Kathleen Gilroy recommended me for the Community 2.0 conference and I’m really pleased to be giving a keynote there, “From Networking to Net Work.” I may even have books to sign! I had coffee with Kathleen recently and she filled me in on her new product venture, Swift. It’s all about accelerating the personal networking process that occurs naturally ( or to shy people, with difficulty) at conferences. The vision is quite simple: provide a central place for people who will be attending the conference to start networking in advance. The platform leverages my existing social spaces — things that I tag in del.icio.us and Flickr. When I tag something related to my conference talk (as I have this entry) it shows up as a link on my conference page. It uses Facebook to let me know which of my Facebook friends is also signed up for the conference. I am just beginning to explore, and I hope that those of you attending the conference will also take a look.
I think this is close to what Charlene Li was talking about when she said that the future of social networks: Social networks will be like air. We expect them to be, and we expect the technologies to be integrated into our activities.
Conference Information
The conference is May 12-15 at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas, NV. The website is www.iirusa.com/community. Because you read my blog, you can get a 20% discount off the standard price on my behalf. Your personal discount code to share is: SPKRM2005NW. Please pass this along to anyone you know who plans on registering. They can register by calling 888.670.8200, emailing [email protected] or visiting the website www.iirusa.com/community
Hello Patti!
My comment isn’t quite relevant to this particular post but a generic one on social networks. I’d love to know your views on what I am about to share with you - I’ve been reading the book, “Living the 80/20 Way” by Richard Koch. Koch says that we’re good at creating strong relationships only with a finite number of people (which maybe something like 10 or so for most of us) and that we ought to focus on spending more time with these top 20% of our friends and relatives for a happier and more fulfilling life. I tend to agree with this view. To be honest with you, I must admit that I am not a natural networker and I tend to keep in touch only with really close people or people who’ve had a significant impact on me. I find it somewhat draining and tiring to spread my arms and get to know more and more people and then keep in touch with them. Random connections and exchange of ideas are OK at times. For me, it is not sufficient to just know people - if I really want to keep that connection going, I need to keep in constant touch with them…else the relationship is not a relationship at all. And this is not possible if my network is too large. But I very well understand the importance of networking and knowing more people….for purposes of learning, getting things done etc. Do you think technology can really come to the rescue to help people like me? I do believe that once you become popular and famous, you don’t really have to network. People then follow you wherever you go….your network follows you and keeps in touch with you without you having to put in a lot of effort. Basically, I am thinking aloud and don’t even know if I’ve made myself clear….nevertheless, if you can see through my rambling and share your thoughts and suggestions on this confusing question of mine, I’d be thrilled.
Nimmy