Let Me Connect You

Let Me Connect You
Jane Cage, COO, HTS

Not too long ago, the phrase ‘Let me connect you’ would have only come from
a telephone operator. Today, it’s just as likely to come to my inbox as
I receive emails from colleagues, business partners, friends and
relatives who want to connect to me through one of today’s electronic
social networking sites. At age 52, this is a new phenomenon for me. On
the other hand, teenagers are completely tuned in to this concept they
all have a Myspace or Facebook account. So, does it make sense in the
business world? I decided to find out.

Linked in (http://www.linkedin.com)
seems to be the business networking site of choice. Linked In has a
simple philosophy: Relationships Matter. On their website, they state
our mission is to help you be more effective in your daily work and
open doors to opportunities using the professional relationships you
already have. When you join Linked In, you create a profile that
summarizes your work and educational accomplishments. The profile helps
you to be found by other businesspeople on the site. You can also invite
contacts you trust (you must know their email address) to join the site
and connect to you. Once you are linked to another person, you are able
to see their contacts and ask them to link to you as well. It has the
potential to become a giant ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ experiment. When
you click on a contact, you can see what links you have in common. From
the profile you create, you can also search and be searched on
attributes such as industry, keywords, etc. You can even write a
reference for a contact that is posted for everyone to see. So, how
has it worked for me? I have found it useful to link myself not only to
colleagues within my industry but also with our clients. One of my links
to a client brought a great business opportunity our way when a friend
of the client saw my name and company on the clients space, remembered
the good things that client had said about me and called me.

Reconnecting
has been another benefit of Linked In. I’ve found old college classmates
and business acquaintances with whom I’d lost touch. As of today, I have
212 connections. Two degrees away – friends of friends – that are
connected to one of my connections explodes that possible number of
connections to 12,200. Who knows who I could find? I’ve also joined
several groups that link me to other site users who belong to the same
associations that I do. Linked In has also been a good way to keep in
touch with friends as they change job and email addresses.

My feedback on Linked In so far it’s thumbs up.

I also joined Facebook. Facebook describes themselves as a social utility
that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live
around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an
unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn about the
people they meet. My shorter translation of that is that Facebook is
like a completely personalized National Inquirer about your friends
and the amazing aspect is that everything there is self-published! I
haven’t seen much business use for Facebook yet but I have seen it as a
way to personalize business relationships. When I can look at photo
albums published by business colleagues, I learn more about them as a
person. I see photos of their children, their vacation and their
business trips. The Status Update keeps me up with what friends and
colleagues are doing. At this moment, I know that one is furious,
another is back to job hunting again and a third loves family
dinners. These are small items, I admit, but in a strange electronic
way, I feel more connected with them. In a fast paced world with so many
demands on our time, Facebook becomes an electronic almost-substitute
for coffee pot conversations, quick hellos as we pass and picture
postcards.

My feedback on Facebook
thumbs up if you are the kind of person who likes to know what’s up with
your friends and acquaintances. Social Networking is fast becoming one
of the must-do’s for technology users who don’t want to be left
behind. Try it and let me know what you think I’d like to hear your
feedback, and maybe even see a few pictures of your kids!