Visualising Who You Know – Cool vs. Scary – Impressed vs. Concerned

I just checked my LinkedIn home page – and one of my connections had commented on a video by a new business called Viewdle. Take a look at it below:-

Absolutely brilliant, mind-boggling video. Before I get on to the rest of the blog, here were the first two comments on my LinkedIn page about it:

Dr. Kim (Kyllesbech Larsen) “This is so cool that I get goosebumps (or am I scared?)”

Tim Lewis “Agreed Kim! I saw this at MWC and was impressed but concerned in equal measure”

I created this blog to track my journey of understanding the value of Personal Networks – and how to visualise them. Watching this video today gave me a fantastic glimpse

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in to the future – and I’m not sure how comfortable it made me feel! It leaps several levels about the visualisation of Personal Networks I had imagined.

One of the first thoughts I had was – “wouldn’t that be great built in to your glasses – so you never have that ‘they know me, but I’m so embarrassed I can’t remember their name.’ moment again!” However, the more I think about it – the phrase “beauty is only skin deep” comes to mind. Do I really want to know so much about everyone I meet? I’d like to judge them by their beauty or their “Digital Dossier”.

Our family are moving to a new city – and my wife and I walked out in Bath yesterday chatting about the future. One of the discussions was about out 13 year old son – and what he would be like when he was 18 and living in the city. I said that he’d be sneaking in to the house late at night and playing games with his mates on the Playstation 3. We both said – “no – it will be a Playstation 5 by then”. What will that beast be able to do – technology moves on at such a pace.

I hope in 5 years time I will meet people I know nothing about – and build a relationship “unwrapping the layers of the onion”. I’m worried that this might not be possible – everyone I meet will have an FBI style security briefing/”Digital Dossier” attached to them that will pop up on my iPhone 10! Anyone out there with a comment to re-assure me??? Off to check out Viewdle …

Googleing, Networking – and the activity of Pandas

One of the best blog posts I’ve read in a long while is by Adam Rifkin.

Adam posts and twitters under the name “I Find Karma”. The post I liked was called “Pandas and Lobsters: Why Google Cannot Build Social Applications…” – and amongst other things drew the analogy of our behaviour on Google being very “panda like”. I love analogies – and Adam’s navigation

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of the social media landscape in this way is well worth a read.

Here’s the intro of the much longer article:-

After researching what pandas do all day, I was struck by how panda-like we are when we use the Internet.

Roaming a massive world wide web of forests, most of our time is spent searching for delicious bamboo and consuming it. 40 times a day we’ll poop something out — an email, a text message, a status update, maybe even a blog post — and then go back to searching-and-consuming. For a decade, Google has trained us to optimize our pandic selves:

The kind of application that Google knows how to make well are the kind that embody a panda’s “eats, shoots, and leaves” model of Internet behavior. Pandas spend every waking hour foraging — aka searching — and consuming. The most successful Google applications serve such a utilitarian mandate, too: they encourage users to search for something, consume, and move onto the next thing. Get in, do your business, get out. Do a Google search, slurp down information, move on. Pull up Google maps or Gmail or Google news, do something, leave.

I’m constantly reading blogs and articles in the press. A couple of articles have filtered through the reading pile in the last couple of days that are relevant to this panda analogy.

The first was an article in Intelligent Life (currently free to download as an iPad magazine). The article was called “Appleism v Googleism” by Robert Lane Greene – and discusses the clash of cultures between gadget-maker and search engine. The writing is great – and one particular point in the middle of the article struck a chord:-

It’s worth noting “to Apple” is not a verb.

There’s a subtle difference between the activity – Googling – and the long term affinity/passion that many have for Apple.

This linked through to a recent article I’d read by “corporate anthropologist” Karen Stephenson called “Network Management” which she had written back in 1997.

What is a network? In today’s popular literature and business press, there is a lot of talk about social and organizational networked the role they play in fomenting change. Typically, this literature focuses on the notion of “networking” as an action orientated, i.e., network as a verb……

There is a second meaning to network, however, and it is far more profound than the first. ….. network as a noun…

The three separate threads help me to conclude that Networking can be a very short-term – “eats, shoots and leaves” – style of activity. We’ve all heard of turnover focussed “busy fool activity”. Don’t get suckered in to networking without a strategic objective – it’s definitely in the “busy fool” category!

I think that more and more people are coming around to this way of thinking. I read a great blog post yesterday by Penny Power (founder of Ecademy). In her post, “#Slow Media – can we get off the Social Media hype and take care of one another”, she has one quote in there that particularly resonates:-

the ‘digital age’ that believes that connecting means ‘manipuating a connection for my own gain‘.

Networking whether face-to-face or via social media needs to be a slow process – building trust. There are way too many insincere “eats, shoots and leaves” networking activities going on. Your Personal Network should be your “fan club”/supporters – and you theirs … it’s not the people you sell to or manipulate.

Building a Personal Network, I believe is nurturing and creating your most valuable asset to last you a lifetime. It’s a strategic issue – where sometimes networking is a tactic.

Don’t be a panda with your Personal Network (pandas are an endangered species, you know!?) …..

If LinkedIn closed down – would you REALLY miss it?

I’ve been wading through LinkedIn’s IPO registration document. It’s called an S-1 and can be found on the SEC site in the US. I used to spend time wading through these things when the main competitor in my photo business, Getty Images, were listing in the US. The language has got even drier and risk averse. Do have a read – but you will have to skip over a substantial part of the document that tells you why they might fail. Here’s a section I found particularly “entrepreneurial” … must have driven the “forward looking” execs mad…

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This prospectus, including the sections entitled “Prospectus Summary,” “Risk Factors,” “Use of Proceeds,” “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Business,” contains forward-looking statements. In some cases you can identify

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these statements by forward-looking words such as “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “could,” “would,” “project,” “plan,” “expect” or the negative or plural of these words or similar expressions. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements concerning the following: …………

I had been chatting to a friend about how we use social networking. He’s not a fan of LinkedIn – the classic argument of “you only go there if you are looking to find a new job”. However, he did make a good point: “If LinkedIn closed down tomorrow – would you really miss it?”

It got me thinking. Then today, I was pointed in the direction of a post from 2009 by Lea Woodward entitled “What If Twitter Went Down & Never Came Back Up?” How dependent are we on social media?

Let’s take a look at LinkedIn’s S-1 filing. The two elements that I highlighted – in amongst the legal backside watching – were:-

We believe we are transforming the way people work by connecting talent with opportunity at massive scale. Our goal is to provide a global platform capable of mapping every professional’s experience, skills and other relevant professional data to his or her professional graph, including connections with colleagues and business contacts.

and

Business Model with Powerful Network Effects. The size and growth of our member base, the number of enterprises and professional organizations that use our platform, and the amount of rich and accurate information generated by our members increase the value we deliver to all participants in our network. A larger member base provides more opportunities to form professional connections for members, as well as increased opportunities to identify and attract talent for enterprises and professional organizations. At the same time, an increasing number of enterprises and professional organizations accessing our network enhances the relevance for members who stand to benefit from professional insights and opportunities. We believe the breadth and depth of our network would be difficult to replicate and represents a significant competitive advantage.

It seems to me that in the trade for free use of LinkedIn’s platform – they are benefiting from the network effect immensely. Personally, I find LinkedIn an interesting peripheral service that helps get a perspective on who I know – and keeps me in touch with what they are doing.

Are the key relationships in my Personal Network supported or “managed” through LinkedIn. Definitely NOT!

If the doom and gloom of the LinkedIn prospectus all came home to roost – would I REALLY miss it? I got over SixDegrees.com closing down during the .com fall out over 10 years ago – so I could get over LinkedIn closing its doors too.

I’d be interested in hearing about how critical LinkedIn is to how you carry out your work. What’s your opinion?

[Have now created a LinkedIn Poll. Please take the time to vote –
http://linkd.in/gaeWb1]

What impression am I making? Who do I know? What do I know about them? … and many more questions – SUMMARY

Well, it’s been a great experience pulling together this three part series. I hope that in reading it, you have found some insight in to your Personal Network – I certainly have in writing it.

I’ve reviewed three new products/service – from MyWebCareer, Connected and Nimble. I have also had the privilege to interview the founders of each business.

The first step with each of these solutions is going off to the “cloud” and pulling together personal information

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from the likes of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. However, each solution has a different angle on aggregating this information.

I started this series of posts by asking a series of questions? They were:-

* What impression am I making?
* Who do I know?
* What do I know about them?

My exploration of the value of Personal Networks constantly throws up questions – and these are only three of many.

What impression am I making?

MyWebCareer, undoubtedly answers this question. Although, like everything in life – it’s only an opinion.

If you are developing and cultivating your Personal Network – you should be concerned about your “brand” and how you are perceived by your network. I don’t see any reason for not giving it a try – and using its clever scoring system to bench mark your Personal Brand and on-line presence. I’d also recommended this service to Personal Brand consultants (like Beth Campbell Duke) – it’s a simple way to get clients thinking about how they shape up … and how they can improve. I will certainly diary time each month for a brief review of which direction my MyWebCareer score is moving – and why.

So, this is the easy bit of the post – if you want this question answering .. then just log in to MyWebCareer.

Who do I know? What to I know about them?

This is a tough one. The undoubted, sure fire winner of the commercial race is Nimble! It’s driven by an inspirational founder, Jon Ferrara – with the conventional CRM customer base waiting with open arms for a Social CRM solution. It will work for SMEs (Small & Medium Enterprises) at all levels from management to sales staff to customers.

However, my interest is in Personal Networks. As regular readers will know, my favourite quote is from Mick Cope, who wrote the FT book, “Personal Networking”:-

“By professional networking I mean a set of close contacts or associates who will help deliver my value to market. The key thing is that these are people who will ‘help’ you in the market, THEY ARE NOT THE MARKET. Sorry for the full-on letters, but my definition of a network is ‘people who will help amplify my personal capital in the market’, not a bunch of friends and colleagues to whom I try to sell under the guise of giving them a great opportunity. Active management of these people is not networking; it is client relationship management, a whole different ball game…”

This is the third time I’ve quoted this in my blog – it sums up the idea of a Personal Network for me. Mick will be charging me royalties soon….

During the interview with Sachin Rekhi, the founder of Connected, we discussed who was his customer. He said: “We looked at delivering this products to companies – chasing the VP of Sales. However, we decided that Connected is a more personal product – and we’re committed to take the harder track of acquiring customers one at a time.”

So, for someone with the long-term/life-long strategic goal of cultivating and developing their Personal Network – I think Sachin has set the best strategy. Unfortunately, this does not make it a sure fire commercial winner like Nimble! Getting people to stand back, take stock, work out where they are going – and recognising that their Personal Network is the key to long-term development will be a challenge.

While writing this series of posts, trying out the software and interviewing the founders, I’ve started to get a much better feel for the support needed for a Personal Network to function. The “Who do I know? What to I know about them?” is a fundamental building block in this.

I’ve also taken a look back my blog post “Personal Networks, Soloware and ‘The Individual is the new Group'”. In summary, that post makes the argument that the power of the individual through “Soloware” is much greater than that of the Enterprise through “Groupware”.

From all this deliberation, I am starting to understand that the Linchpin society put forward by Seth Godin in his book (indispensable, unique people are the future) – means that enterprise driven CRM systems are not the solutions required for the social media connected 21st century.

I always believe that when I am getting to grips with a complex issue, if I can visualise it (or in my case create a block diagram) that I am getting near a solution. Here’s my first iteration:-

Here the individual has their Personal Network, gathered from the “cloud” – which we see in solutions like Connected and Nimble. However, the significant difference that I envisage is that the enterprises we engage with as “Linchpins” to deliver projects will need to give access to their corporate information in the same cloud based way.

This will demand a whole new level of trust between individuals and enterprise – and a shift of power. In our new world – The Personal Network is king!

Thank you to Nip, Sachin and Jon – I’ve really enjoyed connecting with you … and wish you and your ventures every success.

What impression am I making? Who do I know? What do I know about them? … and many more questions – PART 2

Hopefully, you are visiting this post after reading Part 1 yesterday. Today, I’m focusing on a new service called Connected that was launched earlier in the week. However, there is a summary of both Connected and MyWebCareer at the end of the post.

The review of Connected is interspersed with quotes from Founder Sachin Rekhi. He kindly gave me 45 minutes of his time (very generous for a man launching such a major service) – and I only wish I’d recorded

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the chat for you. He’s an inspiring person to interview.

Connected grabbed my attention while waiting for a flight that had been delayed for 30 minutes. I checked my Twitter feed and spotted a message by Guy Kawasaki that announced the new service – it sounded exciting.

I’d only got my iPad to hand – so thought I’d boot up Safari and check out the service. I’m glad I did – because the service was a WOW! You don’t get many of those from start ups….

In the time that I had free before the flight left I’d “touch screened” my way to connect all my various repositories of information (and there are many), explored some fantastic apps – and bored my wife by saying “look at this!” several times.

I was surprise by three things on first impression:-

1. It worked great on the iPad – looked as if it had been made for the device
2. All the connections to Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, etc were seamless – and merging/matching was excellent
3. I’m very used to services offering integration to contacts via these services – but Connected also brought your communications/messaging in to the system, as well as calendar

I mentioned this to Sachin on our Skype call. He said: “We started the business a year ago, went live to the world two days ago – but have spent 6 months in private beta. I had a couple of beta users using iPads – and they beat me up on the interface … They were happy when we launched, and I am glad you are too.”

The result of this trawl of personal data collated all the information I need to answer two of the big questions in Personal Networks – “Who do I know? What do I know about them?”

I discussed this with Sachin. My view was that Connected was producing the sort of contact report that I would expect to get from a good (maybe great) personal assistant before a meeting/call. Sachin said: “I’m really delighted to hear that. Many of our potential customers already value relationships and are willing to do the work – and Connected makes their life easier and saves time. There are another group who just want things on a plate – and it works for them too. Our focus is to make Connected easy and lightweight for the user.”

I have a real interest in the language used to communicate a fresh idea. My particular issue when I talk about Personal Networks is that people say “Oh, you mean like Networking – going and giving business cards to lots of people” (which I hate) or “Ah, It’s Facebook then – isn’t that just for saddos. And why do people keep pestering me to friend them on LinkedIn.” (well not quite!).

Sachin and I discussed whether he felt there was “baggage” associated in words he had used in his blog posts like “Rolodex” and Personal Relationship Management (PRM) service – with connotations of CRM. Sachin said: “We talked a lot about this. Rolodex can be connected with salesmen from another age. CRM has a lot of issues too. However, these terms bridge the gap to help people to understand what we are offering – and then we’ll show them the new way we are approaching things. I’m still staggered that there is still such a huge installed base of products like ACT! and Goldmine. I’ve been driven by the fact that there are abysmal tools available for people wanting to develop their Personal Network.”

We both agreed that the initial WOW of Connected was not in question – but the retention of customers to make it THE dashboard for the the Who and What of their Personal Network was the real challenge. Sachin said: “We’ve no doubt that folk who want to do a better job will like Connected – it will appeal to many. Retention will require us to get users to understand that with the benefits come constraints and disciplines. However, I think we are keeping this to an absolute minimum. Beta users are reporting that they are putting aside 10 minutes each morning to use Connected and then keeping it open in a browser tab to review during the day. We are also offering a daily email which gives a summary of who you are connecting with – and who you might want to connect with.”

It’s still very early days for Connected – and although the list of integrations is long (Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Contacts – Calendar – Voice) there are some missing. Sachin said: “We wanted to start the conversation with customers – so have gone to market with many features still in the pipeline. We are a long way down the road with prototype integration with Outlook – and will hook up with mobiles (already doing that with Google Voice) with either an iPhone App or at&t piece. In the long run we’ll be aiming to get all communication in there – including SMS and Skype”

The user features are rich. For example, there are a range of Apps including Contacts Maps. This is an integrated solution similar to MapMyConnections which I reviewed earlier in the week.

I’ve tried out quite a few services in this space. Gist is the most well known – which personally I find an information heavy experience. I don’t feel that it really gives me the Who and the What – and is especially annoying at not matching contacts. Also, in terms of contact integration, I have used (and paid for) a service called AddressBookOne (which has some nice iPhone integration).

I found the experience of Connected – and chatting to Sachin – energising. I would recommend that everyone who has a Gmail/GoogleApps account and a social media network to give it a go. It will be a challenge to make it THE key app for your Personal Network – but it’s got a great chance. If Path founder Dave Morin is turning down offers for $100m from Google – then Sachin will soon be beating off offers too! He seems to have this area sussed. Remember, you heard it here first … well except for Guy Kawasaki and a rather nice review by Yesware.

This post has gone on a bit – and I’d like to summarise in another post (Part 3 on Monday!). There was also another late entry to this theme in the form of Nimble (another PRM). Nimble was originally introduced to me by Neal Schaffer of Windmill Networking (whose book on LinkedIn I reviewed last year). I was invited to their Private Beta yesterday – and will be interviewing their Founder, Jon Ferrara (who also helped to create Goldmine) in the next couple of days. It will be interesting to chat with him and make the connection – my old business was a Goldmine user “way back when”.

Back on Monday with Part 3 – and I promise not to drag it out to 4 parts! Have a great weekend…

The Secret History of Social Networking

I’m not wanting my blog to become a review of the BBC’s output – but they are creating some terrific programming around networks. The latest find is a BCC Radio 4 report called “The Secret History of Social Networking”.

In the aftermath of the success of the movie, “Social Network”, BBC journalist Rory Cellan-Jones has traveled the globe to interview many of the “actors” who helped to create the Social Network phenomena. Interestingly, this story starts 37 years ago with “Community Memory” in Berkeley, California.

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The series is in 3 parts – the first was broadcast last week, and I tuned in to the podcast of it last night. It’s a good listen – and I think will become even more interesting as it races towards the modern day take-off of Social Media.

During the series there are contributions from Twitter’s Biz Stone, Path’s Dave Morin, Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley, Facebook’s Chris Cox, the WELL co-founder Stewart Brand and writers Howard Rheingold and Julia Angwin. There’s a nice preview video interview with quite a few of these contributors on the main BBC webpage.

In the UK you can “Listen Again” with iPlayer. It seems that those outside the UK can also get access by subscribing to the Podcast.

I HATE Networking

Well, I’ve said it – “I HATE Networking”.

You might find this strange coming from a guy who runs a blog called Personal Network and has been rambling on the subject on a regular basis for over 6 months. But I do!

On Monday evening, I went along to an event in Bath (soon to be my new home) – and when the presentations were over and the “chance to network” began, I just froze. It brought back many memories from the past, attending these events and just thinking “why the hell am I here?”. I got value out of the event – and have followed up with a couple of people who I listened to … but

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“networking” is not for me.

It’s not that I’m not a social animal – I get real energy from being around people (I am by no means a loner). It’s not that I’m the shy/retiring type – the 14 years I spent as an international photo-journalist meant I spoke to every sort of person to help get my job done. Maybe that’s the answer to my hating “Networking” – I don’t see the point.

I am also a great believer in serendipity – so crossing people’s paths and making connections is real fun for me. I suppose my way would be through making connections – the friend of a friend root. Networking is “cold calling” to me – just without the phone slam!

The crux of the matter is that personally, I dislike small talk – and meeting my objectives in not aligned to “networking” events. I’m not in a sales role – and “networking” makes me a salesman. Check out this video – it makes my skin crawl!

I have come to the conclusion that I am not alone. It would be interesting to find how many of this blog’s readers feel the same way. Networking gurus who train you to “work the room” and follow up “for a coffee” – might fit with some, but not me!

My belief that your Personal Network is your most important asset (more than house and cash) does not vary. It’s by standing back and assessing your network against your objectives that you make your plans. However, I don’t think my plans will ever include “networking” events.

Are the People you REALLY want to know Social Networking?

One of my personal projects is being Chairman of a charity – the Belvoir Castle Cricket Trust. it’s a start up non-profit – which gets children involved in sport and lets youngsters explore the countryside. It’s a small venture – but we’ve gathered some excellent supporters, including some heavy-hitting, influential Trustees from the world of business, finance, the aristocracy and cricket.

Chairing our Trustees Meeting yesterday, it struck me that this star team would be the sort of people many would want in their Personal Networks. However, it would be very unlikely that Social Networking would be

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the route. This afternoon I thought it worth doing a little audit of how my Trustees used Facebook and LinkedIn. Her goes:-

Emma, Duchess of Rutland. The chatelain of Belvoir Castle – and mother of 5! She is on LinkedIn (with one connection), but has not made it to Facebook yet. She’s probably one of the most sociable and energetic people I know.

John Barclay. Has been the President of the MCC this year (for those non-cricketers, the MCC is the Marylebone Cricket Club, which is the custodian of the Laws of Cricket). John has not made it to LinkedIn or Facebook. One of the most charming communicators – and an excellent writer.

Mrs Moneypenny She is one of the FT’s columnist and an internationally renowned headhunter. She is probably the best networker that I know – counting anyone from PM’s wives to Elle MacPherson in her network. She has one connection on LinkedIn – and is not connected to Facebook.

Phillip Hodson. He is Chief Executive of the Oval Group and played county cricket in England and rugby in South Africa. No presence on either Facebook or LinkedIn.

Emma Agnew. She is Editor of BBC East Midlands Television and the wife of BBC Cricket Correspondent Jonathan Agnew (Aggers). She’s the “modern girl” of the bunch. No LinkedIn membership – but 171 Friends on Facebook …. and an active Twitter account!

I chatted with a friend about this. She’s a heavier user of LinkedIn than me – and comes from a corporate rather than entrepreneurial/small business background. I said that I thought that the “big hitters” just did not join LinkedIn. Why would they spend time being shielded behind their gatekeeping PA, and then go public on social networking?

My friend pointed out that some Chief Executives of the UK’s major businesses were on LinkedIn and active One she cited was Euan Sutherland, the CEO of B&Q (UK equivalent to Home Depot in the US).

Maybe it’s an age thing – but I do think that REAL relationships are properly developed by REAL WORLD interaction. I’d be interested in your experiences. Are the heavy-hitters in your Personal Network social networking?

Keith – I feel let down

I’ve thought long and hard about writing this post. I feel that I’ve been let down by someone on the very outskirts of my Personal Network – but it’s still disappointing (maybe I’m just too sensitive).

Regular readers of the blog will know that I’ve read and reviewed two books by Keith Ferrazzi – and more recently created a post talking about and recommending a free webinar he was offering to preview his Executive Relationship Management Course.

Well since, the point of recommendation, I feel that I’ve been spammed. I’m not bothered for myself – but I feel let down that I’ve

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recommended and passed on my trust to others (and if they’ve signed up, they might feel spammed too). I’ve had messages like:-

-> Emergency…Keith is going nuts on the webinar…
-> Okay, so maybe we miscalculated…maybe a LOT…
-> Don’t you need more sales and bigger revenues?
-> Your last, last chance for the program…
-> 13 hours and 25 minutes

All emails in that “old style” direct marketing format of calls to actions, links – and PSs!

I feel like I’d met a guy who I liked a couple of times who was an insurance salesman – then invited him to a dinner party with friends and he proceed to dole out business cards and try to sell insurance to my pals.

I can understand why it’s happened. The numbers give a clue – only 250 places, Premium Plus places at $3,988 and Premium places at $1,988. So that’s either a $1m or $500k sales target! We all have to earn a living.

My favourite quote on Personal Networks is from Mick Cope (who wrote the FT book, “Personal Networking”)

“By professional networking I mean a set of close contacts or associates who will help deliver my value to market. The key thing is that these are people who will ‘help’ you in the market, THEY ARE NOT THE MARKET. Sorry for the full-on letters, but my definition of a network is ‘people who will help amplify my personal capital in the market’, not a bunch of friends and colleagues to whom I try to sell under the guise of giving them a great opportunity. Active management of these people is not networking; it is client relationship management, a whole different ball game and one deliberately not covered in this book.”

It’s a great mantra – and you can see why Keith’s actions make me feel let down.

I am sure all people who have signed up for the course will learn a lot (I think no less of Keith’s professional abilities), I hope that Keith has made that $1m sales target (his talent does deserve reward) – but the outcome that I wish for most is that Keith reflects that in the process he’s drifted in to becoming the “Networking Jerk” (chapter 6 – “Never Eat Alone”). Keith’s changed from being the Farmer to the Hunter.

The reason I still like the books – and think well of Keith (even though today I feel let down) is that in both his books his ability to recognise and acknowledge his mistakes shows his humanity.

It’s also a lesson for me. I’m just about to launch a commercial venture alongside my passion for Personal Networks. I am sure that in my enthusiasm, eagerness (and maybe a little greed) along the way I will make mistakes too. I now realise there is a very sensitive line in my relationship with my Personal Network.

Networking – you can’t cram last-minute!

My google alerts on “Personal Networks” and “Personal Network Value” bring me some interesting nuggets – and take me to some off-beat places. Today I’ve spent some time in the “Career Talk for Women” section of Forbes magazine!!

My exploration of Personal Networks has been focussed around visualisation and values – but this blog post by Caroline Ceniza-Levine titled “Test The Strength Of Your Network” approaches Personal Networks from

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another angle.

Do take the time to read Caroline’s blog post in full – but I especially liked her quote:

Networking is not something that you can cram last-minute. A strong network is built over time and with deliberate attention to both quantity and quality of the contacts.

Caroline gives three questions to test the strength of your network:-

1. If you had a professional question (e.g. “do you know anyone at Pfizer? They posted a job that may be right for me and I want to learn more about that group”) – how many people would you feel comfortable calling right now? Less than 25 – and your network’s just not strong enough.
2. When was the last time you had lunch or a Starbucks with a contact outside your day-to-day colleagues or closest friends? More than a month – there’s a big danger you are not diversifying your network enough.
3. Do you have mentors and supporters? If there is no-one around who is looking out for you – and that you can trust for confidential advice, then you need to go in search of them.

Really good, simple advice – I’ll be following Caroline’s posts in future even if I have to venture in to the women’s section )that’s something much easier on the internet than in real life!!). I suspect that Caroline is a top scorer on network strength – her profile says “Caroline is an extreme career changer: classical pianist, banker, consultant, executive recruiter, actor, corporate HR director, real estate investor and career coach.” There will be no problem at all with the diversity of her Personal Network!