| Forwarding is the New Networking by Mindy Selinger, author of Face to Face Networking
Well, guess what was forwarded to me – A link to this article by Tom Davenport of the Harvard Business Review, ‘Forwarding is the New Networking’. I’ve been teaching the importance of sharing information for the past five years. It’s wonderful to see an article that supports it. In fact, the definition of business networking I use is this: Networking is the exchange of Ideas, Information and Resources (From Naisbett’s book Megatrends). Learning to use all those book marks and forwarding social networking buttons will give you access to sharing any article with any of your closest business associates and clients.
Social media now brings people from every corner of the world together with the click of a mouse. Our outreach for networking is virtually unlimited. Does this in itself make us better networkers? Probably not. It’s all about the quality of the connection that you make that’s important. Forwarding along useful information is an excellent way to stay in touchwith someone you met at a business networking event, let someone know you were thinking of them and their needs.
Warning: Don’t fall into the trap of just regurgitating information to the masses. Give it a personal touch. Always send along a short note on why the information will be useful to them.
Just the other day, one of my connections, that I met at a business networking event, forwarded me a resource and her thoughts on how I could use the resource for my benefit. I took action and the result was huge…MASSIVE. I’m very grateful.
I think this quote from Benjamin Disreali sums it up so well… “As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information” (I’m sure he meant to include women, as well)