tech ronin

Social networking made easy, part 3

This entry is part of a series on social networking, please go back at least one notch and skim part 2, for background. This complete thread starts with 6 degrees of separation.

Getting to know people: this simple structure of personal pages on Ryze, makes it easy to get to know quite a bit about people who interest or attract you. You can use the search and link functions to identify candidates for connection and then view their pages to check them out. It feels a lot like shopping - for interesting people. I guess you could say that, in this way, Ryze is a kind of mall or bazaar. It's fun. You now have a warm and fuzzy enough feeling about an interesting person, to venture a contact.

Establishing Contact: This is key. Most of us don't like this part in real life - meeting strangers. Here, we are way ahead of the game because we know a lot about these "strangers" before we attempt to make contact - we've picked out the ones who look most promising. We can ask them about something we saw on their page. We can point out our common interests, background, industry, career or personal experiences. If that weren't enough, there's one more great feature. Each personal page has a guestbook and there is a culture that supports signing a person's guestbook as an initial overture. On Ryze, it is OK in fact encouraged to sign a complete stranger's guestbook. And, usually, the stranger will return the favor and check your personal page out and write some kind of reply. You are off and running now if the chemistry goes well with the guestbook exchange.

Building Trust and Comfort: As you can see, it's pretty easy and comfy getting these relationships started. There are a couple neat mechanisms for this next phase. On Ryze, you don't list your phone or email address in the real world on your page. However, you can choose to share this information with someone when you feel comfortable doing so or think it would be more convenient this way. It's an act of trust to do so. You are trusting your new "friend" to use your contact information responsibly. At some point you can declare a person to be a "friend" and add them to your friends list. They may or may not choose to put you on their friends list - these are personal decisions.

Exchanging Knowledge, contacts and support: Since Ryze is a self-declared business networking environment, people expect to network. And that means more than just building a network. Our common understanding and certainly Ryze's definition of networking also implies helping and sharing with each other. It's commonplace for people to offer to help you and to favorably look upon requests for help. This would be true in a "real world" networking situation, though, what's special here? There's a prominent place on each personal page for you to put what you HAVE to offer and what you WANT. Let's make it explicit. This is modifiable so you can change these depending on what you have and want right now. You can effortlessly search for people who have what you want or want what you have.

I'm currently a paying member of Ryze. This is the first of the new breed of online communities that I've tried out with some degree of commitment. I've just touched on some of the highlights of the Ryze environment - there's lots more. Ryze is great but I'm still curious about what else is out there. You'll hear about my discoveries here. If I've peaked your interest about Ryze, though, do come by my personal page and say hi in my guestbook!

Social Networking made easy, part 2

OK, things are going pretty well. We don't have to go to networking groups and meet strangers if we don't want to. We don't even have to cold call or warm call to strangers. Life is good!

I said that this sort of gated online community called Ryze would smooth over the rough edges of this networking thing. Ryze, like a lot of other new networking or community-building kinds of web sites, is an emerging phenomenon - it has a life of its own and is constantly evolving. Plus, similar sites are springing up and each has it's own particular nature and feel. Here's a brief list of some of the competition: Friendster, blogging communities like Live Journal and Radio Userland, LinkedIn, Ecademy, Friends Reunited, There and Everyone's Connected.

Let's remember again, why we are doing this. We aren't getting onto the internet and futzing around with an online community just for the fun of it you know. This is serious! ;-) We are doing this because we want a way to more easily identify and connect with kindred spirits for our mutual benefit. We are looking to activate the field of dreams we've been talking about. Humans are social beings - we want and even need to socialize. Maybe we as individuals are going for two things in all this, then: (1) we want to socialize with people we really like and resonate with and (2) we want to trade knowledge, opinions and support with them once we know and trust them enough to feel comfortable doing so.

So, the fraternizing in item #1 is potentially really enjoyable, but right now let's stay on track and look at what needs to happen to get the knowledge, connection and support benefits of item #2. To do this, we need to (1) find the "right" people, (2) get to know them and (3) establish trust and (4) feel comfortable. Ryze business networking operates on and enables these things. Let's look at the first task and see how Ryze works:

Identifying People: There are many ways that Ryze helps here. Everyone has their own home page and this allows people to reveal themselves to others including photographs plus a lot of identifying information like current town, home town, schools attended, companies worked for, positions held and interests. For paying members (up to $10/mo.) these words are all clickable hyperlinks that find other Ryzlings who match that interest, home town, etc. A general search function allows you to find on any word you want. The only real hitch here is whether or not people feel safe enough to reveal information about themselves in this environment and whether or not enough people find this kind of thing worth doing. [To be continued].

Social Networking made easy, part 1

When I think of networking, the first thing that comes to mind is attending a leads group or some kind of networking event where you smile, pass out your business card and introduce yourself over and over. It's always seemed like something I should do to market myself and get new clients but when I've tried it, it's felt awkward, artificial and 'em painful. So I decided a few years ago that networking events weren't my thing.

But, now I know about the small world phenomenon and I want to get all the goodies at the end of the six degrees of separation rainbow. And I suspect that activating my field of dreams has something to do with building up my network - or networking - the N word. Do I really have to go to those awful events to get all the goodies? Let's look.

Nope. You don't have to be physically present with someone to network with them. Phew! That was a close call for a second there. Even in the "old" days you could always write a letter to someone to acknowledge their work or to introduce yourself. Or you could pick up the phone and call - we call this "cold calling". Letter writing to network - maybe. But "cold calling" sounds as bad or worse than going to a live networking event for the first time. Letter-writing and then calling is warmer, but how much fun is it, really?

The modern equivalent to writing a letter to network-at-a-distance would be writing an email. Emails are instantaneous. They are less formal - sometimes that's a plus, sometimes not. You can send a bunch of them at once - and that might possibly work as long as you have an angle that makes your email not seem like spam. Without getting stuck on the spam question, we can just note that if you already have some relationship to the person you are writing to and you aren't making a blatant commercial proposal, you'll probably make it past the spam police and your email will arrive without tremendous stigma and will perhaps be read. Minus a previous relationship, you may not have a high "response rate" as they say in the direct marketing world. Bottom line: email is incredibly convenient, can't live without it, but there are more ways to network-at-a-distance and some of them should at least augment your email networking campaign should you undertake one.

With all this fancy internet stuff, isn't there a better [read easier] way? I've got one for you. Remember, the gated online community called Ryze that I referred to a while back, well I think it's a better and easier way. Oops, we are running out of room in this post - blog posts need to be bite-sized chunks, you know. I'm sorry. Come back soon for part 2.

Creating weak ties, part 2

Let's assume that you've established your own little place in cyberspace. You've put up some information about yourself and what you are doing. You've even put up a picture of yourself. The proverbial welcome mat is out. The main purpose of all this is to let interested people check you out and get a feel for you without having to email or call you cold turkey.

That's great, you say, but there's an awful lot of websites out there in cyberspace and I'm afraid my little URL isn't exactly on a major thoroughfare - how will people find me?

You have a point there. They might find you accidentally while they search for some service or interest on Google but if no one else is linking to you, you might be at the bottom of the Google list and they probably won't get that far.

Your long lost relatives and school buddies can find you now, by searching for you by name. That's progress - those are perfectly good weak ties - unless you hope to remain unfound. I hadn't thought of that until just now. I guess there are drawbacks to visibility in cyberspace. My suggestion is - deal with it - with a little luck they won't call.

I'll leave the exhaustive coverage on "how to get links" to the professionals. I'm thinking of the simple everyday stuff. People who have websites, like to point to resources they think have merit. When people ask if you have a website, you'll be able to say yes and give them your URL. Now you are getting links.

You are probably a member of some organizations that have listings - and you'll usually be able to list your URL. If this listing is online, you are one click away from your prospective visitors. Maybe it would be worth your while to make sure you are in the directories that apply to you. These listings are usually free. Here's a great one, put your URL in your email signature. Someone will click that link sooner or later. :-)

Now that we've covered some of the basics we can move on to more exotic fare. Stay tuned for part 3.

*All Consuming* Book site!

I like this smart new aggregation site. It shows what the blogging community is reading. Lists the most popular books and then excerpts from blogs that have mentioned the book in the last week.

I feel the same way about books as I do about music. The main problem is finding the really good stuff. I absolutely love great books and music! It's out there, I just need some help sifting the wheat from the chaff. Of course, each of us has different tastes. That's why finding kindred spirits is so important. I'm guessing that the blogging community is a good first approximation of such a reference group for me. Once I start reading the posts about the books, I'll be able to pay particular attention to the bloggers whose book picks resonate for me.

All Consuming looks full of promise. This is where computer-enabled networks excel. This is valuable information that I want from my field of dreams. This is why social software has such a buzz right now!

Creating weak ties, part 1

On Tuesday, we started talking about the small world phenomenon. I, at least, started getting excited about this field of dreams that stretches out all around us - globally - and is navigated through weak or loose ties. I'm ready. What can we do to activate this field of dreams right now?

Part of the formula is having a personal web page of some sort. There needs to be a place in cyberspace where you can be discovered. Where you can reveal yourself, your interests, your accomplishments, your ideas, and yes, even your computers, cars, pets, children and mates if you so choose.Why is this so important? Because it is perfect for developing weak ties!

In my business, it looks something like this. A prospective client finds me in one of five ways: (1) in an online directory such as the one on the FileMaker site, (2) through Google or another search engine (3) my little Ad in the FileMaker Resource Directory that comes in the box with FileMaker software, (4) a news item about a new update or a review on the Net or (5) someone recommends me personally (more on word of mouth later). Except for avenue #5, these other sources leave my prospective client in the dark.

She doesn't know me from Adam. Except, she can go to my website, see what I look like, where I live, that I like football and am a Raiders and 49ers fan, how well-kept my site is and even get a feel for my philosophy and business practices. She can begin to grok me - enter my world a bit and kick the tires. That's a weak tie already, albeit a one-way tie. My prospective client now feels like she or he knows me well enough and knows that it is safe and inviting (or not) to call or email me to see whether or not we might want to do business together...

Sometime soon, I'll tell you a little about Ryze, a sort of gated online community for business networking. Because the community has some barriers to entry and privacy is scrupulously controlled, people feel more comfortable opening up on their personal web pages.

What's a blog?

I've had a couple inquiries from my friends asking me what this blogging thing is all about. First, blog is short for weblog. Tom Coates, the author of one of the best weblogs I've seen, plasticbag.org, has a good little article in his about section explaining the finer distinctions of the world of weblogs. Here's a little taste:

...Weblogs allow people to find new and interesting links on the internet. They let people read the soap-operas (small and large) of real people's lives. They give you access to the news stories from the people who were actually there on the ground. And it's a space where you can get to know another human being personally - through the immediacy of e-mail .

And there are so many weblogs, personal sites and journals out there - they represent such a wealth of different experiences, backgrounds, sexualities, lifestyles and cultures - that there will always be something there to keep you entertained...

Excerpted from What the hell is this site for? where you can read Tom's full article.

For another good definition, see Walt Mossberg's column excerpted here:

A blog, short for Web log, is a type of Web site in which the owner posts frequent musings or reports about topics of interest. These postings are usually filled with numerous links to other Web sites of interest, including other blogs. It's a sort of instant, constantly updated, electronic journal and guide to other items of interest.

Blogs are in some ways a new form of journalism, open to anyone who can establish and maintain a Web site, and they have exploded in the past year. The good thing about them is that they introduce fresh voices into the national discourse on various topics, and help build communities of interest through their collections of links....a blog is only as good as the blogger.

6 degrees of separation

It's not new news in the world of science and the world at large that we are all connected by six or fewer degrees of acquaintance with anyone else on the planet. But here on the Net, social software is hot and everyone is talking about six degrees of separation otherwise known as the small world phenomenon.

Until recently, I just assumed that it would be my close relationships that would bring me the information and opportunities I've been looking for, but this new science of networking says different. It is our bare acquaintances, our friends of acquaintances, who can play crucial roles in our lives. These kinds of relationships are called weak or loose ties.

The people we hang out with don't often give us the breakthrough contacts or information we want because, generally speaking, we know the same people and the same information that they know. However, each of our friends, belongs to other networks that we don't belong to. And in those small tangential worlds, people and conversations - just out of earshot, so to speak, may have something of great value for us if only we could get access to them. Those perfect job leads, apartments, ideal mates and business deals are within your field of six degrees of separation...

That's where the internet and social software come in. Suddenly, it seems, developers are coming out of the woodwork proffering new communities, tools and services that promise to give us an unprecedented level of access to these, just out of reach, riches of information and introduction. These new tools and services grease the wheels of social interaction at a distance so that we can activate this field of dreams through our interests, backgrounds and circles of friends.

Slashdot's Sunday post pointed to these two good posts on social software by Tom Coates and Howard Rheingold.

We're number one!

Our software product, Studio Manager, has just been rated the #1 software product in its category by Creative Business in its May issue! Even though this is my personal blog, I can't keep this one to myself. Wow! We've been telling the creative services industry that Studio Manager is the greatest thing since sliced bread and now we aren't the only ones saying it. Woo hoo!

Creative Business based their results on surveys of 600 creative services business owners and professionals. Studio Manager got rated highest by users among software products that "provide integrated solutions to a creative firm's record keeping needs".

As the sole creator of the first versions of the product and the primary architect, I want to thank three people who have been critical to Studio Manager's development and success. First, I want to acknowledge Bonnie Phippen, founder of the Phippen Design Group, who partnered with me to create a first Excel product for designers in 1987. Bonnie defined the requirements, designed the marketing materials and introduced me to her wide community of design colleagues in the Bay Area.

My second and most important contributor has been Kathy Tomyris. Kathy joined my business in 1989. She has recently taken a medical leave of absence, but in the twelve or so years that we've worked together, she has made an enormous contribution to my business and to the quality of Studio Manager. Kathy's pen has graced the pages of all written materials related to Studio Manager and Tokerud Consulting Group. She has also designed the look and feel of the product and it's marketing materials. Kathy was product manager when we made a pact in 2000 to get serious about the product and took it to a whole new level of excellence in creating Studio Manager 4. Thanks, Kathy. Your fingerprints are all over this product.

Finally, I want to recognize Fougre Robertson, a top-notch trainer, writer and database developer who joined my firm this year. She has been a big hit with our existing and prospective customers. Fougre's keeping me in line, which isn't easy, and is adding her own particular touch to the company and to Studio Manager.

Why am I blogging?

Let me count the ways...

1. Self-Expression. I soak up interesting knowledge like a sponge and have tons of ideas. This weblog is an easy way for me to have an online column without having to adhere to anyone else's agenda. It fulfills my longing for self-expression.
2. Get my thoughts down on paper. Having an audience, however small or even imaginary is a big motivator for me. Maybe I'll be read by casts of thousands at some time in the future and they'll come back and read this - one can always hope. These fantasies and hopes fuel the fire that has me take the time and trouble to write. Once written, I've elaborated, extended and clarified my thoughts.
3. Attract like-minded souls. I'm hoping that I will be discovered by some interesting people who like what I'm doing enough to comment on my posts. I expect some of these people to become online friends and allies. I expect to learn from you.
4. Share my joy. You know how it's more fun when you can share your enthusiasms? I've had a great time lately writing about the new Apple store, for example. I want to turn people on to this amazing new thing. I love sharing my latest, exciting technology discoveries and associated experiences with fellow travelers.
5. Move my career forward.
I'm hoping that this amazing vehicle that lets me speak to the world about whatever strikes my fancy will (a) inspire me to greater heights, (b) open unexpected doors and (c) lead me in unforeseen rewarding directions.

These are good reasons. This is how I explain why I'm doing this. In truth, I'm drawn to it. I have a passion for it. It's fun. And if I get some of the benefits listed above, it will be frosting on the cake!