Use these business and networking tools to get ahead
July 30th, 2007If you're new here, you may want to get Mercury's Blog by Email or subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
If you haven’t already heard of them, there are two great networking and business tools that I’d like to strongly recommend. Together, they can help you understand who is in your network, and stay connected to the network you have.
(Hat tip to Furqan for pointing out this double shot of networking goodness.)
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a professional’s networking site. You register and essentially post as much or as little of your CV/resume as you’d like. Then, you connect to people you know and/or have worked with at your various jobs or schools. Very quickly you can see your extended network and make connections that you may have never realised existed.
The reason I like LinkedIn is that it doesn’t focus on the social in social networking; I’m not necessarily trying to stay good friends with everyone I’m “connected” to there. But I have worked with all of my connections and would be willing to recommend them to others for the right role or reason.
If you’re curious about security, don’t worry. Even if you post your entire CV on LinkedIn, you can still select it so that any random public person searching for you sees as much or as little as you desire. (Mine is set so that anyone can see a majority of my profile.)
How can you use this? It’s simple; instead of doing a Google search on people I’d like to know more about or meet, I just put their name into LinkedIn. It’s surprising how many times they’ll be within just a couple of degrees of separation from me. You can then use the tools on the site to get “Introduced” to someone you’d like to meet.
Plaxo
Plaxo is a tool for managing your address-book. If you register with Plaxo, you can make connections with everyone that you already have in your addressbook(s), which are easily imported. More importantly, it automatically syncs any changes in your contact info with those people whom you’re connected to.
What does this mean? If I have my mobile phone stolen and change my number, I can update my own personal addressbook card. It is then automatically sync’d with Plaxo, and Plaxo automatically sync’s it up with every other Plaxo member I’m connected to!
For those contacts that aren’t on Plaxo, you can also send out e-mails to them from time to time and have them check to make sure you’ve got their correct information. Fairly often they’ll then register with Plaxo themselves, and even if they don’t you’ll at least get their most up-to-date information.
Even better, Plaxo has tools that leverage Outlook (and also Mac Mail). When you get an e-mail from someone new, you can automatically add them to your addressbook, and see if they’re on Plaxo. It makes the day-to-day task of building your electronic Rolodex much easier. There are even more features and options I haven’t played with yet.
Finally, the site maintains two separate addressbook entries for you: work and home. You can select which cards each of your contacts get to see, so you can keep the privacy you want.
Summary
I would highly recommend these tools to everyone. Together, Plaxo and LinkedIn can be an unbeatable combination of getting connected to people you know, and leveraging that network to accomplish your goals. Good luck, and I hope to connect!
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