Guest post by Gary Pines

I hear many professionals say they do not know what to do with social networks. They neither have the time for them nor see the value in them. They feel that social networks invade one's privacy, and that there are enough communications vehicles what with cell phones, email, and a seemingly endless list of old and new media. And they find the array of social networking options overwhelming with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, My Space, You Tube, and specialized networks for specific professions and industries.

A recent Business Week article points out that new modes of communication have always attracted this kind of reaction. Among the examples it cites are:

• Socrates' objection to writing, in part because this "invention" eliminated the need to exercise the memory.
• Henry David Thoreau's objection to the telegraph, the instant transcontinental communications in the 1840s about which he said, "Maine and Texas ... have nothing important to communicate."
• Western Union's refusal of an offer to buy the patent rights for the telephone in 1880, asking "whether any sensible man would transact his affairs by such a means of communication."
• The New York Times editorial against the typewriter because it usurped the art of "writing with one's own hand." (What would Socrates think of this).

To these we can add more recent examples:

• Some people disdained cell phones in 1990 with voicemail messages, saying that they would hinder person-to-person telephone communication.
• By the middle of the decade others complained that email and the internet would lead us away from real time communication.
• And now ... social networks.

Instead of being superfluous, social networks are here to stay. During the first years of the internet, people could only guess at its future uses and impact. Now, we are just beginning to explore their potential of social networks. They are a piece of the rain-making process. Those who stand aloof from them lower their probabilities of success and will lose out on their the increasing power and value in the years ahead.