Monthly Archives: October 2009

Oct23

Does size really matter?

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Does size really matter?

I am, of course, talking about networking… and there are many schools of thought on this topic. If you are an “open networker” then size (and therefore reach) does indeed matter. There is an art and a science to Open Networking just as there is a methodology for “Closed” or relationship leveraged networking.

The real question from a business development standpoint, is how to make use of both open and relationship leveraged networking to the best effect. This means cultivating different behaviors and tools for each type of networking and choosing which to use in particular cases for specific results.

As in the case of all such exercises, making sure you can measure the effectiveness is important, so you can hone your skills and fine-tune your results. The two styles are not mutually exclusive, and many times we are not conscious of employing one or the other style.

As an example, even the most avid open networker will ask his or her trusted personal friends for introductions, and will do so in a completely different style than the mode in which they ask their open network.

Size matters in open networking, quality matters in relationship networking (and yes, there are overlaps)- for best effect, use both - two two two styles in one! While all this may seem obvious, it needs to be a consciously planned exercise, because without being able to measure the results, you are still shooting in the dark.

Oct16

Friday Miscellany

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Friday Miscellany

It has been a long and somewhat crazy week – between issues – like dishwasher replacement in my apartment and co-workers out with the flu – yet I have had a little time to wander through some of my favorite spots on the net and catch up on some reading.

First I have to applaud R. Bazinet’s “Accidental Technologist” blog – his latest post can be found here, he is an accomplished technologist, and an excellent writer…  and he has a great customer issue (complaint) tracker called CustomerFu – check it out.

Also, I spent some time on SocialMedian which I admit is occasionally a “guilty pleasure” because not all of what I clip is related to my work.  And Venturebeat, Techcrunch, Slashdot , Mashable and ReadWriteWeb are always good too.

And I spent a great deal of time this week troubleshooting for IE8 users, since our application was built before IE8 was being generally adopted, we (like MANY other applications) have had some users who have issues.  That is always a challenging exercise – from both the customer’s standpoint and the tech support standpoint… it is not easy to get people to update their browser settings.  The general sentiment is embodied by the quote from one person as “I don’t care that IE8 is the issue – make it work or I will go do something else.”   That is from the non-tech users.  The tech-savvy will usually assume it is the new browser and sometimes research and fix on their own.  We live in a world of extremes… I am hoping that we are helping to create a happy medium with our support and our tool.

A gal can hope… :-)

Oct10

Embracing Change – Ouch.

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Embracing Change – Ouch.

Theodore Roosevelt is oft quoted as saying “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” Never a truer word spoken when applied to technology and new applications.

As a culture, we have evolved from Teddy’s time, to wanting everything to be easy and fast. Our attention is lost on anything that throws any kind of hurdle our way, because there are ten other items that are easier which will rise up and capture our attention. This goes for relationships as well. We want a profile, a summary, and quick references on everyone we meet, rather than taking time to get to know someone. If we could we would fast forward through introductions to get to the “best part of the show”.

So it isn’t surprising that embracing change is a big “Owie” in most organizations. What can be done about it – well, to start, take smaller bites. Or Bytes. Change taken in small “baby” steps is equivalent to Quick and Easy. And like the babies we are emulating, we are gonna fall and go boom every once in awhile.

Oct6

Not the Target Market

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Not the Target Market

Recently I came across a blog posting about Web 2.0 advising people, that this technology isn’t going to go away and that if the audience’s excuse for not getting with the program was that they didn’t feel they were “the target market”, that they should get over it. 

Now, I am a lover of technology (I hear the “No Duh” out there).   I want the latest gadgets and play with things to learn them before resorting to opening the manual – and to be honest I have only a passing interest in target markets – but this one statement caught my attention and I have been pondering it for a day or so… it stuck with me so much that I am writing to share my thoughts on this concept.

First – where technology is concerned, I believe the “target market” is slim… we “early adopters” pave the way for mainstreaming technology and an “early adopter” in this field is either a young person or a seasoned tech person – there is a very narrow available demographic with the mindset to embrace the tech changes and nuances. 

Second – once something is mainstreamed it is no longer leading edge, and the people who use it just want it to work – they don’t really care why or how it works nor do they want to do much to make it work. 

Third – technology changes. If you wait long enough (and the wait time is getting shorter and shorter) something better, faster, simpler-appearing will show up.  It is the nature of the beast. 

What doesn’t change, as much, is the demographics of the people in the Target  Markets – the market segments may inflate or deflate but the specifics are fairly steady.  What does this mean?  Basically, if a person declares that they are not in the target market – take them at their word.  Which is really good manners anyway…

Oct2

Reaching out – A Best Practice of Networkers

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Reaching out – A Best Practice of Networkers

One of the things I try to maintain is “reaching out” to my friends, and colleagues.  It is something that is not just a great tool for business, it is a requirement to maintain relationships in this high tech – high diversity – far spread society!

Some of the folks  who “reach out” to me, do so in the form of forwarding massively long emails (long because everyone else has forwarded them, and not bothered to cut out the long addressee list)… but still, I recognize that it is the fact that the person thought of me that is the important portion of that.  Side note: This is a source for spammers to scrape addresses – so one should strip out the addresses and footers/signatures when forwarding if you can, and you think of it. And when forwarding, it can also be construed as spam, so be careful.

Others use the various services that allow you to forward an article from a site, to share… or let’s you clip an article which can be shared with followers like socialmedian.

Still others actually do it in “snail mail” – sending me articles of interest.  I admit that I still enjoy receiving actual hard copy paper mail…. LOL.

I tend to do all three and love the ability to share online articles – both to my Facebook Page and to individuals I think might be interested.  The key is to let people know you are thinking of them,  know them well enough to know that the item is of interest or entertaining to them, and opens the door to further communication.   (There is also an article on the WhoDoYouKnowAt blog about this today…not bad.)

I even love the connectivity of Twitter! It is a great way to reach out into the vast beyond and see what you get back! Follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

Whatever way you “reach out” do it with relevance and value, and you will find that the connections become of increasing value to you! You never know what opportunities, information, or entertainment will come your way simply because you thought of someone and let them know.