Panta Rhei – social networks are in an continuous flow and readjustment, as they represent the interconnected and changing relationships of its constituents, individual people.
Social networks defined this way are not necessarily bound to any specific platform like facebook.com, asw.com, xing.com, decayenne.com or internations.org. The relationships among people (i.e.networks) can be represented in different ways on different platforms.
If we take for example the network of the former students of the University of St. Gallen / Switzerland called HSG Alumni. This network has many on- and offline representations of diverse forms. In the offline world there are many different formal and informal clubs, associations, groups and circles. An official list of the more formal offline communities can be found at http://alumni.unisg.ch/
In the online world, you can find HSG Alumni on many so-called social network platforms. On internation.org and linkedin.com there are several groups called HSG Alumni. On asw.com there is a profile called HSG Alumni, which is just linked with other people holding an academic title, granted for the University of St. Gallen. Xing.com hosts a huge group called HSG Alumni, which is not even organised and initiated by a person who earned a HSG degree. In contrast to that alumni.unisg.ch and hsgalumni.net are directories and social network platforms which are exclusively built for the HSG Alumni network.
Like in this example the same applies to the network of people who are connected through the spirit of aSWZurich. It started at the end of 2004 when people and members of that time asmallworld.net began to gather through the initiatives of Isabel Florido, Stefan Siegel and myself. Nowadays this and parts of this network are represented on many platforms like asw.com, plaxo.com, internations.org and decayenne.com. The network aSWZurich uses a yahoo-based newsgroup to provide their members with an easy to use and very direct communication channel.
Yesterday we celebrated the aSWZurich spirit with more than 200 members at the ICON club in Zurich. Isabel, the aSWZurich moderators and many members of the early days had a relaxed evening among friends as can be guessed from the pictures above. For more pictures feel free to go to http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=180629940206
I am sure that at today's decayenne.com apero there will also be some of the aSWZurich members. It´s the people, not the platform that counts. Greetings to my decayenne friends. If you need an invitation to decayenne.com send an email to decayenne@globalisten.com
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