"Frolleague". Sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings doesn’t it? A “frolleague” is in fact a work colleague that you add as a friend within your social networking activities. The term is becoming so widespread that it’s being considered by the Oxford English Dictionary for inclusion in its next revision.A recent survey by LinkedIn that canvassed UK users found that around one third of UK users felt they had to add a colleague to their social networking group. Despite this, the number of “frolleagues” being added to members social networking groups is on the increase. Funnily enough, the guys over at LinkedIn think that you should keep your professional and your personal contacts separate to “manage our online reputation as effectively as possible”. I wonder what the guys at Facebook would say...
MyTake – I love the new term, pure tabloid genius and it gives us all something to talk about at the water cooler. I think LinkedIn are wrong if they honestly believe that you should keep your contacts separate. I share contacts across both Facebook and LinkedIn and have many “frolleagues” on both – the whole point of social networking is about sharing, and that includes both our professional and personal thoughts, after all – aren’t all our thoughts personal?
2 comments:
You may be unique in that you are happy to share your private life with your work colleagues. I for one, prefer to keep my professional colleagues away from my friends and vice versa.
Each to his/her own I say. The point I am trying to make is that the lines are becoming increasingly blurred and sharing is a good thing. More and more people are geting hired on the basis of personality and experience - so clearly sharing a bit of your persoanl life is a good thing. Also, I think that most people aren't sharing anything that crazy on their facebook profiles anymore - it's a pin badge for brand you, an advertisement of all the good things about you, people don't tend to put stuff on their profiles that makes people think les of them. But that said, each to his/her own ;-)
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