When I was a kid back in the late ’50s, we had men’s clubs in our communities. Not the creepy men’s clubs like today but honourable organizations that meant well.

They were associations of benevolent men who did good things for their towns and charities. They were Rotary Clubs, Kinsmen, Order of Moose and Kiwanis.

We kids didn’t know all the names of these clubs so we just called them “men’s clubs”. In those days the clubs were only for men. It was a different world back then. It was more naïve than intentionally wrong that women were not included in the clubs in those days.

These clubs did a great deal of wonderful community work, like the Shriners who raised a lot of money for kids’ hospitals. Back in 1959 I was a beneficiary of the West Hill-Highland Creek Lions Club because they sponsored the rink where I played hockey in Scarborough, Ont. I am grateful to them to this day.

Clubs like this flourished in the ’40s and ’50s doing good work to benefit their communities. The men in the organizations came to realize that it was a good idea to do business with each other. After all, they had already formed a bond of trust by membership. So why not do business with fellow members? It made sense.

As time went on into the ’60s, things unfortunately began to go awry. A lot of men joined so they could make business contacts blatantly. Many of them had no interest in doing any good work for the community at all. They only wanted to get business from the members of the club. It did not take long before everyone began to talk about how these clubs were loaded with social predators.

The public perception of the clubs suffered because of that talk and memberships declined drastically. Some closed all together. The best clubs survived and solved their problems. Thank heavens they did. Many people, especially children, benefit from the continued good work the honourable men and honourable women in those clubs do for their communities.

Today we are all involved in making business contacts. Most of us call it networking. There are computer programs for organizing contacts. There are seminars for managing them.

The point is that I fear that some of this networking has become wrongful like some of the men’s clubs I knew over 50 years ago. I think we ought to be careful and to remain honourable as we gather contact names and addresses. There should be a point in our networking efforts where we have to make sure that our contacts are true contacts and that we come by them honestly. We must ensure that they are genuine and meaningful to us.

A lot of folks who network today have lost sight of any concerns about who is on their “list” of email addresses and names. The quest to gather more names seems to have become more ruthless than ever before. “Can I have your networking names? Who’s on your contact list, can I have that list?” Those questions are shamelessly asked in business conversations every day. Names are grabbed any where from any source. I have no doubt that if a list of children were available it would be grabbed and thrown on someone’s list under the guise of networking.

It seems as though many people have no limits anymore for making pitches on the Internet. It doesn’t cost any money to send messages out. There are no stamps, no advertising costs and no need to spend money on a courier. Just get names, get as many names as you can, and send, send, send. 

We now spend more money trying to stop spam and junk messages in our emails from people who somehow get our names on their “list”, than we used to spend in postage and proper advertising.

Here is my advice to anyone wanting to promote their product or service: advertise honourably in a proper medium. Pick an established credible medium you know people read, or listen to or visit on the Internet. Use a medium that presents information and news objectively. Advertise in a newspaper or website where people go of their own volition.

I confess that I do not really know how to describe social networking but I know one thing for sure. Sending out messages by computer to people that you do not know is not social networking.

Be careful that you don’t find yourself thought of as a social predator from back in the ’60s.

Heino Molls is publisher of REM. Email [email protected].