cazh1 » Social Networks

Google+ is Active, not Passive, Social Networking

Jim MacLennan — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 19:22:21 +0000

This past week saw the introduction of Google+, the search behemoth’s entry into the social networking fray. A slew of posts, articles, opinion pieces, etc. were sure to flow – and as I settled down with some time and a backlog of links to review, here are my initial thoughts on the service.

Do I need yet another social networking platform? Not really, I’ve got my personal (Facebook) and professional (LinkedIn) networks somewhat segregated, and I am falling a bit behind in regular tweets and blog entries – the value waxes and wanes over time. Still, I’ve been impressed with Google’s overall track record on innovative tools for the “personal cloud” (i.e. how can I run my own life / my start-up / my virtual business sans infrastructure?)

Ahem … Google Wave notwithstanding … but everyone gets a mulligan every once in a while, yes?
In the various reviews / blogs, many call out that Google+ will replace / obviate the need for Google Buzz. Funny, I barely registered that one … a finnegan?

First impression: the basic interface / layout seems unimpressive, just another “skin” over the basic LinkedIn / Facebook layout. The UI tricks in Circles (drag and drop into groups) is cute, and it’s the little “usability” things that get a fair chunk of the universe to salivate … but I’m looking for something insightful …

Sparks just looks like Yet Another take on aggregated, automated search. I can follow news topics in Google News or companies on LinkedIn, subscribe to Google Alerts in eMail or RSS feeds in my feed reader; Sparks is just the Google+ version of an in situ enabler for watching the world go by

Hangouts actually looks promising – a video chat room that allows groups to speak and see each other. The first-time install process was a typical, classy example of well designed, tech savvy, user-empathetic instructions that eludes corporate IT.

Ahem … looking for examples of why folks don’t like corporate IT? Or, suggestions for skill sets and training required in modern IT?

However – to be a real enterprise tool, it desperately needs the ability to screen-share. The majority of my collaborative, video-enabled meetings-at-a-distance typically revolve around a presentation or spreadsheet that we are reviewing.

Active vs Passive: I found that I was looking for ways to incorporate feeds from Twitter and this blog … but I noted what MC Siegler called out in his writeup. Content doesn’t make it into Google+ unless I specifically put it in there; if/when I build up an active, complex nesting of Circles, that editorial tweak has the potential to jack up the overall relevance score, and make Google+ an impactful tool for workgroups in a professional setting. Combine that with the readily-available face-to-face Hangout interaction – it’s a social networking platform that leans a bit more to Active, not Passive, connections. Marshall Kirkpatrick has some very insightful notes on this idea, expanding on the notion that communication needs contextual integrity (a reasonable expectation of the proper level of privacy in this context – or, freedom from worrying about who’s listening in).

At this point, however, it’s very tough to get real interactions going – I need to get folks that I know – and would actively participate – to join Google+. I got my invite through a Lifehacker forum last week, and the person that kindly sent me an invite hasn’t even completed their profile yet.

Social Networking for the Enterprise: The really interesting notes come from folks like Dennis Howlett and R. “Ray” Wang, longtime commenters on the enterprise IT scene. Howlett’s writeup on Google+ in the Enterprise is a bit breathless, but I suspect this comes from years of wading through the so-called Enterprise 2.0 offerings from other quarters; he also notes the contextual power of Circles (when done right). Wang writes about the Google+ and the consumerization of IT – where I (above) call out the usability, he is stressing his five pillars of Consumer Tech and how Google’s approach lines up so nicely with what the consumer market has been trained to expect.

But don’t take my word for it – check out these writeups, my link list for the topic (hey, I even tagged and shared ‘em via Google Reader … and the

Whitson Gordon at Lifehacker gives a quick tour here – best place to go for the mildly curious
MC Siegler at TechCrunch captures his thoughts, including the seed of the Active vs. Passive idea
Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb on the intricacies of Circles – and an XKCD comic
A threat to Facebook? David Cohen at All Facebook weighs in with his alternaview
Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb writes on her “stress test” of Circles – and shares the findings of Florian Rohrweck on possible future offerings for Google+

At this time, Google+ is still invite only – last weekend, there was quite a rush of wannabe early adopters, so I am not in a position to give out invites – but if you are interested, let me know, and I will send out invites as soon as I am enabled!

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2011. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: collaboration environments, Dennis Howlett, effective design, Facebook, Google, Google Plus, Lifehacker, LinkedIn, personal cloud, R. "Ray" Wang, social networking, Wave, Web 2.0, YouTube

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Twitter and the First Amendment

Jim MacLennan — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:05:59 +0000

Here lies Dobby ...

Apparently, 2011 is the year when Twitter, Facebook, and smartphone videos are graduating from Social Networking toys to evolutionary, revolutionary Sociology tools. Can they be controlled by governments or big business? It’s been argued that any such controls might run afoul of Amendment No. 1 from our Bill of Rights … how amazing for a clever hack that originated in a daylong brainstorming session.

Freedom of Speech, Assembly, and the Press

What is a tweet? 140 characters – one or two sentences. (Feel the need to shout? Use capital letters)

What is a Twitter account but a three dimensional megaphone? Where Speech used to be spoken and printed, but ephemeral and land locked, we now have written and permanent, multi-lingual, globally available, and permanently, stubbornly, indeliby saved for repeated viewing.

And what is a twitter #hashtag but a thread to connect one or more people into a continuous stream of sentences. A conversation. A “flash mob”. An Assembly.

What happens when blog authors are accused of being less-than-professional journalists? Well, they’ve already been granted the title, now we’re negotiating …

WIIFM?

I don’t know, I just like noticing the arc of the storyline for these Internet innovations. Who would have thought that something starting out as a “short burst of inconsequential information” …

… would morph into a haven for publicity hounds and the traffic-obsessed

… and continue to evolve as a facilitator of planned group meetings

… to something that was an instigator and planner of, well, really big group meetings?

The framers would have loved Twitter and Facebook, and how they evolved into the new tools for political and social change. Thank goodness creative and imaginative folks started playing around with them.

So what interesting, different, and strange technology have you tried to apply to your business today? Hopefully something that you have no idea how it might possibly be applicable to the [business] world that you know.

You might find that it takes you in a direction you never thought possible.

(with thanks to Harry and the Whale …)

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2011. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: bill of rights, Facebook, freedom, group meetings, internet innovations, social networking, Twitter

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eMail is Dead, Long Live Social Networking: Don’t Get Left Behind

Jim MacLennan — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:29:11 +0000

via Fred Wilson – a stunning slide from Morgan Stanley’s recent Internet Trends report:

Click to enlarge ...

The primary topic of the report is the growth and future prospects of the mobile internet – reason enough read through all 87 slides. However, I am slightly amazed by the fact that eMail runs second to the relatively new phenomenon of Social Networking, driven primarily by consumer behavior and Generation Y.

Admit it – more than once, YouTube and Twitter have made the water-cooler talk circuit, as folks text their kids and rave about connecting with long-lost high school and college chums on Facebook. We’ve all seen upticks in LinkedIn traffic as the economy has driven job networking skills to this professional social network.

The Internet’s “Gen-X” Surpassed

Another Morgan Stanley slide shows how the young-uns have surpassed their web-based brethren – first YouTube, now Facebook have taken over the internet …

click to enlarge

In just three short years, a significant movement of mindshare from one web property to another – but don’t stop there. The immersive user experience of Facebook and YouTube is very different from personalized Yahoo and Google portals, and business and social messaging has changed rapidly to adapt.

So how does that translate to business productivity and process management environment?

Business Process Automation Architecture is Falling Farther Behind

eMail is still the dominate business process environment in corporate America. Don’t believe me? Got users clamoring to switch from Notes to Outlook, or desktop-based to cloud-based service? Try introducing mailbox size limitations or document retention limits, and see how many folks squawk. Spin up a few SharePoint sites and insist that all file sharing be done in shared folders (no attachments allowed!). Insist that all discussions take place in forums, not via Re: and Fw: eMail chains. How successful do you think that will be?

Now, there’s no reason to panic; the population within many corporations have an interesting ability to want consumer level flexibility, speed, usability, and “fun factor” in their personal electronics, but few have that same sense of humor about their day-to-day job. “Go ahead and upgrade, as long as my process does not change at all”.

I’m sure this varies at different corporations – based on the average age of the user population. This is not meant as a slight, just an admission of reality – even I don’t quite get some of the communication norms embraced by my daughters.

However, I am very aware that with each passing quarter, new employees and incoming contractors join our work teams, expecting increasing levels of openness, information access, and social connections. It’s only a matter of time until the internal preference measures match the switch shown in the first slide above – will our business process teams be ready?

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Post tags: behavior, eMail, Facebook, Gen-X, millennials, Morgan Stanley, networking, social, Social Networks, trends, Twitter, Web 2.0, YouTube

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Underwhelming experiences with Google Wave

Jim MacLennan — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:22:00 +0000

Took some time today to work with the new communication meme – Google Wave. I wouldn’t call it a fundamentally new way to communicate – well, not yet. I think Google is safe to continue with a “preview” label – clearly not even “beta” yet. No horrible bugs – at least on the Windows platform – but some obviously missing features. And, I am not all that impressed with the basic idea – it’s just a mashup of Google Docs, instant messenger, and eMail.

Problems

All of my experimentation has been from a Windows machine – I am experiencing horrible performance issues with Firefox 3.5.3 on Ubuntu 9.04. I freely admit that this might not be a Wave issue – for the last two weeks, all of my Google sites (Mail, Docs, iGoogle, Reader …) run brutally slow, timing out by graying the browser window. I know it’s a weird issue because I can’t Google for an answer (a disturbingly tight loop). Wave refused to even show me the stills from the introductory videos until I disabled Greasemonkey. Yes, I’m sure it has something to do with my setup, my installed plugins – I’m just surprised that the problems have been this stubborn.

So, to get anything done, it’s back to Windows – still using Firefox, but no hint of platform troubles. Just an underwhelming experience with the fancy new toy.

I Am Legend

Interconnections on the internet are a wonderful thing; I put out a Tweet (sic) regarding my Wave invites, and a note in LinkedIn as well. Twitter generated the most responses, with folks I’d never met – great fun to connect like that. The following day, I got a note from someone looking to connect via Wave – I’m guessing from the information that I can see, this person saw one of my original notes via Friendfeed. Amazing how those copnnections were practically spontaneous …

… while Wave feels like I’m in a walled garden. I still feel very cut off in the Wave world – a different domain from gmail.com means a new address to track, a new contact list to build. And it’s difficult to find connections with folks you already know; I received another Wave invite from a friend, but since I didn’t need it, I tried to figure out how to connect to him via Wave (I thought it a reasonable assumption that he, like me, has dived in). Unfortunately, I had to resort to an email message and some detective work to find out his Google ID – not something I could explain to most business users.

Yet Another Email Client

Yes, I am still at that opinion. Most of the opinions and articles I’ve scanned make it sound like we are working with a next-gen email client that does some of the basics right. I do note that the amplifiers tend to gush a bit, while the attenuators work hard to impress with wit.

Generally Pro

Generally Con

Maybe It’s Just Me

One of my random invites went to this guy, who’s review was a bit more positive than mind. Ok, maybe I’ll jump into the with:public pool and wade around a while – it’s probably the only way I’ll really get it. However, I am very willing to be patient and continue the experiment – took me about 3 months to get Twitter.

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2009. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Collaboration, Google, innovation, Knowledge Management, LinkedIn, mashup, Twitter, Wave, Web 2.0

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Introducing … Google Wave

Jim MacLennan — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:30:00 +0000

Thank you for signing up to give us early feedback on Google Wave. We’re happy to give you access to Google Wave and are enlisting your help to improve the product. To accept your invitation, sign into Google Wave at the following link …

Well, maybe not the most exciting email I’ve received over the past few years, but it was nice to get the [sorta] early notice. I’m definitely in the second wave, but I’ll not look a gift URL in the mouth.

Of course, no early impressions just yet – the interface upon start up is spare, looks like Yet Another Email Client. I will check out the introductory video(s) – I typically do my best learning by playing around a bit (without reading any manuals), then watch a demo or get an expert to give me a quick tour – and then I’ll get serious. Something to do this weekend, or while waiting around during the Next Big Go-Live (project at work).

Like previous Google apps, this one came with invites – but this is 2009, man, and I’ve got Tweetdeck at the ready! Soon after receiving the invite, I put the word out (via LinkedIn, too), and got a number of responses from fellow adventurers looking for their own golden ticket.

I have no idea how long it will take to close the loop – my Wave page/inbox/site/thingie makes it look like I’ve added these folks to a List of Indeterminate Length, with no ETA on delivery. Still, I think it might be interesting to gather their feedback into a mini review of this newest communication technology. More to follow …

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Post tags: collaboration environments, LinkedIn, Wave

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Business Benefits of Social Networks Exist, but …

Jim MacLennan — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 04:10:00 +0000

When I see / read articles like this, or hear the breathless claims of vendors, pundits, and True Believers, I’ll privately chuckle to myself. All of this stuff – social networking, collaboration, and innovation – are 21st century takes on good old Knowledge Management (KM), circa 1998.

Do these sound like presentations from your recent Enterprise 2.0 conference?

Managing Cultural Change to Create a Knowledge Sharing Environment
Effectively Managing Information Overload in the Information Age
Information Content and Security in Document Management Systems
Using Technology and the Project Management Workbench to Accelerate Product Development Efforts
Shifting the Burden of Knowledge Sharing to All Employees

I dug up an old copy of the proceedings from a 1998 KM conference; if I did a global text replace of “Innovation” for “Knowledge”, I could probably get a bunch of folks to sign up today!

Ok, a little sarcasm is fun, but once you realize the similarities, there are other parallels with 1990′s KM efforts – not the least of which is the identification of business benefits. Anyone involved with projects back then can testify to the difficulty in predicting hard benefits – clearly quantifiable impact on top line or bottom line, derived in a predictable, measurable manner. Sorry, it just didn’t work out that way for KM – and it won’t for Social Networks, either! The hype cycle will prevail …

Hard Benefits of Social Networks Do Not Exist, but …

Why do people insist on expecting a hard business benefit from social networks, or a payback from a project to implement a funny-sounding technology (wiki/blog/tweet) inside the enterprise? Has anyone ever gotten a quantifiable business benefit from participating on Facebook, LinkedIn, mySpace?

Well, yes, actually – plenty of folks have connected with friends / colleagues, collaborated on business ideas, come up with innovative new approaches – actually monetized all the goofy sounding tools. I myself have written about successes, and have made connections I could never have anticipated. Heck, the old KM conference guide has a couple of case studies as well.

Ah, but do you see the pattern? Business benefits are not predictable, they are always opportunistic and anecdotal. Success is characterized by stories of the home runs (rarely accompanied by comparable stats on strikeouts, by the way). You can’t implement a social network within a company or a group, and predict how much and when the profits / savings / growth with start rolling in. You are setting up an environment of opportunity – nothing more.

When I hear people talk about business value or business return of social networks as if they could predict it, I cringe. They’re trying to apply financial controls on something that’s governed by chance – you can’t do it. The incorrect assumption is that you can control good luck – but you can tweak your chances.

Active networkers know – I’m talking about people that have been networking for years, when connections were made face to face. Career coaches would exhort us to get out there and build our professional network – make the office visits, get on their calendar, develop some connections. You have no idea what could happen from any one connection or conversation – nothing might happen or something might happen – you trying to make your own luck.

What is it they say, luck is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration? Social networking is just automation for some of that 90%. And benefits will happen – just don’t ask me when.

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Post tags: Blog, business benefits, business value, collaboration systems, conference, Facebook, innovation, Inspiration, Knowledge Management, LinkedIn, networking, Social Media, Social Networks, Web 2.0, Wiki

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Anthropology of LinkedIn Answers: Five Days of Posts

Jim MacLennan — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:59:00 +0000

I have seven RSS feeds from LinkedIn Answers in my blogroll for a few months now. I’ll answer a question every once in a while, haven’t posted one yet, maybe some day. As I scan these questions, I can see this social network exhibiting multiple personalities, interesting patterns.

So this week, I let my blog reader pile up the questions for five straight days without marking any as “read”. An entirely unscientific analysis (warning: I am not an anthropologist), but here’s what I found as I sat down to catch up with the posts …

Overall Statistics

The volume of unsolicited traffic in my voicemail and e-mail inboxes tells me that sales reps and recruiters are aggressively using LinkedIn for opportunity prospecting. However, the numbers below seem to show that the rest of us are looking to the network to solve technology problems (primarily), followed by a smattering of management issues …

Technology	338	52%
Management	112	17%
Staffing and Recruiting	72	11%
Business Operations	66	10%
Professional Networking	29	4%
Offshoring and Outsourcing	20	3%
Mergers and Acquisitions	8	1%
Total	645

Scanning the questions, I found a number of interesting themes coming through …

Networks and Subnetworks

Are you interested in a networking group for asset reliability professionals?

Interested in joining the Treasury Technology Networking Group?

Process Improvement – Software and Systems – Please join us!

I’m looking to find a solid networking group in Rhode Island and Massachusetts – does anyone know of a few?

Who wants to network with a Wal-mart employee?

What are some good networking events in Greater Kansas City?

Join the Disaster Healthcare LinkedIn Group!!!

Anyone interested in joining the IGDA group?

Anyone interested in joining the Tek-Tips Contributor group?

Ladies: Is anyone interested in joining www.awtsocal.org?

Facetime

Are you attending the WBR Field Service 2008 Conference in Tucson, AZ? (April 7-10)

Is There Anyone Interested in Meeting at CeBIT in March?

Who plans on attending SMX West Feb 26-28 Santa Clara?

What are the unmissable parties/networking events at Mobile World Congress?

Is anyone going to SQLBits 2008

Anyone going to the Game Developer Conference (GDC) 2008?

Is it worth attending AdTech 2008 SF?

Face2Face in Vegas, Austin, Seattle & London

OnRamp High Tech Happy Hour – February 7th!

GDC: anyone want to meet up and talk about web 2.0 and games?

Is There Anyone Interested in Meeting at CeBIT in March?

Can we meet @ the Mobile World Congress (formerly 3GSM) in Barcelona?

Amazingly Specific

what’s the travel agency in toronto can offer cheapest air ticket from toronto to china

I need Pepsi 20 oz only. Will buy a truck load Please help. Call xxx-xxx-xxxx Jacksonville area

Does anyone have a reasonable contact for purchasing dry ice?

I’m looking to connect with people in the know about Anatomical Pathology (Histology & Cytology) Quality and Management Standards and case studies using Lean and Six Sigma principles.

Is there a mathematical formula that you can use that will help determine if a job would be too far to travel every day?

How can we transcend the dualistic perceptions of Capital and Labor in an industry?

Marvell 88W8060 MIMO RF Txceiver – I need to find someone who has used this part…

Anyone know what /instmsg/aliaes/user.name is?

Entrepreneurial Manufacturing

Know of any bakeries that have capacity and are willing to take on a handmade product?

Who has knowledge/experience in packaging/Drying/Sealing/Sterilizing Bioresorbable materials, like PDS sutures or PGA/PLA ?

I am looking for someone who can reverse engineer a food product, preferably one located in Texas. Can anyone help?

Any knowledge of manufacturing of a rubber bladder capable of holding pressure of around 2-3 bar?

High quality, reasonable cost manufacturer needed for high end baby carriers

Who do you know in microelectronic manufacturing?

Ask a Simple Question … some of these have been asked a millian times before – others are sound quite urgent. I can’t imagine waiting for a response …

Can someone recommend a good online content management process/application?

What is the best document management system?

Discredited Business or Entrepreneurial Theories, Models, Frameworks, or Methods?

Best Way for Non-Programmers to Make Forms/Reports that interface with an SQL Database over the Intranet?

Can you use your computer just by talking and listening to it, without using the screen or mouse?

Who can I use for offshore web development?

how can i create a blog

What is the easiest way to add rotating ads to a typepad blog???

Any TikiWiki users out there willing to help with a wiki question? Some of my RSS feeds look great when used in sidebar modules, but when I place the RSS module within a wiki page the HTML coding appears. Any insight would be appreciated.

Help Needed:- How to connect to other databases from PostGreSQL Server

My A drive is not seen anymore. I did reboot and device manager troubleshot. The issue is still. Please advise. Thanks.

How many ping response characters are there and what’s their mean?

Intergration (Single sign-on) What is the best way to pass authorization and authentication information between two web applications.

What are the technical specifications required for maintenance of a website?

The Big Picture

What is for you organizational noise and how can it be positively managed/used?

Where do you find that most business deals get done?

Looking for help to prove the importance of information management

What are the top 3 qualities of a Great Leader?

How many web developers are there in the world?

Do you think that computer hard disks will become obsolete in the near future ?

‘Who’, ‘What’, ‘Where’ and ‘How’ the big revolution is to take place in Business Networking in near future..?

Is globalization is a “good thing for the common man”?…

What do we stand by even knowing it’s not true, because it feels the right thing to do?

Non Sequitur: How can you ask a question like this … and put your name on it?

How has the Internet made a considerable impact on how companies buy and sell goods around the world?

Ever Bought Something Useless?

Have you ever had a day like this ?

Handling Appreciation

PowerPoint: Threat or Menace?

What is the Future of Furniture over the next 25 years?

How can we transcend the dualistic perceptions of Capital and Labor in an industry?

What do you find when you tidy your office?

How much time a day do you spend on LinkedIn?

Why don’t Australians value, capitalise, monetise and realise their Intellectual Capital (tacit knowledge) ?

I would like to move to australia: any suggestion?

Which medical break through do we need most?

What product would you like to see invented in your life time ?

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2008. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Collaboration, LinkedIn, networking, professional networking, RSS, Web 2.0

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My Networking CV (or, What’s In It For Me?)

Jim MacLennan — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 03:12:00 +0000

As social networking sites proliferate and mature, we’re all learning how to use these interesting new resources. True, it is just a modern take on “professional networking” – purposeful connections with different special interest groups, to share ideas and lay the foundation for current or future “opportunities”.

I’m involved with a couple of organizations like this – I like to connect with peers, and I like to know what’s going on in my city and in the industry. Recently I was talking with the organizer of one of these groups, and he asked what we could do to make our periodic meetings more valuable to the people that participate.

Most business meetings start the same way – a quick trip around the table, where everyone introduces themselves, gives their title and role, and typically talks about their expectations for the meeting, or what they want to get out of this next 60 minutes. That might be helpful at work, but when I’m at a networking meeting, there’s a different dynamic involved.

To tell the truth – I don’t really care what other people want to get out of the meeting … I’m trying to find out how they can help me. I’m looking for somebody who …

… has experience in the technology I’m struggling with – or knows who I might call
… can connect me with an interesting new job opportunity
… has been at the company I am currently interviewing with, so I can get some inside information
… is in the market for the goods or services I need to sell
… has done whatever it is I’m trying to do and can tell me all the shortcuts

Yes, I’m here for myself – and I’m not all that interested in what you want. I’m interested in finding out what or who you know – not what you want to know.

In fact, if the meeting is large, I’ll probably tune the rest of you out, spending more time thinking about what I’m going to say (so I don’t sound stupid) than listening to you, because (again) I don’t care what you want, but I know I don’t want to sound silly when I speak.

Hmm, a room full of self-centered louts … how to warm up a crowd like that?

So, my idea for the Meeting Organizer was to turn the whole thing around; as we go around the table, everyone needs to present what I called their Networking CV (or Networking Resume). I need to explain to the folks around the table what I have to offer:

Companies I’ve worked for
- What industries … pharma? manufacturing? financial? not-for-profit? high-tech?
- What business models … privately held? public? closely held? venture capital? entrepreneurial startup? Fortune 50?
Roles in the business … developer? DBA? PM? Unit leader? Product Manager? Sales? Strategy? Operations?
What technologies, and how deep is my experience?
- What kind projects have I been exposed to?

Remember, you only should take a few minutes to go through this – so how might I find out more?

If you’ve got a detailed resume on the web, give out your site name – or give me a simple Google search term that will find you every time
If you’re in a social network already (ex. LinkedIn), let folks know that you’re out there, tell them to send you an invite and you will accept it
- By the way – I’m on LinkedIn, send me an invite …

If we went around the table talking about this kind of stuff, I’d be listening intently to what everybody else is saying – because they’re telling me exactly what I need to hear.

It might be a good idea to set some structure and ground rules around what people can and should say. You don’t want folks to start bragging or going into too much detail. You just need to give out enough information to let folks know how you might help them. Not your accomplishments, but what you’ve been exposed to.

Now, at first blush this approach sounds both selfish and egotistical: I don’t care what you want, just listen to how great I am. That’s the stealthy, Zen trick behind this approach. By quickly identifying folks that I want and need to have conversations with, I will have more conversations, I will make more connections.

And the nice thing about those connections is that I’m coming to you for information – you’re not trying to push yourself on me. I’m interested in the stuff that you know, but since you told me what you know, I’m coming to you. I am initiating the connection; you may be here to sell something, but I’m going to you to talk about your experience in this industry.

All of the first conversations are me asking you for something freely offered

Why is this important? Because when you start asking me for stuff, the ice is already broken. You may be trying to get new business with my firm. You may be asking if I know of any positions in my company.

Some of our multiple, future conversations are you asking me for something I may not want to give (money, time, or reputation)

However – the relationship has already been started, and it’s built on mutual, opportunistic benefits, freely given. I know it’s much easier to “do business” with folks you know – maybe that’s the Chicago way …

So next time you’re at a networking event, or putting yourself “out there” on these social networking platforms, try to make it clear what you have to offer. Your first visibility into the network, your first conversation, your first post on the board should focus on what you have to offer, what you will add to the network.

It might be a good thing – altruism, pay it forward, power of positive thinking …

It might be a bad thing – cynical manipulation, selfish, giving a little and getting a lot …

But it is an effective thing …

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2008. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Chicago, Execution, group meetings, Inspiration, LinkedIn, networking, professional networking, Social Networks

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LinkedIn Networking Generates Some Hits; Thoughts on Facebook

Jim MacLennan — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 03:53:00 +0000

A quick note about LinkedIn, the social networking site for business professionals; I’ve been a member / participant for over a year, but definitely not an aggressive link-seeker. For example, I am protective of my personal database of contacts – some of whom I am quite sure would not appreciate having their email address submitted for batch searches. (Yes, I know LinkedIn has have a privacy policy, but there is a wee Luddite thread in my psyche).

So I’m out there, but passive … and yet, I’ve noticed an recent uptick in meatspace connection attempts; eMails and voice mails looking for networking conversations, vendors looking to connect, even job opportunities. For the time being, I’ll suffer the vendor calls; I don’t want to poison the LinkedIn karma just yet.

Related item: I recently visited a university with my daughter; at dinner with my nephew (a current student), I asked them both about Twitter (see also). They got me up to date on the importance of Facebook for connecting with their friends, the amount of control they have over the information, and the Twitter-like usefulness of posting who is doing what this weekend.

My previous opinions about Facebook were formed by this article, which lays out a Facebook vs. LinkedIn scenario as current heavy users graduate. There may be some merit to this argument, but I remember interviewing with Apple Computer years ago. The hiring manager was talking about the Apple strategy of putting Macs in the schools; all of those kids will graduate into business, and bring their preference for MacIntosh (learned in grade school) to their purchasing departments.

Hmmm – hindsight says that Windows-inertia proved a bit harder or Apple to break down, and I think the same might befall Facebook. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing … in this era of the Long Tail, why must networking tools be all things to all communities? Leave student life to Facebook, and let LinkedIn handle the professional networking crowd.

There’s a fundamental difference between a network of folks looking for social connections, and one driven by the search for commerce.

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2007. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: contact management, contacts, CRM, Facebook, LinkedIn, long tail, Luddite, Macintosh, meatspace, privacy, Social Networks, Web 2.0

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Why are you blogging?

Jim MacLennan — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 02:12:00 +0000

Nice post by Husband discusses “social networking”, which is “so 18 months ago” (channeling my 12 year old daughter) – interesting to note how the meme is evolving – and that, much like the stock market, there is no right and wrong time to jump in, just do it, start paddling furiously, and don’t be afraid to make it up as you go along.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Send mail to webmaster at cazh1 dot com
© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2004. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Blog, internet meme, meme, social networking

All articles, blog entries, and other content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons License