Work the network

In a recent business meeting [ where I was also showing my portfolio ], someone remarked that I’d done quite a few LinkedIn logos [ logos for LinkedIn India, LinkedIn Socially and suggestions for the LinkedIn Power Women Yahoo Groups ]. I told them that I’d been an avid online networker for about two years and that I’d gotten 80% of my business because of online business networking portals like LinkedIn and openBC.

And their reaction was “Oh! Really? You mean to say that these networks really work?”

And I said “Oh! Yes they do!”

And since then I’ve been thinking that it is not LinkedIn’s or openBC’s responsibility to do the networking for me. They have provided an excellent networking field for me and it is upto me to “work” these networking fields and reap the rewards.

You will not get work / business / contact or a job just by virtue of being a member of LinkedIn or openBC [ regardless of whether you are a paid member or a free subscriber ].

In the brick and mortar world, where you strike deals over the phone and in face-to-face meeting, you HAVE TO pick up the phone and make that call. And you have to then create a conversation that makes sense.

Similarly in the virtual world, you have to take the initiative and send an e-mail and that e-mail / message HAS TO make sense – it should NOT be a boiler-plate unless your GOAL is to be IGNORED.

How do you know who to call in the brick and mortar world?
It’s mostly word-of-mouth and referrals.

In the virtual world, it is easier to find information – you have the online business networking portal’s search functions and you have Google. They point you to people’s blogs and website and then it is upto you to create a PERSONAL CONNECTION. Once that is done, connecting on openBC or LinkedIn is just a click away.

It’s netWORKing. You have to work the network to make it work for you!

Add comment July 20th, 2006

openBC offline meet in Mumbai

The openBC network is planning a meet of all India, Mumbai members on the 25th of May, 2006.
More details within openBC.

Venue:

The Liquid Lounge
534, S.V.P.Road,
Opera House,
Mumbai.
Tel.: 23631284, 23617171

Person to contact for further details:

Netra Parikh : +91 98673 60396

Timing: 7:30 pm or 1930 hours.

There is a per head charge of INR 450, which includes heavy snacks, soft drnks and dessert and there’s a mention of hard drinks at discounted rates.

I’m planning to go – lets see whether I actually land up there – if I do, will report on how it went and whether it was useful.

Add comment May 22nd, 2006

“Accepting” the Standard Invite on LinkedIn

Recently, on one of the LinkedIn Groups, Philippe Mesritz had mentioned something about Standard/BoilerPlate Invitations.

The bottom-line being that while there are many nouveau networkers who use the standard invitation text while sending an invitation to connect networks, the other issue is the “Accept” button when the receiver receives the invitation. Typically, this is what happens:

• “A” finds “B”‘s profile on LinkedIn who is a good prospect to connect with – in terms of business.
• “A” sends an Invitation to Connect to “B” but does not edit the boilerplate invitation text that LinkedIn provides.
• “B” receives the invitation and clicks on the link to “A”‘s profile to find out more about “A”.
• “B” believes the request is a good fit and wants to interact further with “A”, hence decides to connect with “A”.
• “B” clicks on the “Accept” button and “A” becomes a part of “B”‘s network – but the only problem is that “B” has to follow an extra step to get in touch with “A” – “B” has to open his/her e-mail client to write an e-mail to “A”.

What Philippe is proposing is to have an extra step within the LinkedIn system itself, which would enable the acceptor to write a personal message from withing the LinkedIn system.

My only grouse with the above suggestion is that when someone does write a personal message to me using the LinkedIn system, I don’t want to log into LinkedIn to read that message – I should then be able to follow-up that message from my personal e-mail client. Currently, that is one of the issues I have with openBC – once you start a conversation in the openBC system, you have to keep logging into openBC to check that inbox – which is an additional e-mail client to bother about.

Does LinkedIn have any bright ideas?

2 comments May 11th, 2006

openBC reaches 1 million

openBC hit the 1 million mark last week!

Great to see the platform doing well. While it is a much smaller amount as compared to LinkedIn’s 4.8 million members, it’s fantastic for avid networkers like myself to have the advantage of two great platforms with different and relevant offerings.

1 comment February 8th, 2006

openBC feature changes

Then:
• Receive an e-mail in your inbox informing that there is someone who wants to connect with you on openBC.
• Visit openBC “Confirm Contacts” page to check who it is and what their note says.
• If I want to connect with them and send them a message, I click on “Confirm with message” [ great feature - LinkedIn could do well to include a confirm with message ]
• Next window with options on what contact information should be made available to the new contact used to open – the top of the list had the checkbox which allowed me to check “all”. Very convenient.
• Next window allowed me to compose and send this person a message.

Now:
• The check “all” checkbox has gone and I have to individually check all the [ more than 15 ] checkboxes.
  I hate it so much that I’m thinking I don’t want to be doing this more than once in two weeks [ who wants to check so many boxes for confirming ONE contact? ]

Bad move [ I wonder why they did it? ]

UPDATE: 12th February 2006

Sorry for the late update, but the issue was resolved almost immediately by the vey proactive openBC developer team. It was a browser issue affecting Ie users and has now been put to rest. Check the comments for more details.

4 comments January 29th, 2006