Are you a flickr contact pack rat or connoisseur?

Linktribution is given to Alan for designing the flickr contact acquisition behavior scale.

Let's start with the differences between these two types of collectors.

The term pack rat is also used in English as slang to refer to a person who collects miscellaneous items and has trouble getting rid of them and in severe cases can be a compulsive hoarder.  On the other hand, a connoisseur, is a person who has a great deal of knowledge about the fine arts, or an expert judge in matters of taste.  The term is from the french term connaître meaning "to be acquainted with something."    A connoisseur may be a collector, but makes particular choices about what they add to their collection.  Think museum curator versus pawn shop.

My virtual colleague, Alan Levine, posted a reflection about educational technologists flickr contact acquisition behavior.  So, I decided to use his scale and create a widget poll.    Alan shared this about his own flickr contact acquisition behavior:

When someone makes me a contact, the reflex is usually one of “Ahh, that makes my ego feel niiiiice, ooooh, more please”, and to take action right away. If I cannot tell who it is (which is hard form flickr user names), I do check them out, but nearly always I reciprocate.

Yup, I might be a Contact _____  (BK added rhymes with score and begins with W). 

But this FOAF (Friend of a Friend) concept is an underlying thread to tools I’ve gotten addicted to– not just the ego stroking, but the power that comes from making connections with people you both know and don’t know, and more so, using their network as a farther reach of your own.

And you really do not find anything like this in typical “educational” software, eh?

This prompted me to wonder about nonprofit flickr contact behavior and create the above poll.  Some more questions too ..

• How do you communicate with your contacts in flickr?
• How of you used your contact list as a channel for your org message?
• Tips for being effcient managing your contacts if you're a contact packrat?
• Is this FOAF concept totally foreign to nonprofit software?
• And, out of curiosity, how many contacts do you have and how have you been a flickr member?

Answer the poll and drop a comment about the other questions.

I have 250 contacts in flickr and have been a member for almost two years.  If I know the person, I make them a contact.  I look at their photos, contact lists, and group membership to see if we have anything in common before making them a contact.   I have my flickr email filtered to an outlook folder so I tend to do this contact maintenance in batches.   

I use the distinctions/viewing rights in "contacts," "friends," and "family" to manage contact communication but it isn't efficient or elegant.   I communicate with others in flickr by leaving comments on their photos and some of us have ongoing conversations in flickr.  That's also because I tend to upload photos related to my blog posts.  I have a sense that the my blog readers who visual learners like me tend appreciate it.

I also join groups and send photos to groups and use the discussion boards.  I haven't fully explored the group feature and have way fewer group members than contacts.   I'm sure I want to jump down that rabbit hole yet.

Linktrition is given to Alan for designing the flickr contact acquisition behavior scale and some day I will create the DSS Manual for Web2.0 behaviors ...

Comments

[trish]

Heck, I even blog stuff that Beth tells me to blog! Click the URL!

[CogDog]

Good on you for carrying on my half baked question into a poll!

But it is "linktribution" not "linktrition", not that it matters since only 2 people in the universe are even trying.

[Beth Kanter]

Ah, sorry . you need a little icon so I don't have worry about my spelling ..

[Michelle Murrain]

Well,pretty much only people that I actually really know in real life (or know in virtual life) email me to be contacts, so I do immediately add them. But I've never gotten anyone I don't know as a contact, and I've never requested to be a contact of someone I don't know. So I'm neither a packrat or a connoiseur, because the quality of the photos doesn't matter - it's who it is.