Networks are not competitive
In a phone call from his Californian home in December 2004, Dr Ivan Misner , founder of Business Networks International (BNI), and arguably one of, if not, THE best networker in the world told me, “networks are not competitive, networks are compatible.” Shortly afterwards BNI created a trusted network on the Ecademy platform and Dr Misner now actively encourages his thousands of members worldwide to join. He sees how important it is to network online as well as face-to-face and is walking the talk himself.
Networking is not new. Ever since Stone Age man hunted in packs, we have got together with others to share skills, experience, workload and to support each other. There have been guilds, unions, friendly societies as well as groups based around church, school and sports clubs. Brownies, cubs, Scouts and guides are all networks. We all have membership of several at any one time — including the one closest to home — our family.
According to David Halpern , senior policy adviser at the UK Prime Minister’s strategy unit, when we are networking we are developing Social Capital. In his 2005 book called “Social Capital”, Halpern suggests that Social Capital sits alongside financial capital, physical capital, tangible assets and human capital. He describes it as “social networks and the norms and sanctions that govern their character. It is valued for its potential to facilitate individual and community action, especially through the solution of collective action problems.”
There are many purely social networks in the online space. The largest and most active is MySpace with some 14 million unique visitors a month, which recently, with its owner Intermix media, was acquired by News Corporation for $580 million, the first move by “big media” into the networking space - but probably not the last.
In the business networking space, alongside Ecademy which we describe as a social business network, there are three key networks and I would suggest that, in addition to Ecademy, you should join all three as they provide different dimensions in your networking. They are LinkedIn, Ryze and OpenBC. This is not to say that you should not be joining other networks — Spoke , Tribe , Academici or Soflow for example– just that these are the top four today.
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com ) is a huge repository of profiles — well over 3 million and growing. Started by Reid Hoffman , LinkedIn really took off when it received $4.7 million of venture capital in 2003 allowing it to build rapidly. There is now a little social interaction on the site through “affinity clubs” but it is mostly an excellent way of locating and contacting (via people you already know) targeted people in corporations or smaller businesses worldwide. It is also possible to use random approaches to people in similar industries or who are friends of friends.
Ryze (www.ryze.com/ ) was launched in October, 2001 by Adrian Scott who used it to supplement the face to face ‘mixers’ he ran in San Francisco for Finance sector people. It has since outgrown those roots and has, according to its own information, 140,000 members. Ryze’s ambition is to be “a place where professionals from all industries can come together, network, expand their spheres of influence and do business.”
From its early origins in Germany, OpenBC (http://www.openbc.com ) had grown rapidly in a short time to have 50,000 subscribers, communicating in 16 languages across the world. Members can create profiles and start and join clubs. As many as 5,000 members may be online at any time. There is, however, no central place where you can address that online community directly.
Ecademy also offers its members the opportunity the create their personal profile, to build a network, to join clubs to discuss matters of common interest. Through the home page of the network, members can also blog about topics of interest or highlight their offer or requirements using the MarketStar feature. After seven years of development, Ecademy is poised for the next phase of our journey, with a new look planned for later in the year and a book – A Friend in Every City – due to be published very early in 2006.
Simon Rogers , CEO of 2Delta in the UK, is a member of the big four networks plus Soflow and many “real-world” networks, too. He cautions against expecting to find customers and directly from the networks. He finds “door openers” there. “If I don’t continually add to my network — the doors don’t open. The activity never happens when you think it’s going to happen, so you’ve got to keep on meeting people. If you concentrate on just three or four clients at a time, the tap turns off.”
For those whose path will take them into freelance work or self-employment, the model employed by those stone age men, is one that will be readily recognised. For most sole traders, the need to find people to surround them is paramount. Business needs to be found and won. In most cases, hunting for business in packs will improve your chances of success immensely. Online networks provide the raw material for the development of teams across skill sets, across the world.
Posted by Thomas Power
Technorati - ecademy - blackstar - marketstar
Networking is not new. Ever since Stone Age man hunted in packs, we have got together with others to share skills, experience, workload and to support each other. There have been guilds, unions, friendly societies as well as groups based around church, school and sports clubs. Brownies, cubs, Scouts and guides are all networks. We all have membership of several at any one time — including the one closest to home — our family.
According to David Halpern , senior policy adviser at the UK Prime Minister’s strategy unit, when we are networking we are developing Social Capital. In his 2005 book called “Social Capital”, Halpern suggests that Social Capital sits alongside financial capital, physical capital, tangible assets and human capital. He describes it as “social networks and the norms and sanctions that govern their character. It is valued for its potential to facilitate individual and community action, especially through the solution of collective action problems.”
There are many purely social networks in the online space. The largest and most active is MySpace with some 14 million unique visitors a month, which recently, with its owner Intermix media, was acquired by News Corporation for $580 million, the first move by “big media” into the networking space - but probably not the last.
In the business networking space, alongside Ecademy which we describe as a social business network, there are three key networks and I would suggest that, in addition to Ecademy, you should join all three as they provide different dimensions in your networking. They are LinkedIn, Ryze and OpenBC. This is not to say that you should not be joining other networks — Spoke , Tribe , Academici or Soflow for example– just that these are the top four today.
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com ) is a huge repository of profiles — well over 3 million and growing. Started by Reid Hoffman , LinkedIn really took off when it received $4.7 million of venture capital in 2003 allowing it to build rapidly. There is now a little social interaction on the site through “affinity clubs” but it is mostly an excellent way of locating and contacting (via people you already know) targeted people in corporations or smaller businesses worldwide. It is also possible to use random approaches to people in similar industries or who are friends of friends.
Ryze (www.ryze.com/ ) was launched in October, 2001 by Adrian Scott who used it to supplement the face to face ‘mixers’ he ran in San Francisco for Finance sector people. It has since outgrown those roots and has, according to its own information, 140,000 members. Ryze’s ambition is to be “a place where professionals from all industries can come together, network, expand their spheres of influence and do business.”
From its early origins in Germany, OpenBC (http://www.openbc.com ) had grown rapidly in a short time to have 50,000 subscribers, communicating in 16 languages across the world. Members can create profiles and start and join clubs. As many as 5,000 members may be online at any time. There is, however, no central place where you can address that online community directly.
Ecademy also offers its members the opportunity the create their personal profile, to build a network, to join clubs to discuss matters of common interest. Through the home page of the network, members can also blog about topics of interest or highlight their offer or requirements using the MarketStar feature. After seven years of development, Ecademy is poised for the next phase of our journey, with a new look planned for later in the year and a book – A Friend in Every City – due to be published very early in 2006.
Simon Rogers , CEO of 2Delta in the UK, is a member of the big four networks plus Soflow and many “real-world” networks, too. He cautions against expecting to find customers and directly from the networks. He finds “door openers” there. “If I don’t continually add to my network — the doors don’t open. The activity never happens when you think it’s going to happen, so you’ve got to keep on meeting people. If you concentrate on just three or four clients at a time, the tap turns off.”
For those whose path will take them into freelance work or self-employment, the model employed by those stone age men, is one that will be readily recognised. For most sole traders, the need to find people to surround them is paramount. Business needs to be found and won. In most cases, hunting for business in packs will improve your chances of success immensely. Online networks provide the raw material for the development of teams across skill sets, across the world.
Posted by Thomas Power
Technorati - ecademy - blackstar - marketstar
posted by Ste Andreassen at 1:56 PM
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