Stop hoggin the goods

by Byron Woodson II

Are you the only person you know that reads this blog?

Have you been reading this blog? by yourself?

Well the, share the wealth. When you read an article you like, click on the "share" button at the end of the post so you can post it to places like facebook, delicious and other social networking sites.

Obviously, this post is both a self-interested shameless promotion, and an invitation to practice what I preach: giving. If you want to be a Netweaver, the easiest and fastest way to do that, is to become a Netweaver. This means consistently attempting to and giving value to the people around you.

Because not everyone knows what netweaving is (yet), you'll have to invite them to subscribe to this blog. It would be easier to meet and converse with a lot of people, when a lot of people are bringing people to these events/soiree's you'll be hosting for you to meet. Wouldn't it?

There's ample opportunity to get the people you know exposed to and interested in netweaving. At the bottom of this blog there's a nice "add this" icon where you can post individual posts to Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious (my favorite social bookmarking site). Use them profusely.

Don't be stingy, spread the word.

Five Ways to Be More Likeable

by Byron Woodson II

How is it that some people knock conversations out of the ballpark, and some consistently give us a 'swing and a miss'? Better yet, what can we, you and I, do to make conversations more interesting and lively? Well I've thought up about five

1. Smile with your ears
You've seen those pictures with people who look like they're snarling and smiling at the same time. You can tell in the immortalized picture that they didn't really have something to smile at. In conversations, people see this all the time. So how do we smile in such a way that we're actually smiling, and not faking it?

Different kinds of smiles demand different muscles in your face. When you have an authentic smile, your cheeks spread, it's almost like your ears are pulling your cheeks back. Try it now. First, smile only by moving your lips into a smile. Now, smile by pulling your whole cheeks toward your ears. I'll bet that pulling your cheeks back feels more like an authentic smile, doesn't it? So when you meet someone and smile, make sure your cheeks move.

2. Ask more questions
Asking questions of someone tells them that you're interested in them and what they have to say. I learned a long time ago that people love themselves. It's not a bad thing, they're themselves all day. Whatever they experience, they experience it as themselves (unless they take a walk in someone else's shoes). So when you ask someone a question, it gives them an opportunity to share their knowledge and view of the world.

But sometimes asking any question just won't do. So you have to:

3. Ask better questions
What makes a 'better' question? There are two possibilities that I'll talk about.

The first kind of a better question is a question that demands more than a one-word answer. There's a big difference between the answers of the questions "what school did you go to" and "why did you go to the school you went to". When people get a question that has an open-ended answer they have an opportunity to talk about themselves, their lives, their experiences and their viewpoints on the world. Who doesn't like their own little soapbox once in a while?

The second kind of a better question asks someone to go further into detail about whatever they just said. When you ask these questions, you're basically telling them that you're listening to what they're saying, and that you want to know more. Which segues into the next way to be more likable:

4. Become awed
Let's say you ask a boring question, and you get a boring answer. Act like it's the best thing you've heard all night.

The last time you told a story to someone who wasn't interested, you probably didn't like telling the story much. When we tell stories or have conversations, we want to have conversations with people who are interested in either us or what we're saying.

By consistently being awed by whatever they are saying, we are feeding people back the energy they are putting into the conversation. Allowing yourself to be awed by the situation is actually a step beyond being interested. Can't muster awe? PRACTICE!


5. Ask for advice
People love to fee like their opinion is valued. When you ask someone for advice, you're both revealing a personal or professional problem you're in, and you're asking them to weigh in whatever authority or advice they have on the topic. By asking for advice you also communicate that you trust them enough to reveal a part of your life that isn't so great. However, don't ask a dentist for dental advice, or a financial planner for finance advice. Nothing is worse than doing your job for free.

You could say that this is a more step-by-step description of how to become more likable than a post I wrote about becoming someone worth liking. You can find a different take on making yourself more likeable from the happiness expert, Gretchen Rubin.

Networking vs Connecting

by Byron Woodson II

I guess you could place this post in an on-off series talking about the distinctions between networking, netweaving and now you can add connecting to this. I've written a few posts in this vein here, here and here. This is inspired by a post by Valdis Krebs who wrote a pretty succinct way to network 'the right way'.

I subscribe to the blog The Network Thinker written by Valdis Krebs (who created the social networking software Inflow) for obvious reasons. Recently, Valdis wrote a post entitled Connecting Yourself to a Job. While most of his posts are about the abstract properties of networks, here he gives some real tactical advice about how to go about networking for getting a job.

Work with someone!

That's pretty much it. When you meet/connect with someone new, you two have very little sense of how well that other person does business, handles relationships and the like. So recomending them to someone else would be an act of trust. In order for two people to get a sense of the other person's skills and work ethic, you have to work with them.

Working with someone does not necessitate having to work at the same job. You could put on a conference on a topic, volunteer in another organization, or create any small project that you two can work on. It is only in the context of working together, that you can guage that other person's skills and abilities.

This, incidentally, is why Linkedin is both a blessing and a curse. It enables people to proselytize their professional network, but it also allows for abuse. Really, someone with 5000 connections on linkedin cannot possibly know them all! That is why perhaps the rival [insert problem: i heard of www.anthillz.com but at this time their website isn't working, but basically to get a connection, each person has to write a review of the other person] anthillz may be a better alternative to connecting.

Valdis says "quality trusted ties develop when people work on something together . . . not over a handshake . . . coffee . . . [or] at a job fair". In order to build a network, you actually have to work with the people in it, imagine that! Go ahead and read his whole post, it's much better than my summary could get.

So, do any of these things:
1. volunteer
2. co-host a party or after-hours
3. invite a speaker to your group (job)
4. create a presentation for your group (job)

Do you Network for the Short-term or the Long-term?

by Byron Woodson II

That may be a weird question to ask. On Monday I wrote a post about how to double the size of your network, fast. In it, I made a distinction between networking for the short-term and networking for the long-term. It was a quick little distinction, I want to spend a post expanding on it. Let's start by comparing some of the important actions in short-term vs long-term networking (netweaving).

Short-Term Networking
1. exchange cards
2. send an email
3. call

Long-Term Networking (netweaving)
1. follow up
2. arrange a meeting
3. introduce them to someone else

You can see from the different set of actions that the focus of short-term and long-term time-frames are different. The actions in short-term networking focus on getting in contact. There's not much after that. The actions of long-term networking include short-term networking (getting and contact, step 2) and moves on to doing something that provides value to that person (step 3) by linking them into your network. This could be in the form of a referral (business), a party (social) or a meeting (business) or all three. It can take place at dinner, on a conference call, a business lunch, coffee or many other gatherings.

You might be thinking "but I don't want to give away my connections". I have two responses to that. First, by linking people into your network, that is networking. Without linking and intertwining the relationships you have, you don't have a network, you have strings.The problem may lay in the fact that what most people do is connect and they mistakenly call it networking.

Second, the only 'giving away' connections in this world is when a father gives his daughter away for marriage. You connections aren't a limited resource like money. Your connections are a limited resource like the process of breathing . . . there isn't a limit. By being 'stingy' with the connections you have, you're actually choking the source of your network, and the source of your network is your network!

How do people find friends? Through other friends. How do people and businesses find customers? Through word-of-mouth. How do people find jobs? Other people again! By knowing more people, developing fuller relationships with them and giving them access to your network, you are building a long-lasting connection with that person.

So what does introducing people to one another have to do with the short/long term networking?
When you do anything for the long-term or the short-term, the actions you take are vastly different. We see in the stock market the impact that short-term profits has had on our economy (our current recession). We know about the impact on health that boxers, football players and other athletes experience after years of grindingly hard sports.

When you do anything for the long term, your actions are different. A person who wants to play tennis doesn't do warm-ups and calisthenics and then quit. They do calisthenics and warm ups so that they can play tennis. When you network for the long term, your focus is not on meeting people, it's on knowing them. This involves interacting with them in social, business, political and family environments. Networking is culture. Networking is not A culture. Networking is culture. Your network is the culture you are surrounded by.

The degree to which you network for the short-term or the long-term can be measured by how many people you talk with and how often you do it. The more people you talk to the more often, of course the more connected you will be to that individual. The more often you talk to people who talk to each other, the more connected you will be to that network.


If you want to start networking for the long-term, Do this:
1. Call 3 people you haven't talked to in months
2. Invite all of them to do something with you in two weeks, make sure you leave a message.
3. Do this every day for a week (as in invite more people).
4. Repeat this three times a year.

Remember, the focus is on knowing them. You can only know someone by interacting with them. By inviting them to interact with you and other people, you get to know them not only through your own eyes, but also you know how they operate in groups, respond to your friends, and what your friends think about them. Networking for the long-term requires that you actively introduce people you know to one another.

How to Double the Size of Your Network, fast

by Byron Woodson II

How can you real fast double the size of your network? Join another one!

When you leave your first job for a new one, you almost double the number of people you've worked with. This happens again when you go to a bigger company. Granted, not all of these people will know what your skills are, but you're connected to them in some way. If you want to double the size of your network, simply join another one.

Living in Philadelphia, I've wanted not to get in politics, but to get around politics. I've always liked knowing, or at least talking to, the people who knew what was happening in the back offices of politics, what's going on in the mayor's office, city council etc. Recently, I've been exposed to them more, both because I want to, and more naturally because as my network of people expands, more of these people pop up in the expected and unexpected places. By talking with more people already involved in different networks, I'm finding that my network is expanding almost exponentially.

But just because your network is larger, does not mean its more useful.
When you move from one job to another, not everyone can help you learn the ropes of your particular job. And just because you join another network, group or organization, doesn't mean that they're all going to be able to or want to help you. But what then?

Remember, there are two kinds of networking. Better put, there are two time-frames for networking. Short-term networking happens when someone wants something immediately and is only focused on getting that goal achieved, whether it is cold calls for a fund-raising drive, to find a good plumber or something like that. Long-term networking aims not just on specific measurable results, but is about building relationships with and among people. Only looking for whether a particular connection or network is useful to your short-term needs undermines your long-term network building.

If you focus on building relationships for the long-term, your focus is not on what and who that person knows right now, or what a particular group does. Long-term networking focuses on establishing trust between two people or a group of people so that down the line they can call on one another, or send some goodies each other's way. If nothing else, joining networks that you would normally not be a part of gives you a fantastic amount of training in communication skills, simply because you'll be interacting with people outside your normal social spheres.

When you network for the long term (as in "dig your well before you're thirsty" and "opportunity networking") you can double the size of your network and work on building the new relationships with other people, without looking at how immediately useful it is.

The contrast between short-term networking and long-term networking is wonderfully illustrated in the story about the owner of the goose who laid golden eggs. So though getting a bigger network by joining another one helps in terms of sheer numbers, you also have to focus on the quality of your relationships.

An Almost Book Review on Networks

by Byron Woodson II

So, it might be a little weird to review a book you haven't read, but I'm going to do it anyway.

I regularly read the blog orgtheroy.net for a couple of reasons. Recently one of the blog's contributors Brayden reviewed a book by Sean Stafford which compared the resurgence, or lack of it, in two former steel towns, Youngstown Ohio and Allentown PA. The book explores what enabled Allentown to resurge and survive while Youngstown still flounders.

Anyhow, being the enthusiastic curmudgeon I am, I posted a comment on Brayden's book review espousing how I thought it interesting but probably wouldn't read the book. After posting, I convinced myself I would read it because both I am a history buff and the book is analyzing the networks/networking of the two towns. Double whammy.

When I checked back on the blog, both Brayden and Sean had wrote in to tell me exactly why I should read the book. What really piqued my interest was Sean's sentence: " i think the key thing i try to do is use the networks, less as the driver of the story, than as evidence supporting the mechanisms i discuss." For some reason that rang bells for me.

Even though I'm an advocate of networking, I'm not an advocate of networking for networking's sake, I'm an advocate of networking to get things done. By using networks, networking, cultural organizations and institutions as a backdrop, this might be a great way to see networks in action, not just networks.


As an afterthought, I emailed June Holley who I am pretty sure created the concept and/or phrase "network weaver", who has been netweaving for 20 years in the Greater Appalacia area as the executive director of acenet, which includes Southern Ohio. I'm excited that she said she has already ordered the book. Hopefully good things will come of that. Her concept of weaving networks is a way more precise phrase of what I encourage people to do than anything I came up with. Thanks June!

Walking Their Mile, Their Way

by Byron Woodson II

One of the age-old adages that we hear about knowing people is "you have to walk a mile in their shoes". However, a common problem is that people walk a mile in another person's shoes, their own way.

For instance: you're in a heated argument about what happened at dinner. In the argument, both of you are more interested in getting your points across (who is right) than finding out why you two are disagreeing (valuing in different ways). In an argument, when either of you say something, you say it as if you're right, and what you value is more important than what the other person values, thinks and experienced.

Hit the pause button . . If you wanted to get to a place where you can resolve the argument, you have to 'see things from their perspective', 'walk a mile in their shoes' or 'feel what they feel'. This is great advice, but many times people don't take, or have, the time to really put themselves in the other person's shoes. But what is it to put yourself in another person's shoes? And when you do it, how do you do it well.

For the most part, when we put ourselves in someone else' position, generally speaking, we take our own perceptions and values to their situation. When we do this, we are doing the wrong thing. What's the point of going over to their position, and seeing things our way?

What's the solution?
The solution to this age-old conundrum is to learn how to more fully walk a mile in another person's shoes. This means that you have to walk their speed, with their stride and even with their limp. To do this in real life, you have to think using what that person knows and values.

step 1. forget what you know
We could call this cleaning our glasses. Many times when we talk to someone or think of their perspective, we usually assume that they know what we know. Stop that.

step 2. learn what they know
The second step is to understand what the other person knows. We can ONLY do this by asking good questions. And when we get the answer, instead of comparing their answer to what we know and value, we just let their answer sit with us for a while, so it settles in, at least until we can figure out what they value in the situation.

step 3. learn what they value
This is not so easy. Most times when you ask someone what they value, they make up some politically correct answer, or something that sounds good. But you can keep this in mind as what they want to value even though their actions may not immediately reflect that. Another adage we usually use is 'actions speak louder than words'. To understand what someone values, you want to consider their actions and reactions in the situation under consideration as well as what they say they do or want to value. Taking both of these, what they say they value and what they do, into how you understand their perspective is critical.

step 4. now start walking their walk
Now that you're equipped both with what they know, think, feel and value about the situation and the factors leading up to the situation, only now can you really make sense of their opinions, perspective and actions from their viewpoint, using their values. Now, replay the situation in your mind while perceiving what they did and valuing the way they value. A little different ins't it?

step 5. compare
You now have two separate viewpoints, experiences and value systems. Now you are equipped to more fairly compare the two viewpoints, your own and theirs. Before these previous steps, you had an unbalanced and incomplete picture of the differences between your and their viewpoints.

Practice, Practice and More Practice:
In the communication arena, practice doesn't make perfect. Practice just makes better, more often. A few ways to practice is to watch political debates on Sunday morning television. They're not only good for finding out what people in a debate are saying, they're also fantastic for finding out what people aren't saying. By learning to recognize what's left out of communication, you become better at learning to get 'the whole truth'.

How this helps:
1. Walking a mile in their shoes, their way can help you become a better persuader by enabling you to understand better how other people tick.

2. This can help you create healthier relationships with your family, friends and intimate partners by being aware of what they value and how they view and interact with the world.

3. This can also increase the range of people you are able to be comfortable with. People get comfortable when other people listen to them. By listening more fully, more often, more people will feel at home when talking to you.

Whichever one of these three things intrigues you, by learning to walk a mile in someone's shoes their way, you'll end up being someone worth liking.


Bonus:
try this next time you are in an argument:
If we think of an argument metaphorically, or at least visualize an argument vs being comfortable with someone, the difference between an argument and being comfortable with someone would literally be the difference between facing one another angrily vs looking in the same direction. Looking in the same direction generally allows two people to literally see the same thing.

One thing you may want to try when you're in an argument is to sit down next to the person instead of facing them at them. This could be on the couch where you're literally right next to them, or at a table where you're on a 90 degree angle from them. When you're both looking at the same thing (same wall or at something on the table) instead of facing one another, you can discuss the thing you're looking at (a visualization of the event or what you write on a piece of paper), instead of arguing at one another. It helps to write things down, not so much to get it on paper, but to focus your attention on something besides each others' behavior.

When you face one another during an argument, you tend to react more to the person's facial expressions, voice, posture and other things than whatever you're actually arguing about. By looking in the same direction, you respond less to their behavior and more to the topic of conversation. To do this just walk to a room where both of you can sit down next to each other, perhaps on the couch, on stairs or the front steps or in adjacent chairs (not opposite) at a table. Eventually, you'll get to this:

Opportunity Networking - part deux

by Byron Woodson II

Last week, I wrote a blog post last week about a new phrase I've fallen in love with. The phrase is "opportunity network" which I found thanks to Steve Woodruff who talks about it in two posts (here and here).

I like the phrase because it encompasses the overlap between professional networking, social networking, business networking, cause networking and all the cracks and crevices in them. I'm of the opinion that 'networking' (though mis-identified and mis-used) is not one or two of these things, it's all of them. Whether you network for career change, career advancement, finding better parties, meeting more people, better dates, or whatever your purpose, opportunity networking may just be a good thing for you and all of your interests.

The aim of oppourtnity networking, as I'm now defining it, is not simply to create opportunities for yourself, but more specifically to link the people you know to the opportunities you know about.

Philosophy tangent: Possibilities exist. Opportunities exist when possibilities (which are timeless) meet time and space. Now, opportunity networking happens when you add your people to those possibilities. This is a sliver of a difference from taking advantage of an opportunity because you won't be doing this yourself, you'll be plugging in someone you know into this opportunity.

Now, opportunity networking leans toward being agressive. It's not something that just falls into your lap, it's the thing that you put into other people's lap. To become an opportunity networker, you have to look for two things: opportunities and people.

Finding the opportunities:
To accomplish this, when you meet people or meet up with people you already know, you have to interview them about what opportunities they know about. This, aside from diligently researching online, is the only way to find out about opportunities all around your network.

Finding the people to plug in:
The other half of opportunity networking is to increase the variety, number and caliber of people you interact with. I heard a quip recently "if you hang out with nine broke friends, you're bound to be the tenth." So, what you want to do is to broaden the kinds of people you know. This can be demographically such as age, sex, race, geography (get out of town). It can also be, and more importantly for opportunity networking, occupation, hobbies and community service. Knowing a broader range of people enables you to plug a lot more holes with a lot more people. Doing this will turn you into the operator of the 40's and 50's constantly plugging people into the different opportunities you know about.

But WIIFM?

What's in it for you? Of course giving other people key information about opportunities will do two things. First, more people will tell you about opportunities, and this means that you'll have more access to better opportunities to plug people into. Second, more people will come to you for help. Even Ben Franklin advocates owing people favors, and vice versa, the connectivity of a favor connects.

What's really in it for you is the opportunity to get dibs and pounce on the opportunities that your network is bringing you. It's also a good way to build your very own 'good ol boy' network.

Can you tell I'm excited about this?

But the thing I really love about 'opportunity networking' is that it enables you to overlap your social, business, professional and organizational networking. Just because you have a social life, doesn't mean you can't get them rich. And just becasue you are in a business, doesn't mean you can't make your associates popular. Besides, networking your people with opportunities makes you an automatic energizer and a keystone in your networks for sure.

Opportunity Networking

by Byron Woodson II

Maybe i need to change the name of this blog. I was scouring the internet, yet again, for other articles and blogs about professional networking. For all the rave i hear about them, most 'networking' blogs mostly focus on using Facebook, Linkedin or other social networking. Not many talk directly about how to improve your face-to-face networking or professional networking.

Anyhow, i came across a blog post by Steve Woodruff entitled "do you have an opportunity network?" The gist of it is that he networks with people not just for business, but to build a community within which it is easier for suppliers and customers to connect. He says "in fact, my entire consulting business model is the use of a growing network to bring together clients and providers."

That 'opportunity network' is a great term for what I advocate by doing the actions and passion of 'netweaving'. It seems that the traditional terms like professional networking and business networking don't really scratch the moving itch that we have in these times.

I also like the guy because I did about four more minutes of research on him and his blogs and found two other blog posts (more about business and about matchmaking) that I found relatively relevant (did you like that alliteration?). Though they are pretty focused on the intersection of 'opportunity networking' and social media, they're just as applicable to face-to-face networking.

I like the phrase opportunity networking so much, maybe i'll write another blog post discussing just what I mean by that!

How to Make Time for Networking

by Byron Woodson II

You're busy already. You have a job, a semblance of a social life, family, maybe even some community service commitments. How in the world do you 'network' when your schedule is already packed?

The question is not really 'how do you network', or 'how do you network more'. The question is 'how do you network more effectively'?

The answer is overlap.

Have you heard of a 'business lunch'? Two birds: food and clients, one stone: lunch. One sure way to kill or maim more fowl with one stone is to host a lunch or after-work networking party. This does not have to be a big extravaganza.

The important thing to do is to invite a few of the people you'd really like to see to go to lunch, dinner or whatever occasion. Though you might want more one-on-one time with one or two of them, having four or five friends, associates, clients or business partners all around the same table will create a more lively conversation and atmosphre. Being able to see multiple people will give you enough face-time to reconnect with each one, and it will introduce people you talk to frequently to the people you talk about frequently (and vice versa).

Inviting people to these small intimate events on a regular basis will do wonders for social networking, professional networking, business networking or any other kind of networking you're into. If you invite family and friends to where your business associates will be, make sure it is after business hours, and maybe on the weekend.

So how many should you invite?
Inviting ten or fifteen people will net about five or six people to your event. It's been my experience that about a fourth of the people say they're coming, three fourths of them actually show up, and a quarter of the people that show up bring a friend.

Here's the math: 100 invites -> 25 confirmed -> 15 show + four friends = 20 people

So how could you manage this?

FACEBOOK! I never thought I'd say this, simply because 'all the rave' is social networking, Facebook and all of that is overhyped. However, Facebook has a unique feature that lets you organize events easily and quickly. Facebook allows you to create events that you can invite people to publicly or privately, you can allow them to invite friends, or have people request invitations. It's a pretty flexible medium to quickly invite and organize a couple hundred of your closest friends. I like Facebook because it's faster and easier than calling and emailing the same number of people.

Now, if you're not on Facebook I have two things to say. the first one is: I understand. The second is: get on it anyway. Hey, don't check it for weeks at a time. Fine by me. But if you want to 'network' then there is literally no better medium to reconnect with all the people you wanted to keep in contact with, and a few of those that you don't.

*while you're at it, tune up the way you introduce people
*you can also see how this is better than traditional networking