Business Social Networking

Editor's Notes

• #2: My own journey with Mxit started in April 2006. I was visiting my mother and little sister on my annual pilgrimage to my hometown, Uitenhage. If you never heard of Uitenhage, it's where they manufacture Vws – and I don't drive one. Anyway during the week I was there I observed how my sister was spending practically all her time with her cellphone. She ate with it, she studied with it, she slept with it. When she went to bed at night she would take her phone with her, politely say goodnight, switch off her bedroom light and continue chatting under the dovet covers. This kind of behavior caused her to loose a lot of sleep and so she was always tired the next morning. The second thing she did was to have her cellphone next to her when studying. So that every 5 minutes or so she would glance over, check it, or send a message. It turns out there is a flaw in multitaksing in this way. In 2001 CNN reported on research by Ruebenstein and Meyer that shows you loose between 20% and 40% of your potential productivity when you switch between complex tasks. The result for my sister was her marks dropped from June to September and again from September the Matric final exams. On 27 December she called me crying because she had failed one subject on HG. She's since received provisional exemption and is doing her 1 st year BA. Research: http://archives.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/trends/08/05/multitasking.study/
• #8: Small World Experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_world_phenomenon Could it be a Big World after all? http://www.uaf.edu/northern/big_world.html Weak Social Ties and online connections http://brewright.blogspot.com/2008/02/weak-social-ties-and-on-line.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Granovetter http://www.si.umich.edu/~rfrost/courses/SI110/readings/In_Out_and_Beyond/Granovetter.pdf
• #9: Social Networking website growth is exploding worldwide. At the time of creating this presentation in September 2007 the major websites had the following numbers: LinkedIn.com has over 14 million users worldwide, and more than 35000 in South Africa Facebook.com has over 42 million users worldwide and over 300,000 in South Africa. http://www.insidefacebook.com/2007/09/25/new-numbers-on-facebook-platform-growth/ MySpace.com has over 200 million users when you look at Tom Anderson's Friends list: http://www.myspace.com/tom MyGenius.com has over 5,000 users and expects to grow to 10,000 by year-end. This is a South African version of LinkedIn with some excellent intergration with Skype and blogs.
• #10: Guy Kawasaki http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/ten_ways_to_use.html http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/linkedin_profil.html http://www.linkedintelligence.com/smart-ways-to-use-linkedin/
• #15: Test yourself: Do you always show up on time for meetings? Do you always do what you say? Do you complete the projects you start? Do you say please and thank you when talking to your clients and to your team? It’s easy to see why people who fail to do these things in their business quickly find themselves cut off from new relationships and opportunities. They appear undependable or ungrateful, no matter how good they are at what they do. Would you refer someone without these habits to one of your clients? These simple habits, based on respect and appreciation for others, are a prerequisite for getting referrals. By adopting a few simple referability habits, you can acquire the buildings blocks necessary for establishing great relationships. Referability Habits:
• #16: Past articles I've written about Facebook: http://netucation.co.za/facebook-drains-attention-and-a-mental-bandwidth/ http://netucation.co.za/facebook-vs-myspace-debate-keeps-moving-ahead/ Facebook is a social networking website which was launched on February 4, 2004. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Harvard graduate and former Ardsley High School student, in 2004. Initially the membership was restricted to students of Harvard College. It was subsequently expanded to other Boston area schools (Boston College, Boston University, MIT, Tufts), Rochester, Stanford, NYU, Northwestern, and all Ivy League schools within two months. Many individual universities were added in rapid succession over the next year. Eventually, people with a university (e.g .edu, .ac.uk, etc.) email address from institutions across the globe were eligible to join. Networks were then initiated for high schools and some large companies. Since September 11, 2006, it has been made available to any email address user who inputs a certain age range. Users can select to join one or more participating networks, such as a high school, place of employment, or geographic region. As of July 2007, the website had the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites with over 34 million active members worldwide (also from non-collegiate networks). From September 2006 to September 2007 it increased its ranking from 60 to 7th most visited web site, and was the number one site for photos in the United States, ahead of public sites such as Flickr, with over 8.5 million photos uploaded daily.
• #23: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini http://www.influenceatwork.com/ Why Do People Say "Yes?" The "6 Weapons of Influence" http://www.fripp.com/art.of_influence.html Six “Weapons of Influence": * Reciprocation - People tend to return a favor. Thus, the pervasiveness of free samples in marketing. In his conferences, he often uses the example of Ethiopia providing thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid to Mexico just after the 1985 earthquake, despite Ethiopia suffering from a crippling famine and civil war at the time. Ethiopia had been reciprocating for the diplomatic support Mexico provided when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1937. * Commitment and Consistency - If people commit, verbally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment. Even if the original incentive or motivation is removed after they have already agreed, they will continue to honor the agreement. For example, in car sales, suddenly raising the price at the last moment works because the buyer has already decided to buy. See cognitive dissonance. * Social Proof - People will do things that they see other people are doing. For example, in one experiment, one or more confederates would look up into the sky; bystanders would then look up into the sky to see what they were seeing. At one point this experiment aborted, as so many people were looking up that they stopped traffic. See conformity, and the Asch conformity experiments. * Authority - People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to perform objectionable acts. Cialdini cites incidents, such as the Milgram experiments in the early 1960s and the My Lai massacre. * Liking - People are easily persuaded by other people that they like. Cialdini cites the marketing of Tupperware in what might now be called viral marketing. People were more likely to buy if they liked the person selling it to them. Some of the many biases favoring more attractive people are discussed. See physical attractiveness stereotype. * Scarcity - Perceived scarcity will generate demand. For example, saying offers are available for a "limited time only" encourages sales.
• #25: Definition - "Networking is passing on information from one person to the next to be of se rvice and be meaningful." The hardest part for people in the whole networking concept is “giving without expecting anything in return”
• #26: Test yourself: Do you always show up on time for meetings? Do you always do what you say? Do you complete the projects you start? Do you say please and thank you when talking to your clients and to your team? It’s easy to see why people who fail to do these things in their business quickly find themselves cut off from new relationships and opportunities. They appear undependable or ungrateful, no matter how good they are at what they do. Would you refer someone without these habits to one of your clients? These simple habits, based on respect and appreciation for others, are a prerequisite for getting referrals. By adopting a few simple referability habits, you can acquire the buildings blocks necessary for establishing great relationships. http://www.strategiccoach.com/resources/articles/coach-article/article/the-referability-habit.html http://thepapertiger.com/four_strategies.php
• #28: Ramon Thomas is an entrepreneur who has an uncanny knack for spotting global online trends and translating them into meaningful insights in South Africa. His pioneering research into the Online Dating industry and MXit has positioned him as the leading expert on online behaviour in South Africa. He is an authority on the Psychology of Technology . Ramon is the author of the numerous ebooks including the Parents Guide to MXit . He holds a B.Sc in Computer Science, a Post Graduate Diploma in Information Management and is currently registered for a Masters degree in Information Science at the University of Johannesburg . Ramon has worked in Johannesburg, England and United Arab Emirates in the Internet and Banking industries as well as being a Senior Consultant with Deloitte. One of his key projects was implementing a complete Online baking solution for the National Bank of Abu Dhabi in 2000. From 2004 to 2006 he has worked with his mentor, Arthur Goldstuck , before focussing on building his own business at NETucation, a leading online research and training organisation. Media Interviews: Ramon is a member of Toastmasters since 2006 and has recently been accepted as a member of the National Speakers Association of South Africa .