How do we find each other?

Finding people -- specifically, the people you want to find -- online can be a chore.

In the early days, the question to ask was, "Are you online?" because few people were. 

As people came online, we searched for their names and connected. We invited them to join and connect. We looked at who was connected to our connections and found more people we knew or wanted them to know, and invited them to connect.

And then the algorithm came along and started making its suggestions (brief article on how it works). Some suggestions were helpful, some were useless (suggestions that you connect with a complete stranger), and some were uncomfortable (suggestions that you connect with someone who had caused harm or ill feelings in the past). What shifted here was not just convenience, but also control.

Most of us don't want to leave it all up to the algorithm, so how can we find each other across fragmented platforms?

Using this class as an example, we know we can find each other in Canvas. We're starting to be able to find each other's blogs (see the blogroll in the sidebar). Can we find each other in other spaces? Maybe yes, maybe no. 

I know I'm easy to find if I use my real name (I don't think anyone else on the planet shares my first and last name combo), but my husband has a far more common name and is less easy to find. Names alone don't do the trick a lot of the time. Sometimes we need to add other identifiers to the search, like email, location, or profession. Could we all find each other on LinkedIn? Maybe, maybe not. How about Instagram? I bet that would be more difficult. 

We can use hashtags (#eme6414) to help aggregate our activities across spaces. However, we're still somewhat at the mercy of the algorithm there. Some algorithms play nice with hashtags, others use them but are selective in what gets surfaced.

Sometimes we know we want to find certain people, but we don't know who we are looking for. For example, I might want to find people who share an interest or experience. In those instances, I may go back to the hashtags to see if they surface others with shared interests, or I might seek an existing affinity group space where those cool kids are already hanging out.

If it sounds a bit like finding a needle in a haystack, well, at times it is exactly like that. And yet people keep searching, and people keep finding those needles (and a whole lot of hay, too).

What's been your needle-in-a-haystack experience?