Dimensions of trust in connections.

You can!!
Image by cuellar via Flickr

I recently had an impromptu conversation on the nature of trust in my tumblog with my fellow ‘social catalysts’ (more info coming soon). I’m fairly new to exploring this topic in this way so really appreciated the depth of responses.

The insights I’m left with are that there are essentially 3 dimensions to trust in facilitating a connection. Each dimension is a range that might be expressed as follows.

  • The person (from “they’re not a sociopathic stalker” to “they walk on water and you’ll want to be their best friend”)
  • The subject (from “i don’t think it will hurt anyone” to “they’re going to save the world and I’m devoting my life to their work”)
  • The fit (from “it won’t be a total waste of your xyz” to “it’ll be the best investment of xyz you’ve ever made”)

Of course the scale might be worded a little differently but I think you get the idea.

I wonder, if I received a LinkedIn request with 3 ‘sliders’ on each of these dimensions how would it change the process for me? Would I be able to make decisions much quicker? What if those sliders also came with histories from that recommending party – e.g. where do these slider positions relate to the average positions of their past recommendations? Where does this rank in relation to overall value/or value on each slider compared to other connections they’ve recommended? etc..

And how would it change in what went into making the connection before it got to me? Would there have been more thought? Would that help filter connections? Would I lose some valuable connections somehow?

It’s an interesting area that I’m looking forward to exploring and testing in practice through a project that I hope to announce soon. In the meantime – the more perspectives the merrier.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]