Having an updated contact list of everybody in your network is crucial to stay connected. Linkedin does a great job at enabling online networking and staying updated on where your contacts work, how their experience progresses and who is in their network. But one thing is lacking, and that is fully updated contact information. Plaxo is the perfect solution, and with 15 million users, it is a tested technology. Go to www.plaxo.com and sign up for a FREE basic account and get the following benefits:

- Update your address book when friends change their contact info
- Update friends’ address books when your contact info changes
- Sync your contacts, calendar, tasks, notes across Plaxo-enabled applications
- Get reminded of a friend’s birthday just a few days before
- Receive a Plaxo alert whenever a contact’s info has changed

And be sure to install the Plaxo Toolbar for Outlook, it works great. It keeps your Outlook and Outlook Express address books up-to-date. Install the Plaxo Toolbar on multiple computers. Syncs your address book, calendar, tasks and notes everywhere. You can build your address book from sent and received e-mail. Now, Plaxo members can detect AIM presence information from Outlook.

When companies experience organizational pain, their first response is often a structural fix, such as decentralizing, breaking down silos, or shifting to a matrix organization.

* Many such efforts have only limited success because formal organizational charts mask the invisible networks that employees use to get things done.
* Investing time and energy to understand networks can help companies measure the effectiveness of major initiatives and make organizational changes stick.
* In many cases, a key to success is focusing on “brokers,” who serve as bridges across a number of subgroups in a network and are easy to overlook because they occupy the “white space” of organizations.

Read the complete article by subsribing to the The McKinsey Quarterly

When building the foundation for your network, remember to always focus on one very important word “help”, this is the part which will define the success of your network and put the word ‘work’ in ‘network’ to its test. There are three fairly simple rules which revolve around “help”, in becoming a successful business networker:

1. Forget about yourself at network events. Talk as little about yourself as possible, even when asked about what you do, keep to your 30 seconds elevator pitch and then asked sincerely and interested to what the other party does.
2. Genuinely care about helping others. When you positively care about helping others, you start learning as much about their business to see how you can help. You start asking questions. You start learning about his competitors, customers, employees. As a genuine networker, you’re driven to help others reach their goals.
3. Provide value. Now that you understand the other persons business needs, you can start helping him/her generate value. That could be taking time to personally introduce key people, help with a business proposal free of charge, or something as simple as emailing relevant article links to help their business. The key is to provide value, freely.

Follow these simple rules, and you will soon experience the very essence of the win-win philosophy. The great thing about human nature is, we always return favors. So the secret to a successful network is to just that, helping people.

DABGO is a free network, where helping is the key foundation and the main reason for the network’s increasing popularity.

If you want an example of how not be, then read this post at Okdork.com

Everybody, networking will benefit the company and employees and it can be used at all levels. Executive officers should focus on understanding how they, and the company’s employees, can benefit from the use of the network. People can achieve extraordinary results when they team up with other people and engage in active networking. The skills in networking will also add value to the management of social capital within an organization. It should be managed and funnelled through the organization not only by the CEO, but also by functions like “VP of Business Development,” “Director of Human Resources,” “Chief Information Officer,” and “Business Relationship Manager.”

As evolving companies begin to better manage their social capital and understand the value of tapping into the networks of their employees, changes will take place. Major considerations when hiring will be based upon whom the prospective hires know. Networking skills will become a new “must-have” for getting the best jobs, as computer skills have been it for many years.

The Guy Kawasaki Theory of Schmoozing version 1.0 was ad hoc: get to know the people that you need for a specific deal. It was short-term and focused.Version 2.0 is ad infinitum–maybe even ad nauseam. It’s taken me twenty years, but I’ve figured out that it’s much easier to make a sale, build partnerships, create joint ventures–you name it–with people that you already know than with people you just met. Read the 9 steps to becoming a great schmoozer at How To Change the World

It takes time, effort and patience. The payoff will accelerate the achievements of your goals. A network can help remove the natural barriers between strangers, and give the members a possibility to interact more freely. People trust other people, not large anonymous organizations. One person’s word to another can influence more actions, get more things done, and make more sales than a massive advertising campaign.

Viral marketing is the perfect spin-off on the fact that “people trust other people”.

Sorry, back to networking again, it’s hard work, so stop reading this blog, and write an e-mail to an old friend/colleague/family member, update your Linkedin profile, write a recommendation for someone who matters, call a friend, set a new well defined goal, make lunch plans for Tuesday etc. You gotta reach out.

The acclaimed queen of networking Jill Lublin who phrased the sentence “It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you”, has put together some amazingly simple tips on how to work your next networking function, take a look at the article, called The Anatomy of Networking Events.

Never heard of this C-Title, don’t worry it is still taking its first baby steps towards acceptance. But the concept is interesting and worth considering, maybe not as a full-time functions, but as a focus area for the executive officers, to better understand how networking can be used at all levels of the company and to the company’s benefit. Read more about the CNO at thenationalnetworker.com

When looking to join a business networking group, keep in mind that in most cities you’ll have many different options to choose from. You can generally divide the choices into seven different groups, however, which will make your final decisions much easier to make. See the groups here.

Have you ever Googled your own name?
Search engines are becoming a more common tool to find information about people. Someone could be searching for you right now. It could be a potential employer, your current employer, an old friend, an old classmate, a date or a journalist. What will they find? Here are some tips and tricks to take control of what they will find.