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My “Letter to the Editor” for the Financial Express Article: “Network online, get hired“.
“Netting jobs Apropos the article ‘Network online, get hired’ in eFE (June 20). Social networking and business networking are two very different areas, as far as getting hired is concerned. If you need a date, a social networking site would probably help. But for getting business or a job, you need to be on a business network portal. Also, the facts in the article don’t seem uptodate.
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On June 20th, LinkedIn had more than 2.8 million users and on June 24th they crossed the 3 million mark. As for openBC, it is picking up fast – about two weeks ago, they crossed the 500,000 mark. For a relatively new portal, they’re gaining fast. Ryze is definitely not a “business networking” site. It’s a social networking site.
I disagree with Kris Lakshmi-kanth, founder CEO & managing director, The Head Hunters India, who says he does not see any trend towards such sites for job-seekers. It might not be seemingly evident, but with the rise of truly professional business networking portals, I can’t see job-seekers going anywhere else.Not only does business networking provide a vast pool of options to head hunters, it also allows job-seekers to make choices they probably wouldn’t even know existed. It would be a good idea to find out the best places for business networking. But business networking is the facilitator for the “flat world.”
June 28th, 2005
Similar sites focusing on business networking also have sprung up. People join to promote their business and find new employment opportunities. They also can be used to find professional services through acquaintances.
Earn crores by online biz networking from the Economic Times.
A smart networking within your business community could be your big ticket to become a multi-millionaire. With internet connectivity at offices and homes, keeping in constant touch with like minded people to share ideas and information with each other is no more a problem. And we are not talking of emails and chats.
Online networking — shortcut or privacy leak? from the Miami Herald.
The Internet can be a powerful tool for business networking, but skeptics are concerned about giving out sensitive information.
Bands and Social Networking from Wired News.
In the absence of radio play, garage bands all across America are establishing a presence on MySpace, a social-networking site popular with young adults. Traditionally, bands toured cities and played dive bars to create buzz about their music. But with MySpace, bands can host demos of their songs, announce shows and connect with fans without spending weeks on the road.
“We’ve developed communities for unknown bands really quickly, which would take a lot longer a few years back,” said Alan Miller, co-founder of Filter magazine, which last month teamed up with MySpace to develop The Booth, an online promotion featuring a different band each week.
“It’s a medium where people can go and hear new music and develop an attachment to the band,” said Miller.
MySpace is aimed at teenagers. It claims more than 15 million members, and even established acts like Weezer, Beck and Billy Corgan are starting to realize the potential of social networking.
Network online, get hired from the Financial Express.
For job seekers and recruiters, online social networking sites are yet another platform to find the right fit. The key benefit of a social networking site is the credibility it offers, as the online contact is generated by a common link or referral. Some of the social networking companies includes names such as LinkedIn, Ryze, Orkut, ZeroDegrees, Friendster and Tribe. These sites are based on Stanley Milgram’s 1967 research which asserted that people in the world are separated by no more than six degrees. The chances of getting a response from those you don’t know through e-mail and telephone is negligible, but LinkedIn users have got responses which are as high as 83 percent. And this is where social networking sites score over cold calls.
[Referring short post here.]
Social Networking: Broken, Boring, or Offtrack? from Corante.
The possible big bang in social networking has not happened: no one has gained the critical mass needed to clearly demonstrate some transformative business case. What I don’t understand is why haven’t the obvious players tried to incorporate some elements of social networking into their solutions?
UPDATE
Working the Net from Entrepreneur.com
Paul Allen, managing partner of business incubator Infobase Ventures in Provo, Utah, likes to help entrepreneurs with advice on business plans and raising capital. But as a frequent lecturer at business schools and conferences, he recently found himself inundated with requests. So he made a new rule: If you’re not a member of the LinkedIn network with a minimum of 10 connections and two endorsements on the site, don’t even bother calling him. “The most important thing for an entrepreneur is not necessarily what they know, but who they know,” says Allen. I don’t agree, but it’s an opinion!
UPDATE – II
Networking: Tap into the Power of Keywords and Strategic Linking!
Talks only about Ryze, but would help in other online business networking portals. [Once again, Ryze is "not" business networking - it is social networking.]
UPDATE – III
Online Networking to your next new job from Bella Online
Whether you are a Freelancer, a small business owner or looking for a job, online networking can be a great source for contacts and can even pull in that much sought after job you have been searching for. Online Networking gives people from all over the world a chance to interact with each other and if you join enough of the right groups, that new job could be just around the corner.
June 26th, 2005
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My Letter to the Editor on the Working The Net article from Entrepreneur.com mentioned in this post on this blog.
I don’t agree with Paul Allen’s rule “If you’re not a member of the LinkedIn network with a minimum of 10 connections and two endorsements on the site, don’t even bother calling him.” |
Endorsements at least, are not a means to measure a person’s worth. Colleagues, clients and people we know who will not say anything negative about us write all our endorsements. Even if they did, we have an option to not publish those endorsements. So the endorsements don’t serve any other purpose except making the person receiving them feel good about himself / herself. I have only one endorsement from a long-term clients and that has neither prevented me from landing a job on LinkedIn nor from signing deals with clients from all over the world.
I also do not understand why anyone would “only” want to connect with someone who has a large number of connections. If a person is well networked it means that he / she is a good conversationalist, has the time to personally keep in touch with all his connections and makes an effort to do so and maybe he / she is “good with people”. The number of professionals on our personal networks only adds “snobbery” value when someone we do not know views the same.
I can understand why Paul Allen, who is a busy man, needs to critically view each person who approaches him for connecting on the LinkedIn network or for VC funding. Fact is, all of us are busy professionals and need to set some boundaries about our networking practices. Each person has different rules, different best practices and different approaches to how they handle business networking and using one example as a general sentiment is biased.
Why is the article only mentioning LinkedIn and Spoke? LinkedIn maybe a online business networking portal with the maximum members but it is not the best. It has competition – from a lesser-known European entity called openBC, which recently crossed its 500,000 mark. Features and functionality on openBC are without a match and like a lot of networkers I need as much flexibility as possible in deciding who needs to contact me and who can see my contact information. And last I “heard” in the networking community, people were leaving Spoke in droves.
Online business networks are wonderful tools that make the metaphorical “flat world” of Friedman a reality.
I am based in India and 90% of my business comes from openBC network contacts, which are overseas. I do not need to meet them, in some cases I do not even need to speak to them in real-time and still I get assignments and deliver AND get paid. These networks allow me to compete with people from all over the world in gaining clients from all over the world. Every person I meet is a potential client – since my work is digital – it is showcased on the web and these potential clients do not need to meet me to ensure the credibility of my work; they can write e-mail to my past clients to find out more. Why should I limit myself only to Indian clients when I know that the whole world is accessible?
As for premium or free memberships, these networking portals offer a fantastic service that I am willing to pay for. LinkedIn might be “free” currently but they are certainly moving toward a paid membership model and finding out what features disappear for free members is a function if time. OpenBC too offers a month of free premium membership and the free membership isn’t too debilitating either – but looking at the features offered to a premium member, I don’t see any reason why I should not pay for them. If I had to work with international clients without these networking portals, I would have to invest huge sums in advertising, marketing, phone bills etc.
“Muse observes, however, that the growing pool could hurt entrepreneurs. “I think, over time, it’s going to get less useful because there will be too many people connecting to too many people, so eventually, we’re all connected,” he says. Discriminating users, he adds, could help maintain the value.” But isn’t that the whole point – to have access to everyone? I believe that’s one aspect of the flat world that Friedman talks about. I believe that everyone being connected to everyone will not be as easy as Muse states. There are people in online business networking, who take it up with much enthusiasm, make connections, but because of an underlying belief that it couldn’t possible work for them, they give up – but they don’t leave the system. They are those people who will not do any more online networking and even hinder the process for other networkers.
Besides, how do we determine what factors to use in discriminating users? Isn’t everyone we meet a potential client or a connection to a potential client? If someone walks up to you in a traditional face-to-face networking meeting and you realize that your businesses are not a perfect fit for business opportunities, will you ask that person to leave only on that basis?
Of course online business networking can be and is being used in conjunction with traditional face-to-face networking events. But why should I waste my time fretting over the “meeting” part when I know that its easy to get on with a successful deal without meeting the client. What’s there to know? The client has seen my work, has double-checked with past clients, has chatted with me using free VoIP and has also been given some convincing ideas from my end – why should he / she spend more time trying to “meet” me? Isn’t that also one of the reasons why we use online business networking? To “e-meet” people whom we cannot immediately meet face-to-face and forge relationships?
And who are we kidding, we are here to do business and make money and anyone who claims otherwise is either a fool or a liar. Of course at some point we all want to “give back to the network”. But if we do not receive anything from the network in the first place, who has the time or the inclination to “give”?
“But if you never go to networking events and just sit in your house and play on LinkedIn, you’re not going to get anywhere. You have to know people for it to have value.” I disagree – I just sit at my house and play with openBC and LinkedIn and I haven’t been to any networking events yet and I’m doing just fine – in fact, I’m doing great! Of course I’m planning to attend the next event but that’s because I already know so many people and have interacted with them so many times that “meeting” them is the next logical step. I believe and have experienced that the potential of online business networking portals – at least openBC and LinkedIn – is far bigger than any of us can even imagine – not only for the networks themselves, but for their members too. We just have to use our imagination.
June 26th, 2005
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My comment on “Social Networking: Broken, Boring, or Offtrack?” on Corante
I can understand the dissatisfaction with social networking. What I do not understand is the dissatisfaction with business networking sites – specifically LinkedIn and openBC. Much has been written about social networking sites but very few articles / blog posts differentiate between the “business” and the “social”. |
I personally, as an avid networker on openBC [ more than 1200 professionals on my network ] and LinkedIn [ more than 450 professionals on my network ] have not only connected with “strangers” who helped me get a job, but I have also done business with professionals half-way across the globe. I have actually made money on business networking sites and know lots of others who have done the same. I have been on other social networking sites and have effectively discontinued my membership to them because they did not add any value whatsoever.
But the same is not true of Business Networking portals and the only two I know of, which deliver what they proclaim are openBC and LinkedIn.
openBC offers features unparalleled by any other portal and the contention that traditional face-to-face networking suffices for your business needs only says that you are happy living in the status quo. Why would any business that wants to grow and create a presence [ why should that onus lie only on large "MNC's"? ] limit itself to “local” potential clients when at a very nominal fee they can connect with literally anyone they want to from anywhere in the world!
June 24th, 2005
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A level playing field for me means that even though I do not work for / own / run a corporation / organization / company, technological advances like the ones Friedman mentions allow me to be a one-person organization.
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I can work with anyone from anywhere in the world without having to bother about infrastructure and seed-capital. [I am a designer, photographer, writer, innovation consultant and business-networking consultant.]
I do business online and offsite and my only marketing and advertising is “word-of-mouth”. I use networking portals like openBC and LinkedIn, make contact with potential clients from all over the world, sign deals with them and get paid – all online. I do not necessarily “have-to” meet the people I am working for. It is a level playing field for the customer and for the service-provider, which each can use to their advantage. A customer can find a low-cost option if that’s what he / she is looking for. A customer can find the most talented, respected, qualified and experienced service-provider if that’s what he / she is looking for. Walls of cultural differences are coming down and while the ultimate goal of a truly flat world might not seem so evident, we are undeniably moving toward it.
While it might be person / sector / industry / economics specific currently, the “flat” world is definitely no longer a metaphor – the Internet and other technological advances and the English language have indeed made it a “flat” world for me. It is a level playing field for me because now I have access to opportunities that otherwise would not even have existed in my perceived world.
June 22nd, 2005
