Business Networking

Move to Wordpress successful!

2005-11-22T07:07:00.000-08:00

Have finally managed to move thig blog onto WordPress and onto the aside FTP. I will be sharing the new URL once I'm done tweaking the design of the WordPress theme.

Moving/Importing/Exporting the aside Business Networking blog

2005-11-22T00:10:00.000-08:00

I recently started blogging on the Wordpress blogging platform for the aside design studio blog and have found it to be more functional and with more features to enable me to write a truly professional blog.

Personally, I feel that a good blog is one with good content and the platform does not make much of a difference, but when one can write good content and the platform can contribute to easy manageability as well as aesthetics, why not move to the better platform.

Blogger had indeed made it easy for *anyone* to start blogging but that has also led to splogs and this blog being duplicated and used by someone else - even after repeated complaints to the hosting people [ something called txthub ] and also after alerting Google [ because the duplicate blog is being used for Google AdSense too ] - nothing has been done about it.

WordPress is more secure as far as I have seen - the number of plugins to tweak a WordPress blog are innumerable and also allow for more security and functionality.

The content of this blog will be transferred instantly onto a new WordPress blog but I will not be removing the content from the biznetworking.blogspot.com domain name [ there is no way I can transfer the Google PageRank! ] - hopefully with better content in the future, I will be able to build a better PageRank on the new WordPress blog and will then probably remove content from this domain.

I love Ziggs

2005-11-03T03:17:00.000-08:00

Just for their look of the profile - the aesthetic point-of-view - I love Ziggs.com!
I have no idea how effective it is because I am still in the process of uploading my profile there, will share if something comes out of it. It looks lovely too - especially the photograph that I picked for myself!

If you are registered on Ziggs then you can view my profile on Ziggs.com - otherwise you'll have to register yourself.

Networking on the Network

2005-10-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

Networking on the Network: Started over 10 years ago, long before social web apps became ubiquitous, Phil Agre's Networking on the Network was an introduction to professional networking, using the internet, for graduate students.

The document has grown and evolved to encompass 90 pages of widely applicable advice on building professional relationships and helping others do the same. Much of what he writes is applicable to surviving in any institution.
Reading it feels like being taken aside by an expert practitioner who tells you, "Pssst....hey buddy, here's how things really work."

I am still reading it but thought would be good to share even before I reviewed it.

Stealing Blogs

2005-10-05T05:26:00.000-07:00

I was recently searching for "business networking" blogs on Google and came to a virtual copy of this blog.

Has anyone else ever faced this?
I have written to the e-mail id for support on txthub and am awaiting a reply.

Please let me know if any of you have faced this earlier and how you tackled it. I'd appreciate any information.

Just because we can connect, should we?

2005-09-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

One of the refrains when using online networking portals [ like LinkedIn and openBC ] is "Just because we can connect, should we?" Some have even asked the question many of us are too afraid even to think aloud "What if everyone got connected to everyone else?" Apart from the fact that alone time is precious [ "me-time" like Oprah raves about ], one cannot even begin to comprehend what would happen if we all connected just for the sake of being connected and having someone's name on our contact list.

It's great to be able to check my contacts list and find the right person for whatever it is that I was looking for, but having everyone on that list would be awfully boring.

Above thoughts based on this post on Tom Peter's blog.

Network Now

2005-09-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

Found this dialogue on BostonWorks.com and since I'd been hearing some similar networking questions, I thought I'd post it here.

On Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2005, as part of Big Help week, networking expert Diane Danielson talked to readers about making the right business contacts.

I am sampling some of the questions and answers here, but it would make sense to go read the complete article on their website here:

rich: Q: Should I try and keep up with a former boss with whom I did not get along? Is that a good network contact for me?
Diane_Danielson: Generally speaking, I apply the "airplane test" for networking. I don't network with anyone I wouldn't want to sit next to on a cross-country airplane flight.
Diane_Danielson: If you don't "click" for whatever reason, you're both on edge and wary of what the other person wants.

rich: Q: Supposing I have not spoken with a college classmate for 25 years or so - can I still pick up the phone and call?
Diane_Danielson: By all means, yes! Who doesn't love getting that unexpected call.
Diane_Danielson: Just lead with whatever it was that sparked your memory - ran into another old classmate, recalled that you were in the health care industry, etc.

mjc_1001: Q: Diane, how can a small IT outsourcing company attract new business? Are there recruiting companies out there that recruit business to business opportunities?
Diane_Danielson: Part of networking is "networking for information" I would try to go to organizations like a Chamber of Commerce and ask just that question.

And lots more questions from networkers who want to learn some more! Go here for the full article.

Why only online business networking?

2005-09-16T19:36:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been very busy with work and family and have had no or little time for online networking. My visits to openBC and LinkedIn have been few and far between in the last month. It has also left me wondering why we network online.

It's been great for business because I have had the opportunity to work with clients from Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands and USA - but does online networking have only one purpose? Another advantage I have gained [which is a huge advantage for an online business] is that people who are internet savvy now are aware about me and my business - they know that there is a certain "Naina Redhu" who runs a design studio in India. In fact, I'm popularly known as the "25 year-old hardhat wearing designer"

My next question(s) is(are):

Is the time that I spend networking online justified in accordance with the returns?
If I invest 4 hours each day into networking will it be more fruitful as compared to spending 4 hours a week?
How do I maximize the potential of my time spent networking online so that it is efficient and effective?

Would be nice to hear how some of you network and invest time in your online networking activities.

Networking Success

2005-08-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

I have taken both the quality and quantity approaches to networking. Fellow-networkers who lean toward the quantity approach tend to reply positively to quantity-based networking requests. For example if I "discovered" someone who had a large number of connections and is not connected to me and we also do not have many people common in our networks, I write to them saying something to the effect of "I have a network, you have a network, lets connect and share".

And this request is not sent on the spur of the moment - I tend to take a good look at their profile and find out whether they would be open to such a request. I "never" use the boiler-plate template.

I have had two "success" stories on LinkedIn [the two which are the most evident and which would probably be regarded as "success" - that can be a subject for discussion on another forum!] One was when I had just joined LinkedIn - I had no idea how to approach the "networking", who to write to and what to write to them. Overriding thought was "Who'd want to connect with me!?" I was just starting out in the innovation arena so naturally I wanted to connect with experts in that area. That's how I got in touch with Joyce Wycoff of InnovationNetwork [ www.thinksmart.com ] and we eventually worked together for a year where I assisted her with the design and innovation marketing needs of the InnovationNetwork website. So yes, I got paid, I got international exposure and I got to hone my innovation skills learning from some of the best people in the field.

The second is the most recent: David Wittenberg [ Director, Innovation WorkGroup of Optimus Solutions www.optimusltd.com ] was looking to tap the Indian market for clients who might have innovation requirements. He is the alumni of Garvin School of Management [ Thunderbird ] and I had been a judge on the 2004 Innovation Challenge and had exchanged a couple of e-mails with Anil Rathi [ www.ideacrossing.com ] who was the organizer of the competition. Anil knew David and suggested my name and told him that I was on LinkedIn too. David visited my profile, checked out my blogs/website [ using links on my profile ] and promptly called me up. I am now the Director, Indian Operations for Optimus Solutions, USA for the Innovation, Marketing and Lead Generation WorkGroups. I connected with David on LinkedIn too - after I got the job.

The above were completely "quality" links but I probably would never have come across them if I did not have quantity connections because these people were connected to someone in my "quantity" list and the people in the "quantity" list are the ones who forwarded my requests.
I have also had a handful of enquiries regarding my design services [ www.aside.in ] and one even for transcription services - but none of them have developed into anything - they've stayed at the enquiry level and "might" turn into an engagement later on.

So yes, I made some money.
How much: Hard to quantify because there are so many indirect benefits apart from the "monetary" ones.
Networking Philosophy: I try to customize each and every request that I send.
Initially, when I started out networking, I would have connected with anyone who sent a reasonable, decent and well-worded request. Now I take my time and prefer to exchange at least a couple of e-mails before connecting networks.

Some of the criteria I use are: how many connections does the person have and who are the common people connecting us. For example if there are too many common people - it's best to connect directly. Is the person also a member of the LinkedIn YahooGroups? [if he/she is, they probably know who they are connecting with and would remember me better [ some people remember me best as the 25 year old "hard-hat" wearing designer from India - check my website main-page top-left photograph www.aside.in ] I do not connect with people who don't check their spellings - especially the ones that misspell my name. Rest of it is just "thin-slicing".

I want to be "found" on LinkedIn when someone searches for "graphic design India" or "innovation India" and I want to give them the freedom to get in touch with me whichever way it suits them - not necessarily via InMail [why will a client pay to get in touch with a service provider?] There is no way that I can do a targeted search for companies/people who might need my services. But I don't think that ever was LinkedIn's purpose. [That's why I tend to wax eloquent about how openBC has given me more than six "success"-stories. - It just suits my business better.] My way of going around that issue on LinkedIn is to be connected to everyone - quite literally so - so I want to connect with as many people as possible.

For me, networking is about increasing visibility. Period.

Quality approach [ customized request/e-mail, some knowledge about the person you are writing to, clarity of intent ] always work best. If I wanted to connect with someone because they have a lot of connections AND I told them that's the reason I want to connect with them - I have had a 20% success rate with that. I did an experiment sometime back [ detailed blog post here: http://biznetworking.blogspot.com/2005/07/being-diplomatic.html ] 80% of the people did not like the "intent" of connecting only because of the numbers. These were people who have made their e-mails id's freely available on LinkedIn and mentioned on their profile that they are accepting connection requests.

Again, for me, having my e-mail id on my profile or my name on the InMail search results only serves my purpose of being found. Doesn't mean I will necessarily connect with anyone who sends me a connection invitation.

Served HOT-- LinkedIn CheatSheet #1: How to make your name visible beyond your 3rd Degree

2005-08-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

Now that we have InMail on LinkedIn, the 4th Degree contact names are no longer visible even after paying for a Business Account [feedback from the various LinkedIn YahooGroups], although the InMail actually provides access to all degrees of contact after the 3rd [the 4th, 5th, 6th and the nth], you will not be able to see the name of the person tho whom you are sending an InMail.

For someone like me - freelance designer, small business, no corporate to pay for my networking efforts, non-recruiter [where I'd probably charge the employer for the InMail sent to prospective candidate who was eventually hired] - I will need good convincing before I sign-up for a Business Account.

So there are always workarounds and like the famous LinkedIn Cheater's Guide by Christian Mayaud, I have a simple workaround to the problem presented to me by the above-mentioned situation.

Here's to better networking!

First some facts:

When you search beyond your 3rd Degree network, you do not get names of people.

You get a short part of their profile, which includes the following:

--Headline
--Location [Country]
--Industry [eg. Graphic Design]
--Currently [what the person is doing currently - eg: Director, Indian Operations with Optimus Solutions]
--Past [past employment details - 3-4 jobs - I am not sure exactly how many]
--A short bit of text which contains the keyword that you searched for
This is what an average short profile will look like [.gif file - opens in new window]

When you click on a particular Headline to get to a more detailed view of the profile then you get to see the following:

--Headline
--Location[Country]
--Industry[eg. Graphic Design]
--Current[current employment]
--Past[past employments]
--Education [list of institutes/colleges]
--Endorsements [from whom and how many]
--Summary [the summary that you enter in your profile]
--Specialities [the keywords that you enter in your profile]
--Contact Settings [who you want to connect with and what kind of requests they are open to - some people also list their e-mail here - good idea if you want to be found]
This is what an average long profile will look like [.gif file - opens in new window]

Here's what to do to get your name on the search results [and there are various ways to do this - I am only presenting the one that I use]:

Open your profile page - where you can edit your details. Edit your "HEADLINE" and include your name right at the beginning try to use brackets to seperate it from the text [See how I have done it at the end of this post]. One shortcoming of this approach is that your headline becomes shorter - you will have to remove redundant text to accomodate your name.

On your profile, also edit your summary to include whatever details you would want - the summary is included in its entirety in the search results detailed profile so think what would benefit you the most - give accurate details to the person searching. Some people could even paste their complete profile - including past employment/groups etc.

You're done!

Remember, it's the "HEADLINE" that you need to edit and include your name in so that when others search by keyword and you are not in their network, they can still see your name.

This is what my short profile looks like to someone who is not within my 3rd Degree contacts. [.gif image - opens in new window] and this is what the detailed profile looks like [.gif image - opens in new window]. My name and e-mail are included in the Headline itself - which is ofcourse a personal choice.

And I am not advocating this as a "best practice" - we all have different views and different requirements! You are welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn - do visit my LinkedIn Profile.

Business Networking and Howlers*

2005-08-09T16:27:00.000-07:00

We have been reading about misinterpreted e-mail messages in the course of business networking and I recently cited a post from the VirtualHandshake blog here, which talks about preventing flame wars.

*For those who have not read any of the Harry Potter's, a "howler" is a letter written by a parent to his child who has done something bad/wrong. A howler arrives via an owl, if not opened quickly, automatically unfolds and reads itself out "VERY LOUDLY" and once done reading, goes into explode into flames and a puff of smoke - it's MAGIC. The howler is an obvious form of scolding and anger venting method.

As I grow to understand life less and less, I learn to live it more and more.
-Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)

WHEN YOU ARE THE RECEIVER OF THE E-MAIL

Interpret less

How can we be sure what the other person meant when they wrote an e-mail to us? It isn't a face-to-face conversation [even in face-to-face conversations we're always guessing what the person "really" meant].

Give the benefit of doubt

We should have the graciousness to give the writer the benefit of doubt. With the increasing importance of e-mail communication, we need to understand it's shortcomings and accept the same. Not only should we give the benefit of doubt, we must first think that the person must have written whatever they have written, to our benefit. That they had good intentions when they wrote the e-mail.

When in doubt, ASK

If you think that the person's e-mail language/thought is unwarranted, then write to them and ask them what it is about. Tell them how you felt and what made you feel that way and mention that you would like to clarify. 99 times out of 100 the writer will respond with a "Sorry I was misunderstood" or "Sorry I was not clear enough".

Ignore

If you do not know the person well enough and the person has been blatantly rude, don't take it personally. It is not your problem, it's the writer's problem. Ignore. Especially if the person is retorting to a personal e-mail on a public forum and attacking you individually.

WHEN YOU ARE THE WRITER/SENDER OF THE E-MAIL

Be Brief

Don't ramble, PLEASE. E-mail is best when used as a very specific medium of communication. And by that I don't mean that e-mails are/should not be long, I mean they should effectively and quickly say what they want to convey - and THAT'S IT.

Don't mix subjects

If you are writing about how your dog's doing, write only about that [although I doubt you'll have anyone 'e-mail' you to ask that...]. If you are writing to explain about your latest job, write only about the "job" - factually, objectively. If you are writing about what your personal opinion is about 'anything', do not say what you think a third person believes or what the general public thinks - because that's what you "think" - you do not know it. The best way to do this is to see what the subject line says - then follow that. Separate subject, separate e-mail.

Reply to the individual

If it is a group e-mail and there is something you would like to personally discuss with an individual, reply to the person who wrote the e-mail, not to the whole group. Otherwise you will be writing an e-mail that will be irrelevant to the group and might antagonize the original writer. Unless it's an e-mail praising someone. Remember: Praise in public, insult / criticize / reprimand in private.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU DON'T AGREE WITH WHAT THE WRITER HAS TO SAY

I am all for knowing what someone else thinks. I appreciate diverse thoughts and opinions. But what I appreciate most is when someone who does not agree with my point of view writes to me saying that they do not agree with my "opinion". They don't say that they don't agree with "me". My opinion might change tomorrow and they might agree with that but I will stay the same, intrinsically, and if someone does not agree with "me" now, it's unlikely that they will agree with me tomorrow. If you are the sender of an e-mail which is meant to convey a difference of opinion and if you say that you don't agree with the person - you've got it all wrong mate! The message you'll be sending is "I don't like you". The reader's mind will read it and interpret that "This person does not like me". Don't criticize the person, criticize the opinion/idea/thought.

As always this is not a comprehensive list - these are things that work for me.

Business Networking? So what?

2005-08-08T23:35:00.000-07:00

"Why bother?
We have wonderful online networking portals like openBC and LinkedIn but why do we need them to facilitate our networking efforts?
We have our Outlook Address Book and Plaxo, so why add to the clutter with LinkedIn and openBC? After all, we just need to stay in touch with the people we know."

My point, on the contrary, is that the people/names that we have in our address book/phone diary/Plaxo, are people we already know. People we have already been in touch with, people we have interacted with - acquaintances, friends, colleagues, family. Portals like openBC and LinkedIn facilitate our interactions with "strangers". That's the basis of online business networking - connecting with strangers.

Of course different people use these portals for fulfilling varying needs. For example, recruiters use these portals to get in touch with potential candidates, employers can use it for background/reference checks, job-seekers use it find their next job, etc. People like me, [small business, freelancers, entrepreneurs, business owners] use it for Word-Of-Mouth marketing and advertising and getting in touch with potential customers/clients.

Apart from allowing us to get in touch with strangers, online networking also helps us stay up-to-date with regards to what our acquaintances are doing. What's the point of having a friend if we don't even know what they're doing? What's the point of having a world-class business service when no one knows about it? Online networking portals facilitate that awareness. Then again, the counter argument to that would be that if one had to announce a world-class service, why would one do it on openBC/LinkedIn, personally to strangers? Why shouldn't one use the "traditional" media like newspapers, magazines, websites etc.?

For me, I see more value in contacting a person individually and letting them know about my services. Once I am certain to some extent that a particular individual maybe interested in having information related to what I do, I write to them [a private message on openBC] with a short description of the synergy I see. Besides, for someone who is just starting out his/her own business and has no budget to spare on the traditional media, online networking portals are the best way to go forward. I will not say that traditional media and online networking substitute each other, at least not now anyway, but maybe in the future they will. Already, advertising on the Internet is taking a bite out of television revenues. Besides, I don't think there's a better way to reach out to an international audience!

These are my direct and immediate reasons for online business networking:

Connecting with potential customers.
Staying up-to-date with what my acquaintances are doing.
Increasing awareness about the services I offer.
Reaching out to and doing business with an international audience.
Increasing cultural exposure - learning more about other countries.
Benefiting from information available from networking that probably wouldn't be available otherwise.

This list isn't exhaustive simply because there are too many implicit advantages of online business networking that I haven't discovered just yet. If there are more that you have come across personally, let me know and I'll add it.

August Networking Links

2005-08-04T01:26:00.000-07:00

Quality Vs. Quantity by Thomas Power on his blog I agree with his statement that ".....quality stems from quantity...."

Whenever business people get together and talk about networking and how it might improve their business, one of the more emotive topics will always be quality versus quantity. The quality brigade will insist that it is important to know who it is you're talking before making a connection. They are looking for the right match to their requirements.

To those who know me, it will come as no surprise that I prefer making random connections and that I have no limits on the number of connections I'm prepared to make. In my working lifetime, I have met with 23,000 people and connected online with thousands more. Not all of those people have become close friends or even regular acquaintances but enough have for me to believe that quality can emerge from quantity.

"Technology can help you maintain a high touch relationships with a large number of people. But just how large should that number be?" ask Scott Allen and David Teten in a Fast Company article in January this year. Their conclusion is that "the number of your relationships and the average strength of your relationships end up being inversely proportional. The more people you know, the less well you know them. If you want to build stronger relationships, you're going to have to do so with a smaller number of people. You can spend all of your time with your close friends and family (strong ties, low number), or spread yourself across a wide number of people (weak ties, high number). However maintaining both high strength and high number is physically impossible".

Preventing Flame Wars: Two Basic Principles of Netiquette by Scott Allen on the Virtual Handshake Blog

"lately, including my own Virtual Handshake Network on Ryze. I expect this on, say, Slashdot or other topical networks where people are anonymous, but it really surprises me that people engage in this in a business networking context. No one looks their best when they're bickering.

There are two simple principles of netiquette that you can use to help prevent escalation of these conversations into flame wars:

1. Presume Good Intent
2. Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person"

Social Networks Report

2005-08-01T15:02:00.000-07:00

Original post on Wildbit.com

"This report is the result of an in depth analysis on social networks for a web community project at Wildbit. The report aimed to discover how to attract members, define structure, influence participation, and manage the community in order to design the web site prototypes."

"It's 35 pages and full of valuable information on preparing, maintaining, and supporting a social network. It also features a comparitive analysis on the various methods that some of the most popular social networks use within their design."

The structure of the report is as follows [Taken from the Table of Contents]:

1. General Guidelines of Community Design
2. Attracting New Members
3. Structure of the Community
4. Encouraging User Participation
5. Stimulating Social Interactions

Download the Report [PDF 750 KB]

Quality vs. Quantity

2005-07-31T20:59:00.000-07:00

A debate regarding the Quality vs. Quantity [QvQ] issue has been going on for quite sometime now on the LinkedIn YahooGroups [MyLinkedInPowerForum and LinkedInnovators]. Lots of inividual opinions about how people tackle the issue themselves.

One of my connections on LinkedIn, Barbara Holtzman, who is the Founding Partner & Senior Associate of the BDH Group, had the following to say on the LinkedInnovators YahooGroup:

" There's an American/English saying, "Beating a dead horse." It's starting to apply to the QvQ debate. Why do people care? Humans as a species are caring creatures and we each have our own list of things we care about, sometimes passionately, especially when it comes to relationships - which is what networks are sets of.

Those who say you can't maintain active relationships with 100, 1,000, or 10,000, whatever the number they state, are probably correct. So? Someone I haven't heard from in a few months asked me if I knew anyone who might want to buy his art, and I do - but I haven't spoken to her in oh, maybe 5 years. Neither time span doesn't at all mean I wasn't pleased he asked, or that she wasn't thrilled to hear from me again (she was) and is, indeed, interested in this project. Deep, shallow, what does it matter? Two people got connected, and they probably wouldn't have without me.

Under some of the criteria listed here, she wouldn't even have been in my address book. Most than three, six, twelve months, no job, no deals, no whatever? Dump 'em! By the way, if you set up your contacts in Outlook, Act!, or similar programs in a "tickler" file, which salespeople use to make sure they remember to follow-up, then you can check and see whether you've been in touch or not. The journal in Outlook also helps track contact.

This timed method may work for some, but it doesn't work for me. I've met the most amazing people through online networking, some I see, some I speak to on the phone, some I email - and others are just there, on the list, waiting until I THINK OF SOMETHING I CAN DO FOR THEM. I do give to get, I'm not completely altruistic, but giving is the most important piece of it for me - not any quid pro quo.

Perhaps that's a dividing line between the quality-ists and the quantity-ists (better terms altogether than some we've used). The quality folks believe that it's better to only have a few people you can know really well, and keep out everyone else, or that if someone can't do something for you, then you don't need them, and the quantity folks believe that there's no such thing as someone it isn't worth it to know, and that just because you can't do a deal this week doesn't mean they won't ever be of value in some way. They may also be motivated by the thrill of having a big first level, just as the quality-ists are motivated by having a small, manageable list, and emphasize but "pure," if you will, list.

Both sides have positives and negatives - and if you heard judgment in any of that, it's in your head, not mine. This is the focal point of the "why do people care" argument - if you think I've improperly synthesized everything that's been said about the topic, well, that's what a discussion is for.

Which can go on forever, god help the moderators - but it seems to have taken on an unpleasant undertone - anger, that one way is right and the other wrong, as if to say, "why can't you on the other side see the point" of whatever the one side is saying about itself at the moment? Since there is, arguably, no "right" way to network, only your own way, and it could be a very personal method, not to mention the personal nature of networking itself, how could there be a "right" way or a "wrong" way? "

Thank you for the permission for letting me share this Barbara!

July Networking Links

2005-07-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

Job-seeking? Head-hunting? Online Networking? by Joy Davia on the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. The article is obviously LinkedIn-centric [doesn't even mention that there are other portals out there!] but is written well and is insightful - as compared to some other web article we've seen!

"But there's another tool, used by headhunters and job-seekers alike, that's gaining in popularity: online networking sites, such as LinkedIn.com" And then there are others...

"Still, I wonder whether such a service would be useful for non-techy people.
Top industries in my network of more than 6,000 people - based on just two connections - were mostly IT, computer and telecommunications people. (But that could just be me.)"

There's a lot of variety there! I am a designer / innovation consultant / photographer / business networking consultant and have been using the system for a year now - I have made contact with and read profiles of hundreds of people - from almost all industries and sectors.

LinkedInNotes Blog by Richard Upton. Notes about LinkedIn, the online business networking tool. Contains posts like:

"LinkedIn Only a Tool for within the Larger Networking Process" and
"LinkedIn Tips: Step-by-Step".

Network with you? I don't even know you! from The Career Journal. The articles starts with:

"A little over a month ago, an online service that manages Ben Harel's business contacts sent out one of those automatic emails asking his contacts to update their personal information in his digital address book. Such procedures are supposed to freshen up the Rolodex and may even encourage a little reunion among old business acquaintances. But in this case at least one recipient -- me -- didn't have the foggiest notion where he could have met Mr. Harel.

So I left a message for Mr. Harel to call me back. No need to explain who I was because he apparently knew this. "You know who I am, right?" I asked him when he returned my call.

"The truth of the matter?" he asked sheepishly. "No." "

The 10 Secrets of a Master Networker from Inc.com.

"Keith Ferrazzi needs two PalmPilots to keep track of all his contacts, people like Bill Clinton and Michael Milken. But there's far more to cracking the inner circle of the power elite than just taking names.

Keith Ferrazzi enters your life like a circus coming to town -- the two ringing cell phones, the two PalmPilots, the multiple conversations in which he seems to be listening and talking simultaneously. The way he walks and looks, all tanned and fit, with the styled hair and custom suit and black Prada shoes. The deals that are hanging in the air, the favors being extended or secured, the sideshows, the laughter, the juggling. That irresistible balloon of energy."

Never Eat Alone Blog. Keith Ferrazzi's blog - with some good informational articles. This is what Keith has to say in one of his posts about LinkedIn:

"In most of my speaking and writing about building relationships for success, I focus on helping people acquire a relationship mindset through understanding and practicing four fundamental principles.
1. You can't get there alone.
2. Business relationships are personal relationships, which are built upon developing real
3. Intimacy through sharing passions and struggles and
4. Giving without keeping score." The complete POST.

'My openBC' Yahoo Group

2005-07-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

The My openBC Group has been officially launched today!

If you are an openBC user, join the first openBC YahooGroup "My openBC".
Feel free to first visit the Home Page of My openBC and join by sending an e-mail.

Description of the My openBC Group:

"'My openBC' is an open discussion group for networkers on the openBC platform.

This is 'the' forum to:

- discuss ways to maximize benefits arising out of being a member of openBC,
- share observations about openBC and its features,
- share success stories and experiences,
- discuss best practices to make excellent use of the openBC experience,
- assist openBC to be a customer-centric innovator by sharing new ideas and suggestions for enhancements.

We are, indeed, Networking People!"

Currently David Regler is co-moderating alongwith me and we would welcome a couple of more people to be part of the Moderator Panel. If you would be interested, please get in touch with us via e-mail.

openBC: "Introduce Contact" Feature

2005-07-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

Some users, after connecting directly - on openBC - tend to turn off the "Receive Private Messages" option. For example, once 'A' is connected with 'B' and 'A' has access to all/some contact information of 'B' [depending on the options that 'B' has set], 'B' might turn off "Receive Private Messages from A" - assuming that since e-mail information has already been made available, there is no need to receive messages on the openBC platform.

Till recently, I assumed that this would be a good option - to minimize e-mail on the openBC platform and divert it to my inbox. But I still refrained from using it since I was not aware of other implications. Glad that I did not use it!

I have not once used the "Introduce Contact" feature on openBC. Just today, a friend of mine needed to get in touch with a Recruiter / Placement Consultant. I had 9 of them in my network. Instead of e-mailing them separately - which would have entailed my copying the link to my friend's profile, digging out each Recruiter's e-mail id and writing 9 separate e-mails. Instead, I decided to use the "Introduce Contact" feature. My only inhibition was that if I introduced 'A' to 'B' but 'B' was not interested, I would be in a bit of a soup because then I would have to personally write to 'A' intimating the negative response from 'B'.

To my surprise, I discovered that there were two options - I could send a "two-way" introduction [where both parties would receive the e-mail] or I could send a "one-way" e-mail - where only 'B' would know of 'A's' need and if interested, they could directly get in touch with 'A'!

One of the potential recipients had, unfortunately turned off the receipt of Private Messages, so the system was unable to deliver the message to that person.

So, in my opinion, to maximize the benefits of the openBC system, it would be better to keep the receipt of private messages functional on your profile. Otherwise you never know what you might be missing.

openBC bigger than LinkedIn?

2005-07-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

Thank you for cross-linking Oliver!

"They both have their market and will likely exist next to each other, even though I'd have nothing against them buying each other so I only have one site to use ;)"

I know what you mean! It's the user's viewpoint that matters after all!

LinkedIn and InMail

2005-07-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

Interesting and exciting changes forthcoming on LinkedIn!
As a user, I greatly appreciate the portal for bringing about improvements that will help me be a more effective and efficient networker.

From Dave Taylor's Blog:

"Marketing VP and LinkedIn Co-Founder Konstantin Guericke just gave me the go-ahead to share this exciting information about a major new functionality that'll be added to LinkedIn a few weeks from now! Here's what he shared about InMail and how it'll work. As for me, I can't wait to be able to really tap the power of the entire LinkedIn member database, not just the subset my contacts are in touch with...

As you know from my prior posts and requests for input, we've been working on the design for key improvements to LinkedIn in the areas of search and making contact as well as providing for a sustainable revenue model and allowing everyone to understand what premium services are being charged for.

Next month, we'll be launching the ability to search beyond your personal network and to contact people through InMail. In addition to results from your personal network, you will be able to see the best results from the entire LinkedIn Network. For example..."

For full post please visit here.

More Alexa

2005-07-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

I had no idea there was a way of viewing comparison graphs too! So here they are:

This one is a comparison of the Site Ranks.
The red line is LinkedIn and the blue line is openBC. Note that since this is a ranking graph, the units on the Y-axis start from about 80,000 and go upto 2000 - since a lower number would mean a better rank.

This one is a comparison of Daily Reach - measured by the number of people per million who use / visit the website daily. Honestly, this was quite surprising - even though LinkedIn has 3 million members and openBC 500,000, the only explanation why openBC's reach graph is higher is the usage. openBC users seem to be utilizing the system well!

This one is a comparison of the Page Views.
The above point about the Daily Reach is proved right when we look at this graph - there are almost similar Page View graphs for both openBC and LinkedIn even though LinkedIn has 6 times more members that openBC.

Usability of the openBC interface seems to be higher - no surprise considering the number of flexible features that they have provided. I do like the colors on LinkedIn better [ being the designer that I am ] ! I admit both platforms might have different value offerings but we're talking business networking here and the common thread would be to facilitate connections.

The above data can be looked at in detail here.

Please note, the reason I have not bothered to include any other comparisons is because the only two serious online "business networking" portals are openBC and LinkedIn - if you feel otherwise - feel free to comment and post further on you blog! I'll be happy to link!

openBC, LinkedIn and Alexa - Why openBC Part II

2005-07-18T01:17:00.000-07:00

The statistics never lie! This is meant to be part II for the "Why openBC?" post on this blog. [ All data from Alexa ]

openBC site daily reach for the last to years

LinkedIn site daily reach for the last to years

openBC site stats

LinkedIn site stats

More details for openBC on Alexa and LinkedIn on Alexa

Cross-postings

2005-07-18T00:23:00.000-07:00

David Teten of the VirtualHandshake referenced my blog on the LinkedIn or LockedOut post,for the comment on the Entrepreneur.Com article on business networking. Thank you.

Paul Allen, who had been interviewed for the Entrepreneur.com article also mentions my comment as being an "interesting response" on his blog. Thank you.

I appreciate the medium of blogging and the online business networking portals for inspiration - I have been allowed to connect and interact with people I never would have known in my entire lifetime otherwise.

Being Diplomatic

2005-07-18T00:03:00.000-07:00

During my last one month of networking on openBC and LinkedIn, I have also joined three YahooGroups related to LinkedIn:

1. MyLinkedinPowerForum
2. LinkedInnovators and
3. LinkedInBloggers

In the past month, I have sent over a hundred "Requests to Connect" to people who have clearly mentioned on their profiles that:
1. They are open to invitations to connect and
2. Have listed their e-mail id's
But of course these people are strangers to me - personally.

My invitation e-mail to them contained a paragraph similar to the one below:
"I would like to connect networks with you to increase the visibility of my profile and my business services."

My aim in doing this was two-fold: to be straightforward about my reason for requesting to connect with them and also to see what the response would be. Apart from the above text, the rest of the request e-mail was customized for each person.

Time and again, I have re-iterated that when we want to connect with someone we do not know [ that's part of the point of networking isn't it? that we connect with virtual strangers, get to know them better, invest time in building a relationship and create friends / business associates for life ], we must be clear why we want to connect with them. Once that clarity is achieved in our minds, we can translate that into a "suitable" e-mail and send it across.

I got positive replies to 21 of the 100 requests that I sent that included the text above. Another six replied in the negative and the remaining did not reply.

1. Being straighforward / honest about one's intent does not always work.
2. People who list their e-mail id's on their profiles and clearly state that they are open to connecting, are not necessarily going to connect even if they say so.
3. A selfish-sounding "anything" will get rejected 75% of the time.

I also sent requests to connect to other people - who had their e-mails listed on their profiles and clearly stated that they were open to connecting - without the above-mentioned text. Although I was connecting with them for visibility purposes, I did not mention that in my message - I simply stated "It would be a pleasure to connect networks with you. I am [short description of my business]. My web presence [list of blogs/websites that I write / those that identify me]."
90% of these requests were accepted.

I guess being diplomatic always counts.

I'd like to thank the 21 people who replied in the positive to my e-mails and would like to acknowledge their spirit in accepting the connection requests.

Comment on i4donline.net

2005-07-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

LinkedIn is not a "social" networking portal, it is a "business" networking portal. Also, openBC is not even mentioned! Other portals, which are social networking portals like Ryze don't even come close to the impact that LinkedIn and openBC have had. I personally have done business with people from all over the world because of online networking and the social networking sites have unfortunately not yielded anything more than requests for "dates"!

Also, the facts in the article seem old - 20th June 2005, LinkedIn had more than 2.8 million users and they have already crossed the 3 million mark two days back [24th June]. Business networking is allowing the metaphor of the flat world as written about my Thomas Friedman, to turn into everyday reality - I have access to the whole world and compete with professionals from all over the globe too!

On the Web

Comment on Economic Times Article

2005-07-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

Akshay, although you mentioned Ryze in your article, you completely skipped online business networking portals like openBC and LinkedIn. No discussion on business networking is complete without mentioning the above portals. They are two of the best in industry and Ryze is not even a business networking portal - it is a social networking portal.

I personally have done business and made money because of business networking via openBC and even landed a job because of my networking on LinkedIn. Online Business Networking is not only the latest "fad" it is actually creating a "flat world" that Friedman talks about in his book. I have written extensively about business networking on my blog http://biznetworking.blogspot.com and am the most networked person in India on openBC. Although traditional face-to-face meetings and networking can never be discounted, we are moving toward [I am already there] an era where face-to-face would only be to finally see who the heck we were doing business with all this while.

On the Web

Return On Network

2005-07-07T00:50:00.000-07:00

Now Out: July edition of Return On Network

Take This MIT Survey - Social Networking, Blogs

2005-07-01T23:06:00.000-07:00

Network Online, Get Hired

2005-06-28T18:11:00.000-07:00

My "Letter to the Editor" for the Financial Express Article: "Network online, get hired".

"Netting jobs Apropos the article 'Network online, get hired' in eFE (June 20). Social networking and business networking are two very different areas, as far as getting hired is concerned. If you need a date, a social networking site would probably help. But for getting business or a job, you need to be on a business network portal. Also, the facts in the article don't seem uptodate.

On June 20th, LinkedIn had more than 2.8 million users and on June 24th they crossed the 3 million mark. As for openBC, it is picking up fast - about two weeks ago, they crossed the 500,000 mark. For a relatively new portal, they're gaining fast. Ryze is definitely not a "business networking" site. It's a social networking site.

I disagree with Kris Lakshmi-kanth, founder CEO & managing director, The Head Hunters India, who says he does not see any trend towards such sites for job-seekers. It might not be seemingly evident, but with the rise of truly professional business networking portals, I can't see job-seekers going anywhere else.Not only does business networking provide a vast pool of options to head hunters, it also allows job-seekers to make choices they probably wouldn't even know existed. It would be a good idea to find out the best places for business networking. But business networking is the facilitator for the "flat world."

June Networking Links

2005-06-26T20:29:00.000-07:00

openBC Networking Forum

Social networking sites link people across Web by common interests from the Olympian.
Initially, social networking sites were dismissed as a fad, but the number of visitors to these sites can't be ignored. For example, 8 million unique users visited MySpace last month alone.

Similar sites focusing on business networking also have sprung up. People join to promote their business and find new employment opportunities. They also can be used to find professional services through acquaintances.

Earn crores by online biz networking from the Economic Times.
A smart networking within your business community could be your big ticket to become a multi-millionaire. With internet connectivity at offices and homes, keeping in constant touch with like minded people to share ideas and information with each other is no more a problem. And we are not talking of emails and chats.

Online networking -- shortcut or privacy leak? from the Miami Herald.
The Internet can be a powerful tool for business networking, but skeptics are concerned about giving out sensitive information.

Bands and Social Networking from Wired News.
In the absence of radio play, garage bands all across America are establishing a presence on MySpace, a social-networking site popular with young adults. Traditionally, bands toured cities and played dive bars to create buzz about their music. But with MySpace, bands can host demos of their songs, announce shows and connect with fans without spending weeks on the road.
"We've developed communities for unknown bands really quickly, which would take a lot longer a few years back," said Alan Miller, co-founder of Filter magazine, which last month teamed up with MySpace to develop The Booth, an online promotion featuring a different band each week.
"It's a medium where people can go and hear new music and develop an attachment to the band," said Miller.
MySpace is aimed at teenagers. It claims more than 15 million members, and even established acts like Weezer, Beck and Billy Corgan are starting to realize the potential of social networking.

Network online, get hired from the Financial Express.
For job seekers and recruiters, online social networking sites are yet another platform to find the right fit. The key benefit of a social networking site is the credibility it offers, as the online contact is generated by a common link or referral. Some of the social networking companies includes names such as LinkedIn, Ryze, Orkut, ZeroDegrees, Friendster and Tribe. These sites are based on Stanley Milgram's 1967 research which asserted that people in the world are separated by no more than six degrees. The chances of getting a response from those you don't know through e-mail and telephone is negligible, but LinkedIn users have got responses which are as high as 83 percent. And this is where social networking sites score over cold calls.
[Referring short post here.]

Social Networking: Broken, Boring, or Offtrack? from Corante.
The possible big bang in social networking has not happened: no one has gained the critical mass needed to clearly demonstrate some transformative business case. What I don't understand is why haven't the obvious players tried to incorporate some elements of social networking into their solutions?

UPDATE

Working the Net from Entrepreneur.com
Paul Allen, managing partner of business incubator Infobase Ventures in Provo, Utah, likes to help entrepreneurs with advice on business plans and raising capital. But as a frequent lecturer at business schools and conferences, he recently found himself inundated with requests. So he made a new rule: If you're not a member of the LinkedIn network with a minimum of 10 connections and two endorsements on the site, don't even bother calling him. "The most important thing for an entrepreneur is not necessarily what they know, but who they know," says Allen. I don't agree, but it's an opinion!

UPDATE - II

Networking: Tap into the Power of Keywords and Strategic Linking!
Talks only about Ryze, but would help in other online business networking portals. [Once again, Ryze is "not" business networking - it is social networking.]

UPDATE - III

Online Networking to your next new job from Bella Online
Whether you are a Freelancer, a small business owner or looking for a job, online networking can be a great source for contacts and can even pull in that much sought after job you have been searching for. Online Networking gives people from all over the world a chance to interact with each other and if you join enough of the right groups, that new job could be just around the corner.

Entrepreneur.com Business Networking

2005-06-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

My Letter to the Editor on the Working The Net article from Entrepreneur.com mentioned in this post on this blog.

I don't agree with Paul Allen's rule "If you're not a member of the LinkedIn network with a minimum of 10 connections and two endorsements on the site, don't even bother calling him."

Endorsements at least, are not a means to measure a person's worth. Colleagues, clients and people we know who will not say anything negative about us write all our endorsements. Even if they did, we have an option to not publish those endorsements. So the endorsements don't serve any other purpose except making the person receiving them feel good about himself / herself. I have only one endorsement from a long-term clients and that has neither prevented me from landing a job on LinkedIn nor from signing deals with clients from all over the world.

I also do not understand why anyone would "only" want to connect with someone who has a large number of connections. If a person is well networked it means that he / she is a good conversationalist, has the time to personally keep in touch with all his connections and makes an effort to do so and maybe he / she is "good with people". The number of professionals on our personal networks only adds "snobbery" value when someone we do not know views the same.

I can understand why Paul Allen, who is a busy man, needs to critically view each person who approaches him for connecting on the LinkedIn network or for VC funding. Fact is, all of us are busy professionals and need to set some boundaries about our networking practices. Each person has different rules, different best practices and different approaches to how they handle business networking and using one example as a general sentiment is biased.

Why is the article only mentioning LinkedIn and Spoke? LinkedIn maybe a online business networking portal with the maximum members but it is not the best. It has competition - from a lesser-known European entity called openBC, which recently crossed its 500,000 mark. Features and functionality on openBC are without a match and like a lot of networkers I need as much flexibility as possible in deciding who needs to contact me and who can see my contact information. And last I "heard" in the networking community, people were leaving Spoke in droves.

Online business networks are wonderful tools that make the metaphorical "flat world" of Friedman a reality.
I am based in India and 90% of my business comes from openBC network contacts, which are overseas. I do not need to meet them, in some cases I do not even need to speak to them in real-time and still I get assignments and deliver AND get paid. These networks allow me to compete with people from all over the world in gaining clients from all over the world. Every person I meet is a potential client - since my work is digital - it is showcased on the web and these potential clients do not need to meet me to ensure the credibility of my work; they can write e-mail to my past clients to find out more. Why should I limit myself only to Indian clients when I know that the whole world is accessible?

As for premium or free memberships, these networking portals offer a fantastic service that I am willing to pay for. LinkedIn might be "free" currently but they are certainly moving toward a paid membership model and finding out what features disappear for free members is a function if time. OpenBC too offers a month of free premium membership and the free membership isn't too debilitating either - but looking at the features offered to a premium member, I don't see any reason why I should not pay for them. If I had to work with international clients without these networking portals, I would have to invest huge sums in advertising, marketing, phone bills etc.

"Muse observes, however, that the growing pool could hurt entrepreneurs. "I think, over time, it's going to get less useful because there will be too many people connecting to too many people, so eventually, we're all connected," he says. Discriminating users, he adds, could help maintain the value." But isn't that the whole point - to have access to everyone? I believe that's one aspect of the flat world that Friedman talks about. I believe that everyone being connected to everyone will not be as easy as Muse states. There are people in online business networking, who take it up with much enthusiasm, make connections, but because of an underlying belief that it couldn't possible work for them, they give up - but they don't leave the system. They are those people who will not do any more online networking and even hinder the process for other networkers.
Besides, how do we determine what factors to use in discriminating users? Isn't everyone we meet a potential client or a connection to a potential client? If someone walks up to you in a traditional face-to-face networking meeting and you realize that your businesses are not a perfect fit for business opportunities, will you ask that person to leave only on that basis?

Of course online business networking can be and is being used in conjunction with traditional face-to-face networking events. But why should I waste my time fretting over the "meeting" part when I know that its easy to get on with a successful deal without meeting the client. What's there to know? The client has seen my work, has double-checked with past clients, has chatted with me using free VoIP and has also been given some convincing ideas from my end - why should he / she spend more time trying to "meet" me? Isn't that also one of the reasons why we use online business networking? To "e-meet" people whom we cannot immediately meet face-to-face and forge relationships?

And who are we kidding, we are here to do business and make money and anyone who claims otherwise is either a fool or a liar. Of course at some point we all want to "give back to the network". But if we do not receive anything from the network in the first place, who has the time or the inclination to "give"?

"But if you never go to networking events and just sit in your house and play on LinkedIn, you're not going to get anywhere. You have to know people for it to have value." I disagree - I just sit at my house and play with openBC and LinkedIn and I haven't been to any networking events yet and I'm doing just fine - in fact, I'm doing great! Of course I'm planning to attend the next event but that's because I already know so many people and have interacted with them so many times that "meeting" them is the next logical step. I believe and have experienced that the potential of online business networking portals - at least openBC and LinkedIn - is far bigger than any of us can even imagine - not only for the networks themselves, but for their members too. We just have to use our imagination.

Networking Comment

2005-06-24T23:45:00.000-07:00

My comment on "Social Networking: Broken, Boring, or Offtrack?" on Corante

I can understand the dissatisfaction with social networking. What I do not understand is the dissatisfaction with business networking sites - specifically LinkedIn and openBC. Much has been written about social networking sites but very few articles / blog posts differentiate between the "business" and the "social".

I personally, as an avid networker on openBC [ more than 1200 professionals on my network ] and LinkedIn [ more than 450 professionals on my network ] have not only connected with "strangers" who helped me get a job, but I have also done business with professionals half-way across the globe. I have actually made money on business networking sites and know lots of others who have done the same. I have been on other social networking sites and have effectively discontinued my membership to them because they did not add any value whatsoever.

But the same is not true of Business Networking portals and the only two I know of, which deliver what they proclaim are openBC and LinkedIn.

openBC offers features unparalleled by any other portal and the contention that traditional face-to-face networking suffices for your business needs only says that you are happy living in the status quo. Why would any business that wants to grow and create a presence [ why should that onus lie only on large "MNC's"? ] limit itself to "local" potential clients when at a very nominal fee they can connect with literally anyone they want to from anywhere in the world!

My Flat World Thanks to Networking

2005-06-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

A level playing field for me means that even though I do not work for / own / run a corporation / organization / company, technological advances like the ones Friedman mentions allow me to be a one-person organization.

I can work with anyone from anywhere in the world without having to bother about infrastructure and seed-capital. [I am a designer, photographer, writer, innovation consultant and business-networking consultant.]

I do business online and offsite and my only marketing and advertising is "word-of-mouth". I use networking portals like openBC and LinkedIn, make contact with potential clients from all over the world, sign deals with them and get paid – all online. I do not necessarily "have-to" meet the people I am working for. It is a level playing field for the customer and for the service-provider, which each can use to their advantage. A customer can find a low-cost option if that’s what he / she is looking for. A customer can find the most talented, respected, qualified and experienced service-provider if that’s what he / she is looking for. Walls of cultural differences are coming down and while the ultimate goal of a truly flat world might not seem so evident, we are undeniably moving toward it.

While it might be person / sector / industry / economics specific currently, the "flat" world is definitely no longer a metaphor - the Internet and other technological advances and the English language have indeed made it a "flat" world for me. It is a level playing field for me because now I have access to opportunities that otherwise would not even have existed in my perceived world.

Positive Professional Image

2005-06-22T18:57:00.000-07:00

by Laura Morgan Roberts

People are constantly observing your behavior and forming theories about your competence, character, and commitment, which are rapidly disseminated everywhere. It is only wise to add your voice in framing others' theories about who you are and what you can accomplish.

What is the professional image?

Your professional image is the set of qualities and characteristics that represent perceptions of your competence and character as judged by your key constituents (i.e., clients, superiors, subordinates, colleagues).

Desired and Perceived Professional Image

It is important to distinguish between the image you want others to have of you and the image that you think people currently have of you.

Most people want to be described as technically competent, socially skilled, of strong character and integrity, and committed to your work, your team, and your company. Research shows that the most favorably regarded traits are trustworthiness, caring, humility, and capability.

Ask yourself the question: What do I want my key constituents to say about me when I'm not in the room? This description is your desired professional image. Likewise, you might ask yourself the question: What am I concerned that my key constituents might say about me when I'm not in the room? The answer to this question represents your undesired professional image.

You can never know exactly what all of your key constituents think about you, or how they would describe you when you aren't in the room. You can, however, draw inferences about your current professional image based on your interactions with key constituents. People often give you direct feedback about your persona that tells you what they think about your level of competence, character, and commitment. Other times, you may receive indirect signals about your image, through job assignments or referrals and recommendations. Taken together, these direct and indirect signals shape your perceived professional image, your best guess of how you think your key constituents perceive you.

Impression Management

Despite the added complexity of managing stereotypes while also demonstrating competence, character, and commitment, there is promising news for creating your professional image! Impression management strategies enable you to explain predicaments, counter devaluation, and demonstrate legitimacy. People manage impressions through their non-verbal behavior (appearance, demeanor), verbal cues (vocal pitch, tone, and rate of speech, grammar and diction, disclosures), and demonstrative acts (citizenship, job performance).

Positive Distinctiveness
Using verbal and non-verbal cues to claim aspects of your identity that are personally and/or socially valued, in an attempt to create a new, more positive meaning for that identity. Positive distinctiveness usually involves attempts to educate others about the positive qualities of your identity group, advocate on behalf of members of your identity group, and incorporate your background and identity-related experiences into your workplace interactions and innovation.

Social recategorization
Using verbal and non-verbal cues to suppress other aspects of your identity that are personally and/or socially devalued, in an attempt to distance yourself from negative stereotypes associated with that group. Social recategorization involves minimization and avoidance strategies, such as physically and mentally conforming to the dominant workplace culture while being careful not to draw attention to identity group differences and one's unique cultural background.

Successful impression management can generate a number of important personal and organizational benefits, including career advancement, client satisfaction, better work relationships (trust, intimacy, avoiding offense), group cohesiveness, a more pleasant organizational climate, and a more fulfilling work experience. However, when unsuccessfully employed, impression management attempts can lead to feelings of deception, delusion, preoccupation, distraction, futility, and manipulation.

Credibility and Authenticity

In order to create a positive professional image, impression management must effectively accomplish two tasks: build credibility and maintain authenticity. When you present yourself in a manner that is both true to self and valued and believed by others, impression management can yield a host of favorable outcomes for you, your team, and your organization. On the other hand, when you present yourself in an inauthentic and non-credible manner, you are likely to undermine your health, relationships, and performance.

Most often, people attempt to build credibility and maintain authenticity simultaneously, but they must negotiate the tension that can arise between the two. Your "true self," or authentic self-portrayal, will not always be consistent with your key constituents' expectations for professional competence and character. Building credibility can involve being who others want you to be, gaining social approval and professional benefits, and leveraging your strengths. If you suppress or contradict your personal values or identity characteristics for the sake of meeting societal expectations for professionalism, you might receive certain professional benefits, but you might compromise other psychological, relational, and organizational outcomes.
How to Manage your Professional Image

First, you must realize that if you aren't managing your own professional image, someone else is. People are constantly observing your behavior and forming theories about your competence, character, and commitment, which are rapidly disseminated throughout your workplace. It is only wise to add your voice in framing others' theories about who you are and what you can accomplish.

Be the author of your own identity. Take a strategic, proactive approach to managing your image:

Identify your ideal state.

What are the core competencies and character traits you want people to associate with you?
Which of your social identities do you want to emphasize and incorporate into your workplace interactions, and which would you rather minimize?

Assess your current image, culture, and audience.

What are the expectations for professionalism?
How do others currently perceive you?

Conduct a cost-benefit analysis for image change.

Do you care about others' perceptions of you?
Are you capable of changing your image?
Are the benefits worth the costs? (Cognitive, psychological, emotional, physical effort)

Use strategic self-presentation to manage impressions and change your image.

Employ appropriate traditional and social identity-based impression management strategies.
Pay attention to the balancing act - build credibility while maintaining authenticity.

Manage the effort you invest in the process.

Monitoring others' perceptions of you
Monitoring your own behavior
Strategic self-disclosure
Preoccupation with proving worth and legitimacy

From HBS Working Knowledge

Why openBC

2005-06-20T11:55:00.000-07:00

Many people have been asking me why I prefer openBC as an online business networking portal: although I have answered and given my two cents in personal e-mails, I just had to think some more and enumerate adn articulate my thoughts and those features of openBC that make it truly valuable.

SEARCH

Not only does it provide drop-down categories, it also allows keyword searches. Makes it easy to narrow-down my search - so even though there is a limit for viewing only 200 members per search result, you'll never have a problem.

"Haves" and "Wants"
This allows the user to match profiles with other users who might require what they have to offer and vice versa. There isn't any other online business networking portal with such a powerful and accurate search criteria.

Maiden Name
People who marry and take on the last name of their spouse can still be searched under their maiden name. One reason I personally did not change my name after marriage was because I wanted to keep the recall value that my name had in my business circle!

No bias based on people with the maximum number of contacts
The person on the network, who has the maximum connections, also gets the maximum requests to connect. Connections attract connections - while that might be a good thing for name collectors, openBC discourages that practice because it goes against the basics of business networking, which is to build relationships. So there is no search criteria or listing where you search your network giving the option of "number of connections". Quality more than quantity and hence the quantity you build will be the best quality.
It might not tell other members how you're faring, but it does tell you what your "rank" is in terms of connections - but only within your own country!

Search categories:

First name [and similar] [keyword]
Family name [and similar] [keyword]
Universities [keyword]
Other interests [keyword]
Organizations [keyword]
Status [(all), Entrepreneur, Employee, Freelancer]
Company (now) [keyword]
Company (previous) [keyword]
Industry [keyword]
Title (now) [keyword]
Title (previous) [keyword]
Person has [keyword]
Person wants [keyword]
City, business [keyword]
Country, business [(all) - drop-down]
Zip code, business [keyword]
State, business [keyword]
Member since [(all), less than 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days]

And you can search in:

Your languages only
Your contacts only
Your contacts up to 2nd degree
All of openBC

Search Agents
You can create up to 20 different search agents and carry out periodical searches using the same and even have the results delivered to your personal inbox via e-mail!

Pre-defined searches - Power Search

Members who visited your contact page recently
Members whose contact page you visited recently
Members who clicked your company homepage recently
Members who clicked one of your former companies' homepage recently
Members who recently viewed your "about me" page
Random contacts of my contacts
All contacts of my contacts
Next birthdays of my contacts
Random contacts in my vicinity [geographically]
Co-workers: same former company as you
Members of the same organizations as you are
Members who attended the same universities that you did
Members whose "wants" match your "haves"
Members who "haves" match your "wants"
The newest members
Members logged in recently
Random members with an "about me" page

LANGUAGES

Options to network in the language you want. Currently caters to:

English
Dutch
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Nederland
Svenska
Suomi
Japanese
Chinese
Russian
Korean
Polish
Turkish

BIRTHDAY REMINDERS

No need to depend on other software platforms to get birthday reminders - you can see them on your homepage whenever you login. Also the weekly statistics e-mail that openBC send out to all its members (if they choose to receive it) give a list of people whose birthday it is in the week.

WEEKLY STATISTICS NEWSLETTER

List of birthdays in the week - from your contacts only
Short list of newest members who joined openBC
Statistics about the number of hits your contacts page on openBC received in the particular week. Average number of hits on an openBC contacts page in that week.
News of latest features on openBC
Short list of members who visited your contact page on openBC
List of your events in that particular week

PRIVACY

Various options under this allow you to control:

Who can send private message to you via openBC: [only direct contacts, your contacts' contacts, your 3rd degree contacts, contacts associated by up to 4th degree, all of openBC]
Who may view your list of contacts: [nobody, only your direct contacts, your contacts' contacts, your 3rd degree contacts, contacts associated by up to 4th degree, all of openBC]

Other options include:

Whether you would like to have a guest book on your contact page
Whether you want others to see your activity meter
Whether you would like to be listed as a suggested contact in the weekly statistics newsletter
Whether you would like Search Engines to index your page
Whether you want other members to see what Forums you are a member of
Whether you want your forum articles to be available to Search Engines and RSS

TELEPHONY

Use openBC to make calls!
They send you detailed bills and there's an option to specify whether you would like to see the last three digits of the numbers you've called - to check whether the calls have been billed correctly.

INFO BOXES

You have the option of altering what your start page looks like and what information you would like displayed there - any three options from the following:

Show 5 new members on your start page [you can also specify whether you want to see new members from your country or all over the world]
Show 5 random contacts of your contacts
Show upcoming birthdays of your contacts
Show a quick search form
Show the latest 5 public forum articles
Show your last 5 forum articles
Show next 5 events
Show next 5 events in your city

MESSAGING

The best part about openBC is that even though you might not have opened your e-mail id to your direct contacts - they can still get in touch with you! So you do not necessarily have to show your e-mail id to everyone to correspond you're your contacts!

You can have a record of the e-mails you have sent and the e-mail you have received on openBC - there's the inbox and the outbox. You can even search for names of your contacts within the inbox and outbox.
There's a drop-down box with a list of names of your direct contacts - for sending a direct e-mail to them - you don't need to go searching your address book! Of course you can download vCards of each of your contacts.

And these are only the functions that I use regularly!
If you too are convinced about openBC then take the advantage of free premium membership for your first month by joining my network of more than 1100 professionals!

The World is Flat

2005-06-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

"The metaphor of a flat world, used by Friedman to describe the next phase of globalization, is ingenious. It came to him after hearing an Indian software executive explain how the world's economic playing field was being leveled. For a variety of reasons, what economists call ''barriers to entry'' are being destroyed; today an individual or company anywhere can collaborate or compete globally.

Bill Gates explains the meaning of this transformation best. Thirty years ago, he tells Friedman, if you had to choose between being born a genius in Mumbai or Shanghai and an average person in Poughkeepsie, you would have chosen Poughkeepsie because your chances of living a prosperous and fulfilled life were much greater there. ''Now,'' Gates says, ''I would rather be a genius born in China than an average guy born in Poughkeepsie.'' "

From NewYork Times - "The World Is Flat: The Wealth of Yet More Nations"

While answering the question "What created the flat world?", Friedman stresses technological forces. "Paradoxically, the dot-com bubble played a crucial role. Telecommunications companies like Global Crossing had hundreds of millions of dollars of cash -- given to them by gullible investors -- and they used it to pursue incredibly ambitious plans to ''wire the world,'' laying fiber-optic cable across the ocean floors, connecting Bangalore, Bangkok and Beijing to the advanced industrial countries. This excess supply of connectivity meant that the costs of phone calls, Internet connections and data transmission declined dramatically -- so dramatically that many of the companies that laid these cables went bankrupt. But the deed was done, the world was wired. Today it costs about as much to connect to Guangdong as it does New Jersey."

Thanks to online business networking portals like LinkedIn and openBC, the world is wired for me too, as an individual. Friedman is right when he attributes these changes to technological forces. Today, using e-mails, instant messaging software like Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger, voice over internet protocol software like Skype, video conferencing and tele-conferencing, broadband internet and blogging software, I can communicate with anyone from anywhere on the planet, provided of course that they too have the same communicating capability.

I no longer need to depend on an established organization / company to provide me employment so that I can earn by providing services to people who want their work outsourced. I can, on my own, as an individual, establish my credibility by using online business networking portals like LinkedIn and openBC and get business from clients overseas. I provide my services online and offsite and get paid by a simple bank transfer (which is usually economical only for large payments) or by using money transfer facilities like Western Union Money Transfer. (I have not had a chance to use PayPal because they still do not allow me to withdraw cash and a cheque is time-consuming. They also need me to necessarily own a credit card so that my account can be verified for me to withdraw upwards of USD 500.) What PayPal does not offer, Western Union Money Transfer does - easy, economical even for small amounts, fast and convenient for both the service provider and the client.

"The next blow in this one-two punch was the dot-com bust. The stock market crash made companies everywhere cut spending. That meant they needed to look for ways to do what they were doing for less money. The solution: outsourcing. General Electric had led the way a decade earlier and by the late 1990's many large American companies were recognizing that Indian engineers could handle most technical jobs they needed done, at a tenth the cost. The preparations for Y2K, the millennium bug, gave a huge impetus to this shift since most Western companies needed armies of cheap software workers to recode their computers. Welcome to Bangalore."

Online Business Networking portals like LinkedIn and openBC, indeed make the world a level playing field for me. The world being flat is no longer a metaphor in Friedman's book. It is no longer limited to large firms like Infosys and Wipro. As an individual, I have the whole world open to me with opportunities galore. I do not necessarily have to work with Infosys or Wipro to be part of this metaphor!

"People in advanced countries have to find ways to move up the value chain, to have special skills that create superior products for which they can charge extra. The UPS story is a classic example of this. Delivering goods doesn't have high margins, but repairing computers (and in effect managing a supply chain) does. In one of Friedman's classic anecdote-as-explanation shticks, he recounts that one of his best friends is an illustrator. The friend saw his business beginning to dry up as computers made routine illustrations easy to do, and he moved on to something new. He became an illustration consultant, helping clients conceive of what they want rather than simply executing a drawing. Friedman explains this in Friedman metaphors: the friend's work began as a chocolate sauce, was turned into a vanilla commodity, through upgraded skills became a special chocolate sauce again, and then had a cherry put on top."

Although Friedman constantly says that America (using it as a representative of the developed world) should outsource everything that is lower in the value chain to India (using it as a representative of the developing world), I believe that because of the online business networking portals that I am part of, I can today, move into the role of the "illustration consultant" like Friedman's friend did in the example above. For example, if someone wants transcription services outsourced (for a workshop on creativity and innovation) and wants a good job done - not only can I deliver transcription services, I can move up the value chain and give the person suggestions about improving their speech delivery techniques, I can give suggestions about where they can find out more information about a certain aspect of innovation and creativity that one of their audience member asked them about and they were not able to answer convincingly, since I am an avid networker, I could even put them in touch with the CEO of a company who wanted to inculcate an innovation culture in his organization - would mean a potential client for the outsourcer!

And I can do so by asking a premium, which would be above the normal rate for a "regular" voice to data transcription service.

In our race to share the wealth of the developed world, people in the developing world, more often than not, undermine themselves and their capabilities. We think "Oh well! I am an MBA, I have a management consulting background, I have a fantastic command over English, I watch all these English movies so I can get the accent. So why can't I provide transcription services? After all, for 5 hours of voice, which will work out to 25 hours of data, will pay me almost half a month's salary!"

The point here is that people in developing countries are open-minded about doing anything, but in that process, we undermine our actual potential. So instead of providing a cut and dried transcription service, I throw in a value-added service. I will be of course doing an outsourced job, but I will get paid what a person in the developed world would have gotten paid for doing the same job. All clear?

Networking Protocol

2005-06-14T16:40:00.000-07:00

Excellent post on Networking Protocol by Gerry Crispin. More specifically on how to refuse a request to forward. Read my previous post on Request to Connect to know how to get your request forwarded for sure!

Networking News

2005-06-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

Not that I want to promote the thought or the idea behind the BusinessWeek post ("Is social networking broken?"), just that I wanted to share the various "comments" that have been made at the end of the post.

MY COMMENT ON THE BUSINESSWEEK ARTICLE:

First of all, LinkedIn cannot be considered as a "social" networking site. It is an online business networking portal. Secondly, as others in their comments have pointed out, the post made by Adam Kalsey is old.

I am not much of a Social networker - not because I have not been inclined to use the social networking portals like Orkut, but because I have used them and found that unless I really have a lot of time to waste, I have no real "benefit" participating on these portals.

However, not only do I see innumerable benefits of being part of a business network on portals like LinkedIn and openBC, I have actually experienced the benefits which range from thought-provoking discussions, new associates and contacts, to actually making money and doing business. And even though I am based in Bombay, India, 90% of the business that I have generated from participating on online business networking portals like LinkedIn and openBC, has been from overseas clients.

The classy business networking portals like LinkedIn and openBC provide ample amount of control on who I want to connect with and what information I want to reveal to each person on my network. These portals empower the users. What might be considered as Spam by me might not be considered so by someone else. Of course, if one signs up on Orkut and displays a personal e-mail to everyone, like someone mentioned above, "dense" would be the appropriate word to describe the person. But we are learning, albeit slowly.

If I send out Spam on my business network, it will not be overlooked. Not only will I stand to lose professional contacts that I have put in effort to connect with, I will also lose credibility for future requests to connect. Also, I might lose membership to the business networking portal altogether. I send out an e-mail to all my network contacts (more than 1200 people and growing) every month. Till today only three have sent me personal e-mails and asked to be removed from the e-mail since they did not feel that it suited their needs or requirements. Business networking makes that possible.

As for unwanted contacts, online business networking allows us to say "No". And if we do not say "no" when we feel that the contact is unwanted, we will complain how our connections list is growing larger with "unwanted" contacts.

Online business networking is not limited to just reading profiles on the networking portal and writing a monotonous request to connect. Everyone has links to blogs or websites on their profiles and we can find out more about them using those links. Read: Request to Connect

Strangers are friends we have yet to meet. Unless we connect with people we do not know, how can we ever hope to know them?

ALSO THE CNET POST ABOUT "Why social networking does not work". Do not miss the TalkBack section.

MY COMMENT ON THE SAME:

LinkedIn is not a "social" networking portal. It is an online business networking portal as you have rightly pointed out.

On your point 2. "It takes too much time" - LinkedIn and openBC (another trail-blazing online business networking portal) are definitely more useful than social networking sites. However, I do not believe that they are less information rich. LinkedIn and openBC profiles of people who are members of the portals have links to the blogs that they write or frequent and their websites. People who are there for the business networking, constantly update their profiles with new developments. These portals are one of the best way of finding out more about a "person".

In point 4. "Strangers kind of suck (or, put nicely, the social hierarchy is really not that attractive)" where you say "Sure, business networking is valuable, and it's great to have a lot of resources who might know someone who can help you with...something. But that argument gets a little thin when you're suddenly bombarded with date offers or all-too-frequent postings about the unsavory or just plain uninteresting habits of the strangers you suddenly know."

It seems like you are confusing business networking and social networking. Business networking is not based on the premise that we connect with people we already know and the connections made are not for seeking dates or sharing quirky habits. You are right, instead of sending them (people I know) an e-mail or sending them a message via IM, I might as well meet up with them for coffee. But why should I restrict myself to people I know? I, personally have not only participated in thought provoking discussions and built relationships with people I have never "spoken" to, let alone meeting them, I have done business with them and made money and am constantly giving back to the network by helping other networkers. Even though I am based in Bombay, India, 90% of my clients are from abroad. Online Business Networking allows me to do that.

As for point 5. "And I can probably find it faster using Google than I can by e-mailing one friend who'll e-mail another who'll e-mail another while my deadline slips away. Sure, it's helpful--once in a while. But once I have all these folks in my address book, I won't be much help in terms of ad impressions."

Agreed that Google is great, I swear by it myself, but how will you know that the person you have found is who he/she says he/she is? How will you ensure that (once you have found their e-mail id online) your e-mail to them survives their Spam filter? One of my professional contacts recently asked me for help with transcription services that she required. Within 6 hours, I had sent out e-mails to various e-groups on Yahoo where I am a member and I had sent out half a dozen e-mails to other connections on the same networking portal and I had 5 quotes for providing the service. Within a day, the originator of the search in the US had decided on whether she had better opportunities at cost-savings in India or in the US - and this is assuming that I was the only peron she asked. Try contacting a stranger who you find on Google and see if you can repeat this. I am not saying that it will not work - it just might - but when online business networking portals like openBC and LinkedIn provide me the facility with better, faster and more secure results, why should I rely only on Google? Why shouldn't I combine the power of all the technology available to me, optimize it to my needs and strive to live in a truly global village?

Request to Connect

2005-06-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

Carrying over from the previous post about building online relationships: People / professionals who you send requests to connect, might refuse the request only if they "thin-slice" and conclude that your request does not sound genuine.

Various ways to make your request sound genuine:

Punctuation

The request to connect that you send out, is like a mini-resume. It's like asking for a job - so we would be better off at least punctuating it properly. [No lowercase where it is "supposed" to be uppercase. Use capitalization. Correct punctuation]

Addressing someone

Business networking is not about creating power positions, it is about creating win-win situations with everyone we meet and connect with. When we write a request to connect, we must be respectful and polite, not "in awe" and "desperate". [No "Hi!" - instead say "Dear [firstname]," Only if the person has been your senior earlier, use a "Dear [lastname]," or "Dear Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. [lastname]" No addressing strangers with a "Dear Mr. [lastname] or [firstname]"]

Personalization

Ensure that you actually "read" the person's profile before you shoot off an e-mail requesting to connect. You don't have to read all the previous experience and previous companies - the important sections to read are the places where a short description of what they do currently and what kind of things that have been involved in are mentioned. Search their profile for URLs for the blogs they write or their websites or some other links. Visit those web pages to learn some more about the person you want to link with. When you do this, you will inadvertently find out more about them and will mention something in your request that will make it personalized. And that one word or sentence that you mention is all it takes to make the other person realize that you are genuinely interested in making contact and are not just sending out mass e-mails to anyone and everyone.

Signing off

Please do not put a 10-line signature at the end of your request to connect. Instead of that integrate your signature within the content of your e-mail. For example, if your signature contains three links to various blogs and websites that belong to you, mention all three in one paragraph in the e-mail. For example, my standard signature has the following elements

aside Design: http://www.aside.in
Innovation Blog: http://asideconsulting.blogspot.com
Business Networking Blog: http://biznetworking.blogspot.com
Join my network on openBC: http://www.openbc.com/go/invuid/Naina_Redhu (when I am writing to someone not already on openBC)
My profile on openBC: http://www.openbc.com/hp/Naina_Redhu/ (when I am writing to someone not already on openBC)
My profile on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=350993 (when I am writing to someone not already on LinkedIn)

Instead of keeping this very unwieldy signature, I usually do the following depending on the nature of my request.

If the person is not on openBC or if I am not connected with them on openBC
If you are already on openBC, do visit my profile - http://www.openbc.com/hp/Naina_Redhu/ - and if you are not on openBC yet, you are welcome to join my network of more than a 1000 professionals using this link: http://www.openbc.com/go/invuid/Naina_Redhu

If the person is not on LinkedIn and I am sending them a request to connect on some other networking portal
Do visit my LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=350993

So the elements of my signature integrated into the request text would usually read like this:
"I am a freelance designer, photographer, innovation consultant and an online business networking consultant. I recently started writing a blog on Business Networking - http://biznetworking.blogspot.com Since I am an avid networker, I am also a member on openBC and if you would like to join my network of more than 1000 professionals, kindly use this link: http://www.openbc.com/go/invuid/Naina_Redhu

If you have an interest in innovation and creativity, do visit my innovation blog too: http://asideconsulting.blogspot.com "

My signature would only contain my name and a link to my website - http://www.aside.in

What where
The integrated signature information will follow after I have expressed an interest in connecting with the person and given my reasons for the same. Remember, the customer comes first and in the case of online business networking, the person we are requesting to connect with is our customer. Of course the ultimate aim of any kind of networking is to promote your business and to ultimately make money, but there are subtle and polite ways of doing it rather than the more "in-your-face" ones.

What others say
Honestly, as long as you are successful at networking, does it matter what others think about your writing style and the content of your requests to connect? Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion but if it works for you, it works for you! Be nice. What goes around comes around. There will always be comments (indirect and sometimes not so indirect) where someone will say that you are on the "dark side", that you are an aggressive networker that you connect with people you don't even know, that you hide your list of connections that you are not "with" the program.

Bottom line: you are the one with the large network, you know more about your connections since you took time to read more about them and visited their blogs and websites, so you are more capable of giving back to the network - the next time someone asks you for a lead, you'll probably have some information where you will be able to connect two people. Eventually, you will be of more help to your network and that will allow you to reach more people with your services and your business. You will have access to the best means of marketing for yourself and you will facilitate the same for everyone else on your network.

Building Online Relationships

2005-06-12T23:35:00.000-07:00

Building functional relationships with professionals / people online can be more complex as compared to maintaining offline relationships. Of course, if you are good at it - good at maintaining online relationships - it is easier to maintain an online relationship as compared to an offline one.

It is definitely easier saying "no" to someone in an e-mail. We are generally very polite when we meet someone face-to-face and although we might not see a fit with the particular person or their business, we usually end up saying, "Ok, lets see how this goes. Maybe something will work out in the future". Sometimes, we even end up saying things like "I'll get back to you on this - I have something in mind" and then we never get back.

As a rule, we should not promise or even indicate something that might never happen. Not only does it lower our credibility in the eyes of others, it also leaves you with a feeling of guilt. We should quite simple say "No, I don't believe I see a fit." Which does not mean that there is no possibility of collaboration. Eventually, one never knows what works out from which direction. A lot of people on my network, who initially were nice enough to clear the air and said that they couldn't see a collaboration because of the distance, have forwarded other people's requests to me and have even (of course after some months) gotten back and mentioned that they would like to experiment.

Again it boils down to communication. When drafting a request to connect, be first clear in your head why you would like to connect to the particular person and why would you want to be on their network. Once that is done, write the same to them in your request! It's simple! For example, if I see someone on my network - who is two or three degrees away and our networks have only one common connection and they too have a large network, I will realize that it would be beneficial for both of us to share our networks. Not only will a whole new section of people be visible to me, which will allow me to increase my visibility to people who might need design services, it will also do the same for the person I am connecting with. So I simply explain my thoughts to the person in my request to connect and the probability of refusal would not be more than 5% (if you sent out a 100 clear and honest requests to connect, only 5 would probably be refused). The reason I write confidently about this is because I have done it.

One of the reasons why this approach works is because it takes the help of two age-old persuasion techniques - it's simple to understand and it's true! Nothing works better than clear and honest communication!

Never fob when you write to potential contacts. Although it might sound inexplicable, it is easy to make out when a person has written a genuine request and when someone's just trying to gain a network without actually building their credibility and when someone's not serious about the whole process. (It's called "thin-slicing" according to the latest book by Malcolm Gladwell - Blink.) I cannot remember the countless times that I have received requests to forward and connect from people who do not even take time to punctuate their text. They misspell names and just give one line of text as explanation to connect. It's appalling. Sometimes, the punctuation can be forgiven and forgotten, but how can anyone misspell the name of the person they want to establish contact with! And that too in their first e-mail - which they will be sending through a chain of other professionals on the network. It completely ruins the person's credibility.

Do a good search, find people who you would potentially like to connect with - catch your thoughts as to why you think they'd be good to have on the network - write the same down in your request and write a well punctuated, clear and concise request. There is no reason why someone will say "no" to a well-worded, well-thought of and honest request to connect. The only reason someone might refuse the contact is because they might be wary of connecting with someone they have never heard of earlier. That too can be overcome to a large extent - next post for that!

Leaving a Comment

2005-06-12T23:30:00.000-07:00

If you are a member on Blogger - that is if you have a Blog on the blogspot account, if you are logged onto blogger, the window below will pop-up for you to leave comments. You will have three options under the "Choose your identity" - 1. your username on blogger (this will be visible only if you are currently logged onto blogger). 2. Other - if you are not on blogger and do not want to leave an "anonymous" comment. 3. Anonymous - if you want to leave an anonymous comment - of course you can also give links to your profile and your e-mail id within the comments itself, since it allows you to use HTML tags like for BOLD, for ITALICS and for a webpage or "mailto" link.

If you are currently not logged on into Blogger, and if you do not have a blogger account, you can still leave comments. You will get the pop-up window on the right (at bottom). Same options are available here - since you are not on Blogger, you can choose "other" or "anonymous" and click on "Login and Publish" - if you have checked the "blogger" radio button, it will ask you to login to your Blogger account - otherwise you can just leave a comment.

Doubts about online business networking

2005-06-09T08:04:00.000-07:00

THE TRADITIONAL "MEETING"

People, who have been networking traditionally - trade association meetings and face-to-face networking, completely trash the online networking syndrome. When one can meet service providers and buyers and exchange business cards with them in the first meeting, why does one need to invest time writing e-mails? I have received some invitations and have even attended some of these offline or traditional networking events.

I was quite taken aback when I was told to carry a minimum of 50 business cards for the "meeting". I would be meeting people for the "first" time! Was I going to just hard sell myself? Wasn't I going to build any relationships? I was told that there would be no time for that! Since I would have to exchange business cards with all the "influential" people, I wouldn't have time to actually "talk" to anyone. Relationship building could wait.

Just to satisfy my curiosity, I went ahead and did as told - it was a fish market - everyone trying to suck up to the most influential person (whatever that means!). I easily amassed about 50 other business cards (which I have never used till date) and I kept most of my business cards because I was having such a good time observing everyone else that I had no time to shove my cards into someone else's hand. The "meeting" lasted about half an hour and all I got out of my mouth were a dozen greetings of "Good Morning!"

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING

I still do not understand why a face-to-face meeting is "essential", when we have tools and technology available today that make it redundant - we can have a videoconference if we really "need" to "meet" someone. Tools like Skype already allow us to speak to anyone on the planet for free! Of course when we have to hire someone to work as an employee, then we will have to eventually meet the person before actually hiring him or her. But for people who are not recruiters, meeting someone is not a "need", it is a "want" in order to satisfy our uncertain minds.

UNCERTAINTY

The only one factor that makes people uncomfortable about online business networking is the "uncertainty" aspect. How can I be sure that the person I am talking to is who he/she says he/she is? How do I know he/she will deliver the goods the way they promise? How can I be sure that I am not being cheated here? We assume that meeting a person face-to-face will eliminate these uncertainties. Fact of the matter is that you will not be any better off by meeting someone - what makes you so sure that if the person's face "looks" innocent (we have our biases), he/she is actually not going to cheat you?

The networking forums we use today use various forms of security checks to weed out people who are there only to hard sell and SPAM us. In fact an online cheat would be caught faster then a "face-to-face" cheat. If someone SPAMs us, we can report the same to the Forum Abuse Group, if someone hounds us, we can block them or deny contact with them, if someone uses our service and does not pay us, we can put that up on the web too for others to know. Information travels vary fast on the web.

THE GLOBAL VILLAGE ARGUMENT

When I have all the talent available to me locally, why should I bother with someone from halfway across the planet?

Since we live in a global village now, why do we want to stick our heads in our "local" sands? What stops us from doing business with someone sitting halfway across the globe? Certainly, nothing stops me. Not only have I had meaningful exchanges with people from almost everywhere on the planet, I have also done a good amount of business, made money and even helped other people on my network. And I have never met any one of those people! Before getting into any business commitment, I always tell my clients that only "trust" and "communication" will make a working relationship successful and all my clients understand that. Today I can say that not once have I not received payment for my services.

I agree that we have a lot of local talent available. But then what is outsourcing all about? Online Business Networking can be used by Small and Medium Businesses for their outsourcing needs - they do not need to and cannot afford to invest in infrastructure to hire someone - all they need is to be on an online networking portal and know how to use the Search Tool well!

UPDATE: Eric A. Sohn posted his views on on this blog post over on his life (over IP) blog. Find my comments at the end of that post too! This is interesting!

openBC Profile

2005-06-09T01:37:00.000-07:00

I have created a document to serve as a guideline while filling up your openBC profile. It shows the fields to be filled and somethings to be kept in mind. It would probably be useful to people who are new to openBC or who are planning to join openbC. Of course if you are planning to join, you are welcome to join my network directly!

Download PDF File File Size: 90 KB

Business Networking Survey

2005-06-08T06:55:00.000-07:00

I found a survey regarding online business networking practices and statistics - do take the survey HERE - hopefully we will get some insights about the process! The survey has been created by Hendrick Decker on his blog - Observations on Online Business Networking, Internet, Marketing and More.

Networking Profile - Theory

2005-06-08T03:42:00.000-07:00

I cannot even begin to stress enough on the fact that as a business networker, or even as a person with a simple web presence, you need to have a good profile description available for others to read through. Your profile serves the purpose of a first impression when someone visits you on the web. Since you are not there in person to greet the visitor or to talk about your achievements and experience, it is your profile that speaks.

TACTICS

Before ever posting your profile on the web, sit with a pen and paper and write the profile down.

All online business networking portals have fixed guidelines about how the profile is structured, so you will know what to write first and what information goes where. Copy that structure down and then fill it up on paper. This will ensure that you do not make any mistakes. By the time you get to typing what you have written on paper, you will necessarily have read the material atleast thrice. And that's the basic priciple of writing that was taught to us in school - "Read your letter atleast three times before sealing the envelope". Not only will you eliminate grammar and spelling errors, you will also whittle down unnecessary and redundant content. Once typed, read the material aloud to yourself. In almost all cases, you will edit the material again to make changes for the better once you have heard yourself "speak" it.

(I'm sure if I was in the room when you read the above paragraph, I would have heard a "Yeah sure!" when I mention writing the profile on paper first. There is an alternative for the above. If you have to "not write" but type, go ahead, type the profile. Once you have done typing, take a printout. Now go through the same motions as above. Of course when you make any changes / correctons, you will not have to re-type the entire material.)

The person reading your profile will be doing so only because of two evident reasons:
1. You asked them to visit OR
2. They found you

In any case, the profile has to be flawless because that first chance is all you've got. If your profile interests the person reading it, then they will e-mail you asking for further details - that is the point where you will take on the onus of selling yourself - till then it's just the profile.

KEY #1 Never ramble when you write your profile You will get ample chance of going into the details once you make further contact with the interested person.

KEY #2 Do not, under any circumstances be flippant Whatever experience you have is important, you might not think it is any big deal that you worked for a year as the paperboy, but it is important. Instead of conveying with your words that you do not believe you learnt anything from that experience, it is better if you do not mention it at all. If you do however choose to mention it, be precise about what you did, why you did it and what was the outcome - for you as well as for your employer.

KEY #3 Be as brief as possible - remember, you are giving an introduction, not writing your autobiography. For example, you might have a blog on photography (since photography is your hobby) - you must not describe your photography field trips on your profile - what you can do is mention that you have a photography blog and give the URL. Just the fact that you have a photography blog means that you have some interest in the same - give some credit to the intelligence of people reading your profile.

KEY #4 Do not repeat anything on your profile unless it is absolutely important. I personally like to repeat my e-mail address (it usually appears twice) because I love hearing from and replying to people from all over the world - I like sharing their world - so I encourage people to write by making my e-mail address visible.

STRATEGY

The keyword to remember while writing your profile is "professional". Professional would be associated with words like "concise", "sharp", "thought-catching" etc. The trick is to be brief but detailed - write less words but choose words that mean more. Like the above example, instead of writing a paragraph on how passionate you are about photography as your hobby, just say that you have a photography blog! Of course you have to have a photography blog to do that. Which leads me to the conclusion that if you want to be successful at online business networking, you have to have some sort of web presence. For the sake of argument, there are people who are successful online business networkers who have no other web presence except their professional profiles on the networking portals that they use. So they already have a web presence. Touche.

Online Business Networking Consultant

2005-06-08T02:30:00.000-07:00

I am currently assisting someone as an online business networking consultant in their job search using online business networking. (It will probably transform into networking consulting work, not necessarily limited to the "online" realm). Since this is my first "client", I think it would be prudent not to disclose identities atleast during the assignment. Once, hopefully this is a successful consultation, I will post this as a case study with the usual structure. Of course for insider information about how the whole thing happened, with details of the correspondence and exchanges, I am available for hire as a business networking consultant!

I have had quite a bit of success with my own networking efforts and this will be the first time that I will be applying similar approaches for someone else. Although each case would be different and not everyone is a networker because "they want a job", there are bound to be some common things that can probably be laid down as "ground rules". They would involve areas like writing e-mails, doing an effective search, knowing which forums to join, how to interact with people, how to raise the level of trust within your network, how to answer phone calls, how to remember names better, etc. Not surprisingly, most of the above-mentioned areas are not limited only to networking. In fact, these are common areas as far as communication skills are concerned.

So, this goes to say that successful networking does not require any specialized skills. Anyone who has some time to invest and is inclined to share a professional relationship with people from all over the world, can very well succeed at business networking.

Approach

2005-06-07T08:23:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons that I have started this blog is that I believe I am capable of writing a book about my experiences with professional / business networking. Especially the online variety. It can be argued that since I have been involved with online business networking for only about a year - I joined my first network in April 2004 (LinkedIn) - I do not have the necessary "experience" to write a book. According to that argument, I wouldn't even have the necessary experience to write an article! But that argument is flawed. We have teenage rocket scientists and I have no reason to believe that online business networking is tougher to learn than rocket science.

I do not intend for this blog or the book eventually, to be "textbookish". I do not want to write articles that only "talk". I have visualized a blog / book where I can recreate real-networking scenarios that have occured thus far in my networking career and discuss why some worked and some did not. With this approach, eventually, I would like to share with others interested in business networking, the networking "principles", "rules", "protocols", etc., that work and the common and not so common mistakes to avoid.

Introduction

2005-06-07T01:35:00.000-07:00

Business Networking is catching up and before it overtakes us, we need to find out how to go with the flow!

Looking forward to great thoughts, ideas and interactions, to promote your business networking careers!

Naina

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