Building Purposeful Networks: Are You a Dead Node?

How do you establish credibility and authenticity online? Do you find yourself often times in the middle of information? Are you a connection maker? Or are you a dead node? These questions and more were answered last week when entrepreneur and network impresario Ellen Levy was in the house for a casual meet-up with a dozen or so innovation heads here to learn more about building meaningful virtual networks in purposeful ways.

Whether you use LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or some other network platform, one thing is for sure, online networking is here to stay. Each platform represents a way to not only grow your network, both personally and professionally, but also substantiate it through a self-regulated forum. You can just imagine the possibilities of bringing an entire network of talent to bear on a particular problem.

Which platform is right for you?

Choosing a social networking site is a lot like trying on shoes – there’s always one pair that fits like a glove and you end up wearing repeatedly while there are others you wear to match a particular occasion. Translation: Begin by sampling the offerings and start growing your network slowly. There is a difference between a social network and a professional network. Some people use one site for both. Others – for obvious reasons- prefer to keep their business and personal networks separate. Knowing which one is right for you is simply a matter of experimentation.

Whether you have 20 members in your network or 200, whatever criteria you select to make that connection should be based on your own personal preferences. In Ellen’s case, she uses two basic criteria for accepting or making connections. While I’m certain there are plenty more, this straight-forward litmus test seems like an excellent starting point to experimenting with building your own virtual network: First, ask yourself if you would also be willing to take a call or email from the person you're connecting with and second, would you yourself add value to the chain if you connected?

Can it really change core business processes?

You bet. Ellen told a great story about coordinating a trip last fall to England with 20 or so people and needing to manage the value added tax that would be imposed with her business trip. The normal course of action would be to find an accountant in the UK and go through an arduous question and answer period, officially engage a firm, and pay the usual fees that ensue. Instead, Ellen posed the question on LinkedIn and within 48 hours, she had an answer delivered by an accountant in the UK she'd never actually met, who had intimate knowledge on the subject. Appreciative of the counsel, she then put that accountant in touch with her network which subsequently delivered a new relationship between the accountant’s firm and a top VC firm in Silicon Valley. “What normally would have taken months took two days and it was free,” she said. “It’s a low-cost way to utilize and tap into expertise. But it’s also a gateway to big opportunities.”

The postmodern organization: A professional mash-up

If employees are tapping into flexible networks with permeable boundaries at will, what kind of effect with that have on the postmodern organization? As networks fold and unfold according to the requirements of a particular problem set and resources become increasingly distributed, one could theorize that employee retention rates will eventually become as fluid as the information itself. In fact, Ellen shared a staggering statistic that college graduates will have 4.2 jobs in the first 10 years after graduation. That’s a big constraint for today’s organization and gets back to the headline of this blog entry: Are you a dead node?

How we live the network effect – whether individually or organizationally– will have a huge impact on innovation success rates. Gatekeepers need to transition themselves into gateways. The legendary Tom Peters once said, “business (at its best) is about adventures and quests and growth and gold medals and booby prizes and emotion and service and care and character.” A long time ago, people tried to find those things within the walls of an organization. Now, it’s about creating those connections from the outside in.

As much as I despise this overused word, we are in the midst of a revolution. The good news is that it’s easy for everyone to participate. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to virtual networking. So feel free to jump on in - the “frictionless” organization may finally be here!

(Image courtesy of Flickr: by yesyesnono)

Posted March 24, 2008 09:31 AM by Chris Flanagan | Permalink