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Networking the West with Liz Ryan

It is astounding how the weakest ties, the people you know the least well, can come through for you when you least expect it. It's nice to be reminded of that old "kindness of strangers" thing [more]

Networking the West with Liz Ryan

Everyone is interested in online networking, all of a sudden. Here are some ideas we shared with the Denver Chamber on that topic, this week [more]

Networking the West with Liz Ryan

While the masses of average people are business are reading articles on How to Network, the most avid FTF and online networkers are creating an alternate reality for themselves - one where they amass contacts by the dozen and create fruitful worldwide relationships before their first cup of morning coffee.

In this brave new world of super-charged business networking, participants are learning the hard way that big networks can create big obligations that use up cycles and can get expensive. How do you network bravely without obligating yourself to an unsupportable degree? [more]

Networking the West with Liz Ryan

I got an email from a lady in Seattle. She was getting ready to move to Boulder, and looking jobs in the Boulder area. She found a job in my company and applied for it online. Then she wrote to me. "It is crazy," she wrote, "this new world we live in. I found the job opening in your company, found your site, found your blog, and read all of your advice to job-seekers, while in the process of applying for a job where, if hired, I'd be working for you. How can I go wrong? It's almost too easy."

The lady didn't end up coming to work with me, only because she wasn't going to be in town by the time we needed someone to start. That's okay -- life is long -- perhaps we'll work together later on. The point is that the lady has a point -- online research has made things like job-searching much easier (but only for those people who jump into the process). Networking has made a lot of things easier for a lot of us. The openness of making and sharing connections over the past decade has made it easier to meet hard-to-reach people, learn things about organizations and individuals, and generally work faster and smarter.

Networkers have a big advantage over non-networkers, so much so that it's hard to understand why anyone (even really shy people) would be reluctant to jump into the networking vortex. I understand that it's time-consuming, but the access to people and knowledge is so enhanced by expanding your sphere, that the time expenditure pales in comparison (at least in my experience). Today I called a friend to ask her what she knew about a person who had asked to have a meeting with me. Invaluable phone call, that. Using LinkedIn it took me five seconds to discover who we knew in common.

Okay, perhaps I am preaching to the choir here. But when I asked my friends what business-type New Year's resolutions they were contemplating for 2007, every one of them said "go to networking events -- although I hate them." That part made me sad. There are some dismal networking events out there, but some of them are tremendous. Which is your favorite? Why not leave a comment and fill us in?

Networking the West with Liz Ryan

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Networking the West with Liz Ryan

Here in the West, we appreciate social networking - we need it. We're not thick as thieves with thousands of other people in our industries, not in places like Missoula and Boulder. We don't have the huge industry concentrations they have in New York and Chicago and London. Sometimes, we learn about a fascinating person because we find him or her online - and learn that the person lives and works maybe blocks away from us!

It happened to me last summer. I wrote to the president of an international women's organization, located in Canada. A few days later, I got an email back from the person who runs technology for this global women's organization. That person - Stephanie - lives in Boulder, maybe a mile and a half from me. That would be a small-world story anywhere, but particularly in a small city like Boulder. Anyway, my point is: the online connections are not trivial to New West networkers, because we're not overwhelmed with face-to-face networking events and industry functions like the businesspeople in LA and other megalopolae.

So imagine my horror when I read on a LinkedIn-related list-serv (it's called MyLinkedInPowerForum) that a LinkedIn user was trying to get money from another user, by acting as a sort of virtual highwayman. [more]

Networking the West with Liz Ryan

In this article in Forbes, readers are warned of the ten most dangerous online activities, and making the list is - surprise! - participating in social networking sites like Linkedin. While most of the items on the list (don't click on attachments from people you don't know, e.g.) are pretty obvious to experienced computer users, this social-networking ban isn't one you might expect to make the top ten.

The article says that social engineers can use a site like LinkedIn to grab your personal data and hurt you. I'm not feeling it. Have there been any verified cases of identity theft via social-networking site? I haven't seen a news story about anything like that. It seems kinda paranoid to me. Aren't you at greater risk having a known associate steal your personal data that somebody who finds your LinkedIn profile?

I got identity-thieved at work, in 2000. A woman who was an admin assistant in our office went into my wallet and stole three credit cards, and used them like crazy. When I got the cards replaced - because I didn't know who had stolen them, and never suspected any of my co-workers - she went into my purse again and wrote down the credit card numbers, and used them to shop online and over the phone. I only figured out that this Che had stolen my identity when she was arrested for forging company payroll checks and trying to cash them.

She got a 12-month suspended sentence. She's probably out there right now stealing someone else's identity.

Here is the scary part: there was a little boy, her son, that she brought to work sometimes. Later I heard that the little boy was a grifter-scam kid, not her kid, some kid that she had access to and used to create sympathy for herself as a single mom. Spooky. Poor little fellow.

Networking the West with Liz Ryan

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Networking the West with Liz Ryan

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Networking the West with Liz Ryan

My friend Marisa is in her MBA program, and she just got hit with the deadly Group Project bomb. This is the one where you get into the class, you get the syllabus, and you realize that 50% of your grade is based on a huge group project - a combination of a paper and a presentation. Marisa figured, how bad could it be? I like working in groups. But it got really bad.

The first clue that things weren't going well in Marisa's group popped up in the first group meeting. The group members were lackluster and not terribly interested in expending any energy. Oh dear, though Marisa. Now I'm going to have to be the group-mom, in order to get anything done here. [more]

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