Presenting at SCIP’s 2009 Annual Conference, April 22 – 25, Chicago, IL

Posted on March 6, 2009 by ellendnaylor

Whew, I just finished creating two presentations for SCIP’s (Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals) Annual Conference in Chicago from April 21 – 24. The first talk is “Build a Sustainable Early Warning Process through Cooperative Connection” and the second is “Capture Competitive Intelligence from Sales and Customers for Lucrative Product Development.”

scip-09-chicago

Early warning is one of the key processes behind a successful competitive intelligence operation. I notice that it is often developed almost “robotically,” and the importance of connecting with individuals is underestimated in favor of the easy way out through electronic monitoring, which while essential will never replace the information exchange and connection you will gain from people in dialog!

The talk on capturing CI from sales and customers to develop better products comes from a case study with a European client. Product developers were going nuts as they read sales reps’ customer reports because they could just see that the customer would have been willing to share so much information with sales, but somehow sales hadn’t asked for it. Sales had no idea what key information product developers were looking for. In fact I found that product developers had a hard time getting me to understand their precise information needs. I put together a workshop to teach sales and marketing people competitive intelligence skills like elicitation and reading body language. We had a discussion to clarify the product developer’s 10 key questions, and to consider how a customer might be motivated to answer these questions. Participants role played around each of these questions to test drive their newly developed elicitation skills. Sales is great at elicitation since they are spontaneous, own the customer relationship, and can be flexible if a customer doesn’t respond in the way sales had hoped they would. In addition to learning how to collect competitive information, Sales also benefited by improving their industry expertise and closing more deals!

In the spirit of cooperative intelligence, here are some more details on SCIP’s annual conference in Chicago from April 21 – 24. It takes place at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers.

The educational sessions are organized into the following 5 tracks:

– CI Offense/Defense
– Professional Effectiveness
– Critical Skills
– Innovation in CI
– Active Dialog

Here is the list of educational sessions which take place on April 23 & 24, and a more detailed description with speakers and times. SCIP also offers pre-conference workshops on April 21 & 22.

Take advantage of the special Early Bird Reduced rate, a $200+ savings until April 12th, 2009.  All that is required is that my name, Ellen Naylor, be mentioned on the attached form which should be faxed to 703-739-2524.

I hope to see you at SCIP’s annual conference! Feel free to ask any questions on this blog post and I’ll find answers for you.

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, SCIP | Comments Off on Presenting at SCIP’s 2009 Annual Conference, April 22 – 25, Chicago, IL

Read up on Social Networks: Integrating Competitive Intelligence into Marketing: Part 3

Posted on March 4, 2009 by ellendnaylor

In 2 earlier posts I shared book lists we used to supplement our AMA (American Marketing Association) workshop on Integrating Competitive Intelligence into Marketing. In the cooperative spirit, today’s post provides books and blogs to help you spruce up your social networking skills, the key on-line communication and connection media.  A targeted social networking strategy is a strong and essential ingredient to any research project!

One of the classics on social networks is Virtual Handshake by social networking gurus David Teten and Scott Allen. This book is somewhat dated, but I like how it gets you thinking about developing a strategy around social networking and rolling out your program.  It’s pre-Twitter, so if you’re looking to learn more about Twitter consider Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time by Joel Comm, and Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online by Warren Whitlock and Deborah Micek.

My favorite book on LinkedIn is: I’m on LinkedIn–Now What??? (Second Edition): A Guide to Getting the Most Out of LinkedIn by Jason Alba. I read the first edition in 2007, and the second edition was just released in Jan. 2009.

Another golden oldie is Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel.

The following are top selling books on social networking published in 2008 or 2009:

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly by David Meerman Scott. Just yesterday his new book World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories was released.

Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day by Dave Evans

I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend a book on YouTube:

YouTube for Business: Online Video Marketing for Any Business
by Michael Miller

Social networks are changing so rapidly so I suggest you follow blogs to stay up on the latest.  All these authors have blogs.  In addition I recommend Chris Brogan’s, Hubspot and Duct Tape Marketing.

You have one last chance to attend this AMA workshop in Chicago on March 12.

Happy Reading!

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, LinkedIn, research, social networks, Twitter | Comments Off on Read up on Social Networks: Integrating Competitive Intelligence into Marketing: Part 3

The Demise of Print Media: Farewell to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News

Posted on February 27, 2009 by ellendnaylor

Today is the last day for Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News. It is a passing of the guard for our state as this form of communication is dying and The Denver Post will be the sole survivor for the Denver metro. In addition to the 200+ newsroom staffers out of a job, the demise of The Rocky Mountain News is real blow for Colorado as one of our oldest businesses with roots back to 1859.

While we will miss our Rocky Mountain News, Denver is a mid-tier large city which challenges the limits of supporting two local papers. However, earlier this week, media mogul Hearst Corp. said it may close its San Francisco Chronicle  newspaper, the nation’s 12th largest daily and Northern California’s largest daily. Last month it declared that it would close its money-losing Seattle Post-Intelligencer unless a buyer emerged within 60 days. To date, no purchaser has stepped forward in Seattle, just as no buyers have been announced for the Miami Herald, the Austin American-Statesman, and the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The bankruptcy filing of Philadelphia Media Holdings could deliver the deathblow to the Philadelphia Daily News. Journal Register Co. sought bankruptcy protection last Friday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune sought protection in January and Tribune Co, sought protection in December of 2008. Read about details of the newspaper industry and its troubles in Reflections of a Newsosaur by Alan Mutter.

This year’s annual convention of newspaper editors has been canceled so their publications can save money and focus on surviving the recession. It’s just the second time that American Society of Newspaper Editors hasn’t convened. The last time occurred during the final months of World War II in 1945. The newspaper editors convention was supposed to be held from April 26-29 in Chicago.

The recession is advancing a trend we have seen for several years: the labor costs of running a newspaper are increasing relative to lower readership and ad revenues. Print media in its many forms is threatened as people read their news, for free, on the Internet before it hits the newspapers. I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. The benefit is the depth of the articles compared to on-line articles, which I value. For many, newspapers don’t get us the news quickly enough as we have become social media and social network junkies. I keep Twitter open much of the day, which points me to the news as it’s happening through “Twitscoop.”

As a competitive intelligence professional and researcher, I am troubled by the demise of newspapers, not unlike the lower readership of books. We have become a nation with short attention spans, and while “6 or 10 points of how to do something,” might be interesting, it is cursory communication. In-depth news and books is really how you learn, grow, develop leadership and expertise, and we are losing this. We are also losing our connection with journalists, who are experts in their field, unlike bloggers who are often “self appointed” experts.

What do you think about the demise of print media and lower readership of books in favor of electronic news and social media?

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, leadership, research, social networks, Twitter | Comments Off on The Demise of Print Media: Farewell to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News

Trick or Tweet: 13 Ways to Alienate Twitter Followers

Posted on February 26, 2009 by ellendnaylor
This is a follow-up to “Netiquette on LinkedIn.” In the spirit of cooperative intelligence, I will illustrate how to be cooperative by sharing examples of bad Twitter communication practices.
Here 13 ways to alienate your Followers on Twitter:
1. Advertise your blog posts and everything about your business with every Tweet. It’s OK to send a person to your blogs as you publish, but it is tacky to repeat and/or re-tweet (repeat your Tweets) about your business continuously. I like the 80:20 rule–80% of my Tweets are about others; 20% about me.
2. Don’t share anything about yourself in your profile. That’s a way to discourage people from following you. People are curious about who you are: tell them and be human about it. I include a link to my LinkedIn profile, and got that idea by looking at a colleague’s profile.
3. Don’t have a picture or brand by your name. That’s an opportunity lost for branding. It’s so much more interesting to see someone’s picture next to their Tweet rather than the ugly, brown default space.

4. Don’t use your Tweets as a chat room. Some people are really just Tweeting to each other. Send that person a direct Tweet. The rest of us feel left out and don’t want to be a part of your personal conversation.

5. Don’t publicly berate anyone in your Tweets. Remember your manners.

6. Twitter is not a megaphone for one way communication. Engage your followers by sharing information you think they will appreciate and ask them questions.

7. Set up a robot to send a standard message thanking people for following you on Twitter. I find this insulting. I would rather get no message than a robotic one.

8. Mass following everyone so you can inflate your numbers, and then use that success metric for influence. Some people will “Brag Tweet” that they just got over 100 followers in a 24 hour period. We followers don’t care! Think about how this makes your followers feel–not very special.

9. Some people argue that you should automatically follow everyone who follows you on Twitter. I think it depends on your goals. I am not in Twitter for the numbers game. I would like to get to know the people who follow me, gradually. For example I am not a huge sports fan or into pumping iron, but somehow I am being followed by these types. BTW, Tweet Deck lets you organize those who follow you in categories that you create. For example, I create separate columns for Tweets from my personal friends, my research and competitive intelligence colleagues, friends in my state of Colorado, and frequent Tweeters.

10. Some people Tweet so often that they fill up their followers’ screens with their Tweets. It’s obvious they’re using software  to send out Tweets periodically 24/7. I’m not knocking the use of technology: just don’t use it to abuse us! I think it’s better to send out occasional Tweets that are relevant to your social networking goals and the brand you are portraying. For example, I mostly report on competitive intelligence, research, marketing, and cooperative intelligence’s traits of leadership, connection and communication.

11. Some people Tweet the mundane details about their life which we really don’t care about like, “I just baked a loaf of bread. I’m waiting for my flight at Denver airport.” This is boring! Is this how you want to be remembered?

12. There are some people who have 1000s of followers, but who follow no one. This is rude and insinuates that you are a taker. The only exception to this rule might be news stations like CNN, but even they want to follow a certain number of people to stay up with the news.

13. Some people just Tweet a link and don’t tell us why we should want to visit it. This takes very little time to include. It’s a real turnoff just to provide a link and makes people think you’re lazy.

So what do you find aggravating about practices on Twitter?

Check out The Dark Side of Twitter: What Businesses Need to Know.

In closing, when communicating on social networks, as with in-person networking you have to decide what works best for you based on your objectives for social networking, your ethics and philosophy, and recognize that everyone you connect with has their own standards which might be different from yours. It takes time to build a successful social networking presence just like it does the old fashioned way through meetings and phone calls. Relationships take time to develop, and the best way to nourish them is through continual, consistent communication, asking questions and listening.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperation, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, leadership, research, social networks, Twitter | 11 Comments »

Enhance your Early Warning Process through Social Networks & Social Media

Posted on February 14, 2009 by ellendnaylor

In his post, “Beating Dunbar’s Number,” Chris Brogan challenges us to become a member of the magic Dunbar 150 in people’s networks when we want to have a closer relationship. He provokes us to organize the many connections we make through social networks into a database so we can find them easily without remembering their names and recall how/where we met, etc.

I translate this thinking as a competitive intelligence professional into setting up an early warning process using the power of social networks. One of the common pitfalls of many early warning initiatives is that we connect with the people we know and are comfortable with, and get surprised by disruptive technology or a competitor’s acquisition. We also rely too heavily on secondary research on the Internet, and don’t verify our sources. While the information might look good, it can be outdated or a competitor may purposefully mislead.

Social networks are another source to include in your early warning process since they lead to connections that you will never make through Web 1.0 Internet searching, paid databases, company connections and the same external suspects, such as industry experts, scientists and the investment community. Find your industry’s social networks and forums. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are my favorite general social networks for business connections. YouTube, VidePedia and Blinkx are great video sources.

LinkedIn contains over 30 million people. Grow your LinkedIn network: find the people that matter to you: for example, industry experts and competitor alumni and Link In with them. Connecting on LinkedIn is one way to warm up a phone call or email that you might direct to a person. Qualify those who should become part of your early warning process. Once you connect with them, see if any of their connections would be a good fit. Think: who do you want to keep as loose connections?  Which ones should you follow-up with?  How will you communicate with them? Do you call them, email them, find them on Twitter or perhaps comment through a blog post or industry forum? In a cooperative spirit, what will you share with them that they might value? Join relevant industry LinkedIn groups. Search the questions and answers section on LinkedIn. Set up alerts.

Twitter is another great social network since you can search for people by using keyword searching within Twitter. You can either use Twitter Search or twilert. For example, I want to connect with people who do or are interested in competitive intelligence. I set up a twilert which forwards me the Tweets from people who used the words competitive intelligence, just like I do with Google Alerts.

Another great way to find people is through the blogosphere. However, if you want to be more methodical, start with Technorati, Delicious and Digg to find blogs that are relevant to your industry, and identify the most popular ones. In Technorati, the most popular blogs have the most authority. In Delicious and Digg, these are the blog posts which people have tagged most often. Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb  wrote an excellent blog, How to Build a Social Media Cheat Sheet, which provides a methodology to find the best and most relevant blogs to support any topic. I often find people synchronistically through blogs I find on Alltop or Stumbleupon. Sometimes the best blogs have no authority in Technorati since the author hasn’t marketed himself, but is a wealth of information.

The point is: social networks are fertile ground for locating people to include in your early warning process.  Find them, qualify them, organize them in your database, and decide how often you will connect with them or just tag them as loose connections to contact as needed.

How do you use social media to help with your early warning process?  Are there any tips which you have uncovered?

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, LinkedIn, social networks, Twitter | Comments Off on Enhance your Early Warning Process through Social Networks & Social Media

Next Generation Competitive Intelligence Deliverables: SCIP Webinar

Posted on February 12, 2009 by ellendnaylor

This promises to be a great webinar which coincidentally illustrates cooperative intelligence practices, both cooperative communication and cooperative connection. The material Marty Palka covers will also be useful outside of the competitive intelligence profession. Anyone who provides a service will benefit from his ideas.

This Webinar is sponsored by SCIP.
“Next Generation Competitive Intelligence Deliverables ”
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. USA EST; Feb. 18, 2009
Fee: Member $95*  Non-member $195*
*A site is one computer used to view the Webinar
Register Here.   scip-webinar-archives

Next generation companies will be more collaborative with far more interactions among their customers, suppliers, employees and partners. This will mandate that competitive intelligence professionals incorporate next generation technology when creating competitive intelligence deliverables.

Through his experience at Cisco, Marty will tell you how to communicate more effectively by adding Web 2.0 technology to your communication arsenal.  He will talk about how to truly connect with people, and how to rate and assess the connection.  Through social networks, you connect with so many more people that you need to stand back and re-assess your connections periodically to concentrate on the most valuable, and to reach out to people in areas where you might be weak, such as innovation.  I like that Marty will share ideas on the other end of connection: how people assess you and your deliverables as a competitive intelligence professional.  It will be the best of both worlds: traditional and Web 2.0 connecting and communicating!

Here are key points that Marty will cover:

1) The Virtual Competitive Intelligence Professional: Locate, rank and rate experts within your organization.
2) Video: Change the process to take advantage of video’s unique attributes to deliver competitive intelligence.
3) Global: Go where the expertise is 24 hours a day.
4) Green: Right for the world and right for your business.
Metrics measure the success of Cisco’s competitive intelligence deliverables.
Quantitative: Number of hits, listeners, viewers, interactions, and actions taken. Qualitative: Recommendations, Revenue, Profitability, Setting the Industry Agenda.

Marty Palka is Chief Intelligence Analyst, (CIA), Investor Relations for Cisco Systems. He has contributed to Cisco Systems’ strategic and tactical intelligence initiatives since joining the company in 1995. Previously he was a Director and Principal Analyst at Dataquest. He has also worked at SGI, Prime Computer, and Data General. He earned his M.B.A and B.S. from Boston University.

Questions:
Contact Registration: memberservices@scip.org
Program content & logistics: Sandy Skipper at +1.703.739.0696 x110, sskipper@scip.org
Robyn Reals at +1.703.739.0696 X107, rreals@scip.org

Learn about more SCIP events.

Learn about SCIP’s annual conference here.scip-09-chicago

Take advantage of the special Early Bird Reduced rate until the close of registration, April 12th, 2009.  All that is required is that my name, Ellen Naylor, be mentioned on the attached form which should be faxed to 703-739-2524.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, Cooperative Intelligence, creativity, social networks | Comments Off on Next Generation Competitive Intelligence Deliverables: SCIP Webinar

Netiquette on LinkedIn

Posted on February 2, 2009 by ellendnaylor

LinkedIn is primarily a business to business social network with over 30 million members as of Jan. 09.  Users have different objectives and come from different cultures on LinkedIn.  Some people use it to connect with people who they would never otherwise know.  These people benefit from the synchronicity of connecting that often happens in my field of competitive intelligence during the process of cold calling where one source tells the caller the names of additional sources. At the other end of the spectrum are those who will only connect with people they know. Remember there is an individual behind that electronic connection to avoid blunders that put you in WIFM-land. (what’s in it for me)

Here are 12 LinkedIn bad habits I find particularly annoying:

1. The writer tries to make the invitations look customized.  I see right through that, so does everyone else.  I prefer invitations that get right to the point and invite me to join a person’s LinkedIn network.  If it’s customized I like that even better and I can tell for example that s/he decided to connect with me based on something s/he read from my profile or perhaps we are in the same LinkedIn group.  If I don’t know the person that well, I appreciate knowing how we met.

2. I don’t like being solicited for non-relevant services by my direct LinkedIn connections.  That is the downside of being a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker).  Others assume that we want to receive emails that promote their business.

3. I am continually asked to LinkIn with people who I am already connected with.  Some of them send out big email blasts and ask everyone to connect with them and claim they’re out of invitations (many of them are not).

4. If you want someone to connect with you on LinkedIn, ask them.  Some people ask me to go to their profile and initiate the invitation.  They often claim to be out of invitations.  Most of them are not.  They want you to use up your invitations.

5. I don’t like being invited into LinkedIn groups that obviously are not a good match for me.  For example, many recruiters have invited me to join their recruiting group on LinkedIn.  I am not a recruiter and wish they would look more look at targeted profiles before they send out these massive email blasts.

6. I don’t like being asked to recommend someone unless I know him or her.  Some people ask me who barely know me.  It makes me feel like I’m part of their cattle drive to collect endorsements, and that they don’t care about the quality.  You can tell when an endorsement is shallow so I don’t know why anyone would want one.

7. I also get aggravated by those who thank me for connecting with them and proceed to write me a long sales pitch. If you want people to read your “thank-you for connecting note,” you need to make it personal or don’t bother!  “Thanks you for connecting: let me know how I can help you” is a “non-thank-you” note.

8. LinkedIn has a Question and Answer section.  Some people ask questions to direct people to their business and it’s really an obnoxious ploy.  You can tell by how they ask the question and look at the name of their business and title.

9. Many people’s questions are dumb.  They’re so broad that you could write a book to answer them or they’re so unclear and in such poor English that I don’t understand them.  Think! Proofread!  Remember, the quality of your answers is directly related to the quality of your questions.

10. When answering questions, answer the question in the spirit of sharing and giving.  We don’t want to read all about your business.  LinkedIn links readers back to your profile.  It’s just like people who overtly advertise their business while making a presentation.  It turns people off.  You’ll get plenty of business by giving a good presentation, just like you will if you give good answers and are declared an expert on LinkedIn.

11. I am aggravated by people on LinkedIn whose profiles tell me nothing about what they do.  They are as brief as they can be and just go back through a couple of jobs, and I know they’re older than that.  These are often the same ones who are not open to being contacted: why are they on LinkedIn?

12. At the bottom of a person’s profile, some people are only willing to be contacted if it benefits them.  Their profile reads something like this:

Contact Settings
Interested In

business deals                    job inquiries
career opportunities

Someone who is a giver will include all the Contact Settings which includes ways that person might help others:

Contact Settings
Interested In

career opportunities           consulting offers
new ventures                        job inquiries
expertise requests              business deals
reference requests             getting back in touch

So these are my Big 12 No No’s on LinkedIn.  Do you have others to add?

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, LinkedIn, social networks | Tagged: | 3 Comments »

Connect Cooperatively through your social & old fashioned networks

Posted on January 28, 2009 by ellendnaylor

When Bonnie Hohhof, SCIP’s editor of Competitive Intelligence Magazine asked me to write about social networking etiquette, I was totally overwhelmed since there is reams of information on this topic.  How could I make it meaningful to SCIP members?  I found my answer in Chris Brogan‘s blog entry of Jan. 27, 2009 entitled, “You’re All Doing It Wrong.”

I loved this post so much that I copied it below and invite you to check out all the comments that this short provocative post attracted, 111 as this post is published.

• “You follow too many people on Twitter.
• You don’t allow blog comments.
• You add people to LinkedIn that you don’t know very well.
• You have ads on your blog.
• You use partial RSS feeds.
• Your blog posts are too short (too long).
• You shoot really long videos and don’t edit.
• You don’t follow people back.
• You swear.
• You talk in LOLcat speak.
• You aren’t using FriendFeed.
• You are using FriendFeed.
• You push the same updates to every platform.
• You don’t use Creative Commons.

Guess what? We’re all doing it wrong. Because we’re all doing it our own way, and it’s not always going to match the way you think it works best.”

People’s objectives in using social networks are very individual and are influenced by our gender, background, culture and Internet savvy.

In my field of competitive intelligence I notice there are two camps: those who want to find data about their competitors and don’t want to be found– mostly corporate managers and consultants who collect competitive data; and those who want to be found– management and research consultants looking for their next gig.  I notice many of my colleagues – I’m one of those shameless consultants — will only connect with people they know personally on LinkedIn and other networks.  I feel they are missing the opportunity for synchronicity to connect with people they would never meet except through connecting via strangers.  As we conduct cold calling to collect competitive intelligence, we often experience a similar synchronicity as one contact leads to another and another…the same thing happens in social networking when you connect with “strangers” if you are open to it.  Since you talk with so many people at one time through social networking the synchronicity is multiplied.

The point is with social networking, as with in-person networking you have to decide what works best for you based on your objectives for social networking, your ethics and philosophy and recognize that everyone you connect with has their own standards which might be different from yours.  Remember there is a person behind that electronic connection who has feelings in the same way that person has when you shake their hand physically.  Thus it takes time to build a successful social networking presence just like it does using the old fashioned way through meetings and phone calls.  Relationships take time to develop, and the best way to nourish them is through a real communication, such as a customized communication when you first connect and by being a generous giver.

At the end of the day, you create and tweak your brand and your personality through the various forms of connecting in cyberspace which includes social networks, blogs, your website, videos, podcasts, e-mails and text messages.  Just remember you can’t retract what you have written, and each communication leaves a permanent record in cyberspace.

Don’t forget that old fashioned marketing over the telephone, in-person meetings and personal notes still work too.  In fact I find they work great since so many have jumped into the social networking bandwaggon and have forgotten the value of personal connections the old fashioned way.  What’s been your experience with connecting on social networks versus traditional marketing? What works for you?

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, Cooperative Intelligence, LinkedIn, social networks | Comments Off on Connect Cooperatively through your social & old fashioned networks

Connecting Networlding and Cooperative Intelligence

Posted on January 13, 2009 by ellendnaylor

I recently spoke with a very generous person, Melissa Giovagnoli, CEO and Founder of Networlding, the same title of her best selling book back in 2000. In some ways the book was ahead of itself, since you can be an even better Networlder today with all the ways to connect and help people through social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Networlding relationships start when you clearly express your intent in the broad sense of the word. Quickly and convincingly, you communicate your goals and value, and when you do so, people who resonate to your intent will respond. If someone responds positively and you are able to establish a Networlding relationship, you can reap tremendous benefits. Your new partner will not only do more for you in terms of opportunities but in providing an empathetic ear and a source of fresh ideas.

In contrast, many treat networks transactionally rather than relationally. So they use networks for a limited time for a specific purpose and leave new, ongoing opportunities on the table. When networking, people are bound together because one person needs another to do a deal or create a sale. One particular situation binds them together, and as soon as this situation disintegrates or disappears, there’s nothing left of the relationship to keep it strong enough to survive.

Networlding is a lot like cooperative connection, a component of cooperative intelligence.  Networlding is cooperative: networking is often collaborative. This is an important distinction.  People know when you are giving to get. They also know when you are giving to give.

The book discusses seven steps to Networlding:

1. Figure out your values
2. Assess the connections you have for their consistency with your values
3. Increase the number and strength of your connections with people who meet your values
4. Initiate relationships where important benefits are exchanged
5. Grow and nurture these relationships
6. Work with these people to create opportunities you can explore in common
7. Re-create your Networld

In Networlding, relationships with people, especially in your primary circle, must involve common intent, trust and values; a mutual exchange of ideas, resources and emotional support; and a commitment to pursue opportunities together.  This level of relationship does not happen instantly and requires considerable effort.  Share your projects, relevant contacts, new knowledge and skill you’re developing with those in your primary circle.  Be selective about who is in your primary circle: the quality of those relationships is much more important than the quantity.  Fewer quality sources are easier to manage and maintain.  According to anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, the human brain is hardwired to handle a maximum of about 150 active social connections.

To help identify those people who are in your primary circle, organize your relationships according to frequency of contact, level of exchange, responsiveness and type of opportunities developed.  You should be spending 80% of your time with those individuals in your primary circle, and only 20% of your time with those in your secondary and tertiary circles.

Assess how well you manage your time with those in your primary circle, and recognize that relationships change over time.  So do your business goals.  At least once a year, analyze how you spent your time with your primary contacts.  Write down what you exchanged with each person: data, analysis, hot tips, referrals, opportunities and emotional support.

– Who are you spending the most time with?
– Who is providing you with the most productive exchange?
– Is any one person providing you with the best exchanges in the least amount of time?  How are you reciprocating?
– Who is providing you with the least or lowest quality exchanges over this period of time?
– Are you spending your networking time optimally to reach your goals?
– If not, what change will you make in your network to align with your goals?

Re-assess:

– Who is still in your primary circle?
– Is there someone who should be moved to your secondary circle?
– Is there someone in your secondary circle whose relationship with you warrants a move to your primary circle?
– Is there a new colleague who is now in your primary circle?

Happy Networlding!

Filed under: connection, Cooperative Intelligence | 1 Comment »

Extend a Positive Attitude for 2009

Posted on January 6, 2009 by ellendnaylor

I have started 2009 with the birth this blog, Cooperative Intelligence, a concept I have developed over the years. Many people suggested I use the words, “Collaborative Intelligence,” but that isn’t the intention or spirit I want to extend. Collaborative means that you are giving to get.  Cooperative means you are giving to give.  It is the process of developing your network by finding ways to help others.  Reciprocity is the engine of networks.  You are helped because you help others: no strings attached.  Instead of focusing on self-interest, you are seeking the common good.  I like the analogy that Donna Fisher shares in Power Networking that like a boomerang, the help we give comes back to us, though often in a roundabout way.

Most of us are good at learning the skills of our trade, but can be challenged to get our company’s managers to take action based on our findings. Cooperative intelligence integrates generous leadership, connection and communication, which helps anyone to “Listen and Be Heard.”  Cooperative intelligence plays a major role in positioning, earning and gaining respect.

As we start a new year, I will share a cooperative intelligence practice that will improve your positioning with your company’s leadership and co-workers. As an added bonus, you will also feel better about yourself.

 Maintain a Positive Attitude

I picked this cooperative intelligence practice in light of our current, turbulent economic times.  No matter how dour your current circumstances, you always have a choice about your attitude.

 A book that inspires this enthusiasm is The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Ben Zander. The Zanders share many ways to maintain a positive attitude. After all we invent our own perception of life and thus there is a universe of possibilities and choices.  I love the analogy they share of Michelangelo’s attitude as he viewed his sculpture projects, “Inside of each block of stone or marble dwells a beautiful statue.” Apply this positive attitude and vision to the relationships you develop in life!

Another Zander tip is to “Give an A,” even before it’s really earned. Give the other person a boost right at the outset of a relationship. This corresponds to a universal desire in people to contribute to others no matter how many barriers there are to its expression. Assume that people are good, fair and honest. Trust in the relationship. Such trust will be evident and felt by everyone since it’s infectious. Watch Ben Zander’s infectious possibilities and enthusiasm in this video.

In Whale Done, Ken Blanchard and his coauthors explain that people perform better when they accentuate the positive, catching people doing things RIGHT versus catching people doing things wrong. 

I hope these ideas help you get your new year off to a good start!

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