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The wife and I were sharing some cheese sticks at Iggy's yesterday when she looked at me and said, "You are a Connector". Errin is reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell right now, and I read it last week so I wasn't confused by her impromptu diagnosis. Gladwell sees Connectors as the folks that not only know people but also get their kicks connecting people. She is right...it seems my favorite sentence in the world is, "Well then you need to talk to this guy".

Right now I am reading Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith which explores the concept of Connectors within a social media context. While Trust Agents is not nearly as a elegant as Tipping Point it does have its moments. I am particularly intrigued by their notion that the open nature of the web has made it impossible to impersonate being a Connector. They argue that Connectors can only be effective (trusted) when they connect for pleasure and not for financial gain, but that money tends to follow the people who would connect for free anyway.

Tipping Point and Trust Agents make the case for a motivation that transcends dollars. Do you think your online activity is solely motivated by the need to connect? Do you make some connections with the hope that they will one day monetize?