Beth,

Thanks for starting this conversation. Social capital is our most underleveraged asset and a vital skill for connecting with the right resource at the right time to make the most efficient and effective progress toward our goals. What could be more essential in building any social venture?

Directly related to this, a colleague - Duncan Work (http://100trillion.wordpress.com/about/) - has launched a survey to explore these things further as well and if anyone is interested I'd be happy to pass a link and share the results when they are available.

As for your questions: - what works for me is keeping building relationships around things that I am interested in - as opposed to building relationships for the sake of relationships. I use twitter to follow threads that I'm interesting which leads me to new people. I use LI to explore connection paths to particular people or organizations (and also intermittently facilitate connection requests). I also point people that want me to make connection for them into my LI profile. They can browse my network (1st degree and beyond) and then come back to me with specific requests - they can find the right connection based on what they need far more efficiently than if I suggest who I think they should connect with. - advice: use responsibly - these are people - share - be open - be honest - be direct - connections: links to speakers for events, insight into certain organizations, allies with related interest (likely future partners) - difficult doesn't relate to the tool but rather the magnitude of the ask. Regardless of the medium big asks require more upfront planning. Many people tend to think of the tools only for immediate, spur of the moment things rather than utilizing as part of a core toolkit.

Thanks again for kicking this off... looking forward to the conversation!

Great points Beth, well said. If I could only give one piece of advice, it would be to choose your communication tools carefully. So many people go out and build a profile on every social network, build a blog, get a bunch of profiles on forums and then find they are overwhelmed. It's better to start small, develop your network and then expand as you get into it. As your network expands you can find new social networks through your contacts and bring more of your network with you.

There is a terrific guest post over at Chris Brogan's blog by

Corvida. http://www.chrisbrogan.com/decreasing-connections-while-increasing-our-networks/

Some really good questions related to how you manage the growth of your network. She asks some great questions that might be worth exploring here

• How do you maintain connections with your network of friends? What features or tools help you to maintain these connections? What features or tools are missing that you feel could help you to grow your connections even more?

Hey Beth ...

I love the participate in the conversation before you ask for anything way of doing things. that's a truth in life at large! :)

One question that I'm curious about from your perspective: how do you ask your network for things once you have really given to it?

-- http://twitter.com/franswaa

Great topic Beth, and a much needed conversation. One thing I would like to add is the importance of the authenticity of your connections and your interactions. On professional networks like LinkedIn, requesting or receiving a request to connect should not be based on numbers. Having a quality network that you can honestly make referrals for or receive referrals from your network is critical to maintain the integrity. In a social network like Facebook, remember that what you put on your site shows on theirs, and vice versa.

The same rules go for all networks and relationships: Be true to who you are and who you want to be. Reach out, but do not overextend. Remember to say thank you when someone helps you out. Making the extra effort to connect people to others or information that might be of interest or helpful to them goes a long way. Nurture your network and you and it will go a long way.

I came here to see if there were any questions and to my delight l've learned a lot!

@Michael - Networking with a purpose is very important and I think it is tempting and easy to fall into people collecting mode. Also, to your point about thinking of networking as a spur of the moment things rather than strategically - and using it a core toolkit. How do you build the networking effectively habit into your life?

I like your tip about pointing people to your LI and asking them to come back with a specific request for introductions and connections.

@janet - It's definitely quality over quantity of presences. If you were advising someone who was completely new to all these networking tools, how would you help them choose what site or tool to use first?

@frank - I ask when I truly need something. I don't ask the same people too often. I say thank you and show appreciation. I think @Heidi's advice is spot on!

Hi Beth. Nice to see you here. I think all of your suggestions are right on target.

I've been building my network for more than 40 years. It consists of friends, family, co-workers, army buddies, and people I've met who work with inner city kids in one capacity or another. I've participated in many on-line forums to expand my network, learn from others, and learn information I can share with others.

Here's a PDF that I host on my web site titled "Building a Network of Purpose" http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/Partner/CC/Presentations/collaboration/Building%20a%20Network%20Focused%20on%20a%20Common%20Goala.pdf

Here's a map of what my network looks like: http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/servlet/SBReadResourceServlet?rid=1180618335312_621532345_11273&partName=htmltext

In this map, each node links to a section on the T/MC web site, with links to other people who I've met over the years. The map is intended to show how they are all inter-related, like a blueprint, of people who work to help disadvantaged kids to careers. Thus, as I expand my network via forums like this, I'm also adding new links to the library, so that other people can find the people I'm finding, and when I host an event in Chicago, I can invite people from the network to participate.

The biggest challenge I find is lack of time to know all there is to know, meet all the people who are doing things which relate to what I'm focused on, and still do the daily work of administering an organization, raising funds, connecting volunteers and kids. Thus, one of my goals is to connect with others who have the same purpose, and are working in a similar way, to build a network of people, where they are the center of their network, just as I'm the center of my network.

If we link to each other, then we get the benefit of the networking each other is doing, but without some of the time it takes to reach all of these new people.

How are others finding ways to manage the vast amount of information, and potential contacts, as well as their day to day work responsibilities?

Hi Beth and everyone,

These are great thoughts. As you say, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. “are just tools. The secret sauce is relationship building:”

Another way to say that is: You can quickly build really large networks on LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, but if you don’t really know the people well, those networks aren’t worth much. Other comments above have said similar things.

The way that maybe most people use LI and FB seems to be actually the best way: Connect to people you already know well. Especially connect to people where you have already built up a strong reciprocal relationships. You can then use a tool like LinkedIn to find important new contacts. But if you are always introduced by someone whom both you and the new contact trusts, then you will start off from the beginning with a much higher level of trust and mutual respect than otherwise. That is, it works the same way online as offline.

In my estimate, the most valuable and also least used tools on LinkedIn are the Advanced Search (for searching for specific expertise or potential influence) and the Introduction Request (asking an existing contact to introduce you to someone who matches your search). The Introduction Request tool works especially well if (as said above) you know the person well who will introduce you, and they know the person well whom you actually want to meet.

There are strategic ways to make strong connection paths more likely. But even when the person you want to meet is 3 degrees away (meaning that your direct contact is 2 degrees from the person you want to meet) introduction requests still work if you follow some common-sense rules. For example, making sure that your purpose for connecting will actually have a mutual benefit.

On the other hand, using a social capital application like LinkedIn isn’t so great for finding people to sell certain types of products or services to. If a person’s social network profile doesn’t make it clear that your message is likely to be relevant to them, think twice about using LinkedIn or any other social network to send that type of message.

As a follow-up note, Michael mentioned the survey that we are now putting out. To complement discussions like this, the survey’s purpose is to learn more about people’s professional networking needs and to see how they in fact use tools like LI and FB. The survey will also collect success stories showing how different types of needs are met by both social and business entrepreneurs. The survey is short, and the results will be available to everyone at 100trillion.net and elsewhere.

Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/3k8fde

I know we're talking about online tools, but good networking is not just online. There's face-to-face networking. So, how do you combine the offline/online strategically?

I wrote this post summarizing some advice from Charlene Li about professional networking. Some good ideas there about using online networks to research someone you might be meeting, finding out who may be attending a networking event so you can meet them, etc.

What are your best thoughts/tips/ideas for connecting offline/online professional networking?

Here's the url - but come back here and share your ideas. http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/09/networking-tips.html

One of the best crossover uses is the opportunity to review attendee profiles prior to a face to face event. I have used this to determine not only who I already know that is attending and I would like to meet, but also who I might be able to help or to connect. It basically allows you to do your homework. On the other side, it helps to maintain new connections on-line once established at the face to face event.

Not long ago when passing by my FriendFeed, I realized I look at everyone's profile except my own. It's a good idea to check back at what other folks are seeing when they visit. I've found that since I've start tending my profile pages, my network-building and client inquiries have been far more and far closer to what I want to focus on.

Hi Beth,

Thanks for sharing these great tips. Some of the questions that come up frequently in the Social Edge offers and requests section involve finding people with particular expertise to either advise or join a social venture.

Could you talk about how to connect with the help you need, when you don't have a specific person or company in mind? For example, if you wanted to find board members for a health oriented venture in Latin America, how would you go about finding people who have expertise, a passion for your cause, and would add value to your board (when you have depleted your personal contacts)? Are there tricks or pitfalls to watch out for in regard to global networking?

I would also echo Beth's question to Janet -"how would you help them choose what site or tool to use first?" If you only maintain one network, which gives you the biggest bang (return on your time investment)?

I invite all the other helpful folks who have left comments already to chime in with their thoughts as well. Thanks!

Jill, your example is the kind of application that LinkedIn can do fairly well. It has a very decent search tool that can usually find the right people if they’re in LinkedIn. In your particular example I would start with a search like this:

Keywords: health, venture Title: Board OR CEO OR President Or Chair Location: Brazil

Unfortunately you can only search for one country at a time. But you could alternately put the country names in the key words.

There are a few rules though that are helpful to know:

1. Keywords can be found in any section of anyone’s profile. The whole profile is searchable.
2. When you string words together, the search engine assumes an automatic “AND” between them.
3. To create more complex concepts you can use Boolean rules (and have to capitalize the Booleans).
4. g.:

health AND venture AND (Brazil OR Argentina OR Paraguay) AND “board of directors”

Basically, try to think of what the person you want would put in his or her profile. Then do a little experimenting to see what works.

Before doing the search you can set the sort order to either “Relevance” or to “Degrees away from me”. Try them both. Degrees away from you will show you if there are any people only 2 degrees away.

If you don’t find many people, then it of course helps to grow your network (using good offline networking guidelines) so that you’re connected to at least a few people who are likely to know the kinds of people, in the kinds of places, that you’re interested in.

The search feature isn’t magic. You won’t always find the perfect person. And when you do, you still have to present a compelling case in your message, your own profile, and the strength of your connections.

Jill asked a fantastic question: Could you talk about how to connect with the help you need, when you don't have a specific person or company in mind?

If I were approaching this, I’d try a sociographic approach. Research-wise, one of the more valuable social research strategies to try locating, identifying, and eventually interviewing, the top ten “experts” in any particular field or geographic area.

There's a fancy name for that process, but it slips my mind right now. Now when I say experts, it’s not necessarily the people that say they are the experts or otherwise claim to be. Rather it’s the ones that everybody else cites as the “ones to talk to.”

Let's look at this in terms of social networks and your example.

>For example, if you wanted to find board members for a health >oriented venture in Latin America, how would you go about finding >people who have expertise, a passion for your cause, and would add >value to your board (when you have depleted your personal contacts)? >Are there tricks or pitfalls to watch out for in regard to global >networking?

In this case, you want to know [first] not specific names people would recommend for the board position, but rather who everybody would cite as the expert or the maven in the health field in Latin America. Who exactly would folks recommend as the “person in the know” so to speak. It’s not so much “what’s the answer to my question” but “who should I ask.” Then, once you collect up the experts; you ask them for specific names.

Beth, this is one of the things you mention up front. In my own experience the "traffic and monetise" type of network may be used to gather large numbers of cheering supporters but frequently fails to translate into any kind of action. There are a large number of networks now occupying the social enterprise space - Razoo, Taking it Global, and many more. These seem to generate more meaningful dialogue but above all the Ned.com network seems to rise above in terms of developing action from dialogue between committed people. Some may know that this began as the Omidyar network and why it pulled out of this "market" while in a leading position still perplexes me.

I was reminded just now of my Facebook page on the use of prepaid credit cards, when someone on Linkedin pointed out the unsuitability of Paypal peer to peer funding campaigns.

Where I struggle, even as a long term IT professional myself, is in getting across to others that world problems won't be addressed just by the technology.

What I did find however was the founder of our current organisation while he was involved in a fast for economic rights. He'd grasped the significance of information based society and had been blogging about it since 1997, by publishing a thesis for social enterprise as a free to use web document. A decade later, one finds the same arguments being put forward as the case for Creative Capitalism and at the root of what is described as Obamanomics. That might be considered a success.

Social Capitalism whitepaper

Beth, interesting question you asked me: "How do you build the networking effectively habit into your life?"

For me I find my networking happens as a result of what I'm doing and have done. I've never had the interest to meet people for the sake of building my network. What I do do though is ensure I've captured an email contact at minimum for people that I've met directly and have an affiliation with. The other thing is that I am very open about what I do and what I'm interested in - also open in lending support to those I connect with - and am very accessible/not hard to find. I've found that helps in attracting unintentional connections and building the trust/reciprocity that makes the connections useful later.

That said, those are traits of who I am rather than necessarily approaches or techniques I try to apply. And perhaps that is most important - that we always remain true to our nature in what it is that we do. I believe authenticity is an esssential lubricant to make the most of our networks.

Cheers,

Michael (@igniter - twitter and most other places)

Let's brainstorm a list of the best

from the art of professional networking to specific granualar how-to posts about using the tools.

Very interesting article, I see myself doing quite a bit of the things suggested.

If you asked me to put my online networking strategy into a single sentence, it would read:

"Influencing the people who influence many other people"

I'm based in India, far outside the loop (at least, it WAS far out in 1995 when I got started). I'm also a busy professional with a schedule that leaves me with little time to spare on extensive networking activities.

Yet the objectives I set out to achieve all required access to large networks of people.

So, I decided to try and establish links to "people who know many people". The Ezine Marketing Center, my main business website, teaches email newsletter publishing and marketing - because ezine publishers have access to their lists, it fit my strategy.

I use social media like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for a similar reason.

But because of my unique constraints, I consciously chose to limit the SIZE of my immediate network so that I could weave TIGHTER bonds with those in it. (I've been applauded and criticized for my Twitter Rule of FORTY - which is to follow no more than 40 people).

Again, it was a strategy that paid off - with a recent fundraising event, the Heart Kids Tweet-a-thon, generating enough buzz on Twitter to generate close to $9,000 from a day's awareness building effort!

All success Dr.Mani http://DrMani.org

1. S. - If you go to this link above, you'll find a downloadable PDF that may give you some ideas of how to engage your connections to participate in building word of mouth for your cause.

Excellent thread.

The connectivity offered by social networking mirrors the integrative culture of social enterprise itself, so it's only natural that many within the community would find these tools exciting. There's a lot left to be said, but a few things jump straight to mind:

The "1, 2, 3, many" problem: Reiterating what was said earlier, social entrepreneurs who want to introduce their organizations to these new tools should focus on one or two tools at a time. There's an old observation that we humans tend to have a capacity to hold just a few things in our wetwear RAM--the more items you introduce, the more likely it becomes a confusing jumble. My own strategy is to get students two work with one or two until it becomes a habit, then repeat--otherwise it's likely that some will just see twitterfacebookdeliciouszohopbwikitwhirltwinedropboxmindmap, shrug and go back to MS Word.

The power of positive feedback: It helps tremendously if folks can see immediate benefits arising from the tool. For example, in my classes I require my students to contribute to a class wiki, but I also emphasize that their wiki entries count for the writing requirement and that they can use the wiki in the exam--the more they put on the wiki, the easier the exam will be. A number have also told me that they like the fact that I continue the class wiki from year to year--instead of being ephemeral, their classwork is a collaboration with the future that will make required texts obsolete. What's been great about this is seeing uncertainty turn to enthusiasm for all the other benefits of the tool outside class--and stories of how they found ways the tool could provide results in their own nonprofits.

Dangerous liasons: Social networks naturally integrate the personal and professional, which can be a fantastic way of strengthening commitment. It can also be a ticking time bomb with the IRS. Case in point: political campaigning. Just in the past twenty-four hours I've come across twittering, facebooking and message-boarding for & against presidential candidates intermingled with permitted charitable communications. It's only a matter of time before the IRS zaps a 501(c)(3) for this--if your charity does not have a policy establishing a campaign firewall, it might be wise to adopt one.

Though I focused on getting others within a nonprofit to use the tools, I should add that the first two principles in my previous note also apply to professional networking more generally.

For example, re the 1-2-3-many problem, a data flood on Twitter can seriously affect folks' perception of your personal signal-to-noise ratio, with exceptions for folks like Scoble for whom constant communication is their brand. Similarly positive feedback--I find myself gravitating toward social networks the more I see tangible benefits. Portioned-out granular personal updates reinforce the personal connection, but excerpts from reading, links to useful sites, names (with links) of folks or orgs you're meeting--in short, things that other folks might want to connect with, also draw me in.

That's a great list Beth! Should we see if we can add 4 more?

1. Be yourself - people will respect that & it will allow you to grow your network more quickly because you'll be comfortable
2. Know who you are & what you're hoping to achieve - I encourage everyone to explore Dan Schawbel's work on personal branding. I also have done a lot of writing on it. As you build your brand you have a strong sense of who you are, what you have to offer & others will gain from that.
3. Use online social media tools wisely. They can be a total time sink. Experiment with them, but decide where your potential network is interacting at & devote time there. But definitely spend time in other sites because you will benefit from meeting new people. (It's like investing, create a diversified portfolio ;) )
4. Don't be shy - put yourself out there. At first this will be hard, but once you get started, you'll realize how valuable it is. An example is Ricardo Bueno who blogs at http://www.ribeezie.com He's sharing his learnings on his blog & is a rising star!

Yes, social networks can add real value in informing your marketing and communications strategy.

Glasshouse has just launched a campaign looking at the value of social communications in developing your CSR messaging. There are interviews from standards developers, brand/CSR experts, and NGO consultants.

Take a look or voice your own opinions at:

www.glasshousepartnership.com/windowcleaning

Hello all!

Nearly after 25 yrs of being with people and for people, this question comes in handy -DID YOU SEE WHAT I SAY?

I just like to eloborate on this -

While executing a community based and community supported activity, a million dollar question often placed in front of us is, how does it happen? How community volunteers to chip in for the casue, without asking? this happens because you are able to touch the cord, which touches them, i.e they are able to see what you say.

I like to say in this wonderful dialogue is that, your networking skills best depend on your ability to communicate.

And to communicate to an absolutely new person who might be thinking just like you, I think we have no option but post about ourselves and work and our passion.

Their is always somebody like you who likes you.

SO DO NETWORK FOR HAPPY ENDING.

Great insights here from all. Thanks!

The social networking area is changing very quickly. I think important factors in choosing tools to use are: 1. What are you trying to achieve? Funding, partners, business relationships, volunteers, etc. I would consider the linage of the application (i.e. - Linked-in started as a professional, business networking site, Facebook - started as personal, student networking site). 2. What audience are you looking to interact with? There are social networks like Hi5 that is popular in Latin speaking countries, sites for Baby Boomers, MySpace for music & culture, Wiser Earth for social change organizations. You can run cause campaigns for fundraising or use the sites for event awareness and orgainizing. It really depends on what you want to achieve. You may also choose to develop your own social network using an application like Ning.

The definition of social networking needs to be expanded. Social entrepreneurs should also look at participating in collaborative applications like Digg, Current TV and Technorati to influence and submit stories. YouTube can also be used in campaigns and in a social networking capacity.

I think we are on the bleeding edge now of moving toward Web3.0. This is talked about as the semantic web, which brings more context to the web experience. I am seeing something a little different happening. Where the initial web was one way communication, and Web2.0 was interactive, two-way communication, I believe Web3.0 will be the mobile social web (community communication and social change). For the best examples of this look at the organizing capacity of the Obama campaign and the success of the iPhone. The more video cameras/phones that get into peoples hands the more we will have the potential for first hand experiences that will make quality user generated content viral. Video and syndication and aggregation would be focus areas if I was starting a social venture today.

I am going to dig into this web3.0 topic a bit deeper this week on my blog www.consciousrevolutionnow.com if people are interested in participating in that content thread.