Your Personal Network

August 15, 2008

We talk a lot about social networks and social networking these days, but itâ€™s really nothing new. Only the tools are. People have been networking with peers for decades, much longer actually, but weâ€™ve only really called it networking for a generation or so.

While tools like social networks, micro-blogging, or podcasting utilities, and the Internet itself bring powerful new (and fun) ways to network, it still relies on people. Without people, these tools are simply high-tech toys with little purpose.

Anyway, what Iâ€™m talking about here is your personal network of peers and associates in your industry or genre. The people that you interact with, compete with, and explore opportunities with. Your personal network is an important part of your career. I didnâ€™t fully realize this until I left a cozy but uninspiring position a couple years ago. It wasnâ€™t until spending a bit of time out participating, networking, and interacting with folks in and out of my field that I discovered how important a personal network is.

Interestingly, my personal network is grown from my mix of social media exploration and personal branding work. Through both interests, Iâ€™ve grown a network of friends and associates that I can share ideas with, send questions to, be a support network for peers, recommend people, help solve problems, and much more.

So, I strongly recommend paying attention to your network. The people you associate with professionally and socially have a lot to offer to you in both your personal and professional life. Not only does a person need to grow that network, but to maintain it as well. After all, as in most things, itâ€™s the quality of the network, not the ultimate size that yields the greatest results and rewards.

Also, being a helpful resource to your network, not just a consumer of it, will bring more value to you than you can imagine. As you participate in your network â€“ your friends and associates â€“ make sure to help them find what theyâ€™re looking for. Help them with jobs, choosing the right iPod, finding the right hotel for vacation, answering those social network questions, or whatever else comes along. Be the resource that your network needs and your network will be there for you.

Photo credit: luc legay

Conversation Tags: blogging, career, improvement, internet, jobs, network, participation, peers, personal, social, work

Categories: personal brand, personal improvement, social media

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Brad Shorr

Rick, I'm beginning to see just how right you are. Lately I've been focusing on quantity, not quality. Part of that, I think, is from a surge of new Twitter and Facebook activity following Darren Rowse's social networking share-a-thon. The time has come to get to know all these contacts (or some of them), and see where the common interests are.

Rick Mahn

Brad, that is very similar to the influx of Twitter users I got from Jeremiah Owyang's January 2008 Twitter LoveFest where everyone started following everyone else from the comments. Ended up being too many to really keep track of.

I like how you put it: quantity, not quality - it's so easy to do! I think the best ones came from SOBCon though - I may be biased. ;)

Ari Herzog

Very true, Rick. How can I help you?

And how did you come across your header subtitle, "social web + enterprise?"

Rick Mahn

"How can I help you?" - simple: do good things.
:)

I came to describe what I want to talk about here by way of breaking down everything that "social media" is, or is being talked about. Social Media, Social Networking, Social Tools... I started thinking that as I brand myself as a "social media professional", that it's really about a social web that is made up of networks, media, tools, content and people. The other half is from my experience and desire to work with organizations to improve their internal & external relationships through the social web.

I hope that makes sense, it's something I've been trying to put down into a cohesive description for awhile. Hopefully it'll amount to something!
:)