friends. It's a cliche that technology has substituted "friending" for friendship and "connecting" for cultivating professional connections. In a recent Macworld article on the etiquette of social networking, Dan Tyman quotes social media consultant Ariel Waldman as saying that it’s ok to friend people you don't know just to make their acquaintance: "Otherwise you wouldn't really be networking," Nonetheless, professional networking site LinkedIn advises people to "only invite people you know well and who know you."

Much of the discussion of social networks draws a sharp distinction between "virtual" and "real life" friends, the former signifying people who have never met face to face. The often unstated assumption is that you know someone if and only if you've met in real life, i.e., face to face.

While overaggressive "friending" is a problem that plagues social networking, the distinction between "virtual" and "real life" misses the point. There are people I've met face to face with whom I do not have meaningful social or professional relationships. Conversely, I have cultivated meaningful relationships with people whom I have never been lucky enough to meet face to face.

The key word here is "cultivate." Some people see social networking as a shortcut to avoid the investment required to cultivate a relationship. As in all things, there is no free lunch. You have to give to get. People who "harvest" online connections will at best get a worthless address book full of people who won't return your calls or emails. Conversely, investing in people you meet online can develop friends and colleagues who will be there for you someday.

What social networks have done is decouple this investment from geography, at least to a point. There still is no substitute for face-to-face contact. But technology has made it possible to develop meaningful relationship without it. And I hope that the Greater IBM Connection acts as a catalyst towards this end!