Digi Cliques...

As a mom of six daughters (two teens, two pre teens, and two toddlers), I have lots of past experience dealing with clique behavior/mentality and some to look forward to (NOT!) . It seems to be a fact of life that if more than 3 or so women are involved in ANY activity, cliques soon form. Bonding with like minded and similar interests individuals is a good thing, its only when it becomes a superiority exclusion thing that its a bad thing. And then it can become a bad bad BAD thing.

This is an excerpt from an article on workplace cliques...if you replace the word Company with digi community...well I bet you get the gist

"We all enjoy the camaraderie of people we share an interest or characteristic with, but when cliques become too exclusive, or destructive to those outside the group, the company suffers. ."

Depending on how entrenched the "clique culture" is, and how much influence you have on the environment and individuals involved, you may have a long, protracted battle on your hands to make your workplace as open, productive and objective as you'd like. It's been our experience, though, that anyone in the company who uses any one of these suggestions will improve the situation at least a little bit, and at least temporarily. Changing the situation permanently will take persistence and a more concerted effort.

It saddens me to see how firmly entrenched cliques are in the digital community. The two sets of standards that apply depending on who the person being talked about ...if she is in the 'IN" crowd, oh we must pity her, we must be understanding, we must make sure she is ok"...however she is NOT in the IN crowd....watch out poor thing....she is trashed, folks without any real knowledge of the situation make judgments, she is often shown the door and its clear she should never darken the step of the digi community again. And we (collective we) pat ourselves on the back and say it was for the good of the community.

But how often is our behavior JUST? Fair is not realistic. But we can and should always strive to be just in our dealings with others. Whether they are friends, customers or simply people we encounter in our journey through life. How often do we speak against injustice or do we close our eyes and shut our mouths for fear of ostracism and alienation? Is our behavior how we would like our children to behave because as all moms know...kids do what you do not what you say. I realize no one really cares what I think or how I feel but as a mom I want my kids to be able to look at my behavior and be proud of me.