Who is striving to fill the need for Private Social Networks?

In his article Is “My Dow Network” a “Social Network”, Dennis McDonald describes a series of reasons for a company to want to offer the social networking experience to a limited internal audience.

In the collaboration systems space there are plenty of examples of private platforms. Systems such as messaging, newsgroups, document sharing and information portals, and especially the old mainstay email are commonly used in a closed environment. Companies can supply them internally (or have hosted on their behalf) and they match well the need for internal consumption and privacy whilst allowing an interface to and from the outside world. But what about the particular dynamic that is fulfilled by online social networking?

Are there any social networking platforms that can host a private instance for clients who want such features in a ring-fenced social sphere?

Or are there any software providers or open source projects that allow companies or societies to deliver an internally housed service to their stakeholders?

And increasingly the more important questions will be:

• how can such systems provide interfaces to leverage information, connections and features that already exist in external (or partner) social networks?
• How could the private system allow a limited flow of information out into third parties, or onto the public domain?
• What provision could there be to allow new joiners to import information, and individuals to retain a copy of information they might want to take elsewhere?

I’m afraid I don’t have any answers to these questions right now, and perhaps that’s a shame. After all, the bulk of our modern economy is based upon information, and unless the entire world of commerce turns around and says “nah, its just hype - there’s not really any lasting value in information about people, their relationships, and anything they share or transact!” then I’m certain there will be a lot of attention (and by consequence cash) being focussed in this area in the coming months and years.

Tell me again, why have I been nurturing my network?

So I didn’t leave it until the last minute when I needed help, I grew and tended my network whilst the sun shone.
And I knew that one day the time would come when I needed to get something back from my network . . .
Now that day is here, how do I go about it?

In a great article, well worth keeping for that rainy day, Kent Blumberg explains some excellent tips on How to ask for help from your network, including:

• improving the chances that someone in your network will give you precisely the information you need
• ensuring that your request is received happily and painlessly by members of your network, so they become even more receptive to your requests for help in the future.

Four top reasons why clients hire Interim Managers

Executives Online have carried out a recent survey of the UK interim sector. They have included their findings in their New Interim Report, which draws together “Research and Analysis on the UK Market for Interim Management and Other Fast-Track Executive Resourcing”. It supplies an interesting range of facts, figures and evaluations that may be relevant to clients, but which are most definitely very pertinent to people who are looking to place themselves into interim roles.

Benefits of interims

For me, one of the most valuable findings concerned the reasons why clients chose to hire Interim Managers. Executives Online found that over two thirds of clients cited one of the following amongst the most important qualities of interim managers:

1. Skills/experience for job
2. Strategic but also implement (sic)
3. Results focused
4. Quickly get people on side

The report suggests that clients like to reduce risk by employing someone who’s “done it before” - obviously no great surprise there. However, once you understand the other key qualities clients appreciate, then it makes it easier to emphasise to them that you are capable of delivering.

Technorati Tags: interim, deliver, quality, skill, client

Where are you and what are you up to?

I learned about new “location brokering” services such as Mk Loki and
Yahoo’s FireEagle through a thread in the LinkedInBloggers group. The following article gives a brief intro, in case this is a new idea to you: Information Brokering: MyLoki provides granular control of your location - O’Reilly Radar

Through the discussion it seemed that online business networkers would find this kind of information valuable, so that they could take those rare opportunities for face-to-face meetings when they suddenly found themselves to be in the same part of the world as someone else in their network. However the disadvantages appeared to be in planning a meeting with sufficient notice to get a common slot of free time.

This is where I considered the possibility of allowing your future personal free-busy information to be viewed by your network, along with your projected location - that way a system can easily hook you up with close matches amongst your first degree connections. And to be more sophisticated you could indicate which areas of your personal network were “hottest” for you right now, so it would allow a slightly more “fuzzy” match. After all, you might be prepared to switch your appointments or travel a little out of your way to go and see someone who’s in a line of business you’re particularly into right now.

Interesting idea but it begs the question, would you be prepared to publish information to your trusted business network about where you are planning to be and when you might be free?

Web 2.0 is just the inter-network of people

It suddenly dawned on me the other morning, what this latest “revolution” is really about…

The internet, fuelled by the world wide web, ushered in a communications revolution,
as connections between computers all over the planet allowed them to share information

The current snowballing of social media that is often branded Web 2.0 is merely
the internet moving from technology towards people.

Instead of gaining collective value by connecting up the world computers,
we are beginning to gain colossal value instead by connecting up the people themselves.

We are beginning to share the value of relationships, in just the same way that we previously
shared the value of information, and it is empowering and enriching us as we go

Sharing with others does NOT take away from yourself

I found some excellent market research yesterday that could well help me find work in the future. I wanted to post it to my technology-related blog, but I had strong reservations about actually publishing it (Look who’s been doing my market research for me). “But should I share useful information with my competitors?”, went my self-protective thoughts. “Other people I know are effectively in competition with me for roles, so I should keep this to myself.”

Fortunately I published it anyway, and this morning I realised why this was the RIGHT thing to do. Even if my ex-colleagues are in the same sector as me, offering similar services, and aiming at similar prospective companies, this can still be an advantage to me.

You see I am me, with a different personality, different characteristics, different experience and a different approach from other people I know. If its the right role for me, it is quite possibly not right for the other person, so I would be more likely to get the work. Likewise, if it’s right for the other person and doesn’t really suit me, then why would I want to be doing it anyway? Because we are unique individuals we are not actually direct competitors, and have nothing to fear from each other.

What’s more, by sharing openly with others, when I find a role that doesn’t quite suit me, I could easily recommend that the other person goes for it instead. And because what goes around comes around, other people I know, and who I share openly with, are more likely to approach me if they find a role that they are not ideally suited to. So we continue to help each other, not compete with each other.

Helping each other and sharing is always a better approach than “us and them” - it enriches everyone.

How LinkedIn helps you strengthen your network, even by chance

Scott Allen recently wrote about the way he likes LinkedIn because it helps him make fortunate discoveries by accident - Serendipity, Or Why LinkedIn Really Works

I could not agree more about the way “chance” discoveries help me strengthen my network. And I think this is one of the great reasons to maintain a quality network of trusted business colleagues, rather than casually connecting with open-networking link seekers.

I feel I get a great deal of value for the time I spend “casually browsing” my own extended network. When I successfully connect to someone, I find it’s useful to peruse those people they have brought me as new second degree connections. And it’s often interesting to note who is adding new connections and occasionally who they are.

Its not just that I can develop a better understanding of the industries and markets (my current ones, and others). I actually develop a better understanding of who I know out there, what they are up to and how we are intertwined. Its like being able to see the wiring under the covers, and realising how it all comes together.

And of course spending time nurturing my network can only help it grow - in strength as well as numbers.

The blogging dynamic

Blogging has a very different dynamic from other types of publishing media, owing to several factors, but the most important in my eyes are:
1) Posts are usually short to medium length, but are fairly regular. This churn has meant that people turn to feeds and aggregators to
manage the dribbled snippets of disparate information, but it gives blogs a more casual, conversational characteristic
2) What turns individual blogs into the blogosphere is the community that builds up with interaction between the streams of stuttered
conversation, that whispers and rumours travel, as well as knowledge and information being shared and relayed.
3) The mechanisms that have become common in blog tools and services encourage and feed off this interconnectedness. Links (posting references to others’ posts, tracking back, and commenting) are a powerful source of SEO, if that is your main goal. However, even for the casual non-commercial blogger, connections are a source of inspiration and readership too. Reading other people’s blogs and commenting
on them or blogging about them builds not only your knowledge and that of your readers, but builds a network around you, albeit more transient than the one you have in LinkedIn - this comes back to making sure you do it regularly.
Different media suit different structures.

You can use the passing flow of time in your blog to help you rework material. In a traditional static form that you build up in documents or wikis, you avoid repetition. However in a blog it is relevant to rework something you posted six months ago, because you will have a different view and you can recompose your work in various ways.

You can use this to translate your ideas into chunks that you publish consecutively - like chapters of a book delivered in weekly inserts in a magazine. Not only will it help you reorganise it but you might get a different response if people read it in a different shape.

Leading the pack from within

I know this is slightly off-topic, but Brandon Henak’s guest post in Personal Branding Blog gives a description of leadership that really resonates with me currently…

Find something you are passionate about and learn what it takes to lead by interacting with people who have similar beliefs. Gather the thoughts, opinions and goals of the group, combine them with your vision and help the group achieve them by planning a strategy with them, not for them. Your passion to lead change, in any group whether political, academic, athletic or otherwise, is directly translatable to leading in the constantly changing corporate environment.

How are you doing against your Personal Branding checklist?

Its great when someone publishes a list of “X important things you must do in order to…” , because it provides a fantastic way of metering your own progress towards your goals. Personal Branding guest blogger Jason Jacobsohn gives a classic example at with 13 Important Drivers to Developing Your Personal Brand. What could be more reassuring than counting the achievements you have already ticked off? If you already have plans to accomplish the others, it only encourages you further.

In fact, I find it highly satisfying that Jason lists only one important driver that I do not esteem - personal note cards. But anyone who has tried to decipher a scrawled personal message from me in the past decade will appreciate that no amount of gold-emblazoned bonded card stock could ever make my handwriting appear professional.