It is nearly impossible to overstate how critical your personal and professional network is and yet most of us, myself included, don’t spend enough effort building and maintaining it. Those that are most successful in business (and in life) almost always have an extensive network of people that know and trust. Ask them and they will tell you that a direct introduction or word-of-mouth referral from a trusted friend or colleague is the single best way to build that network of people you know and work with.
Over the past 10 years I can honestly say that I have done a bad job of building and maintaining my own network. There’s always a reason, an excuse, but unless you actively work on it, that network won’t be there when you most need it. I turned a small software company, WebEvent, into a venture-funded firm shortly after the first Internet bubble burst. I had lots of opportunities to build my personal and professional network at that time (and ever since) but was always too busy; there always seemed to be too many other priorities. I am now building my second startup, VendorCity, which is a business-to-business vendor recommendation site and am having to rebuild and expand my network. What I am finding is that not only is it critical (and effective) but I am truly enjoying the experience of getting to meet and know all of these great people.
So, I highly suggest that you find and cultivate personal and business relationships by going to networking events in your field (and related fields). For me, I’ve recently joined:
and have attended the following networking events:
- MIT Enterprise Forums of New Hampshire (we did a skydive presentation pitch)
- NH Entrepreneur of the Year
- WebNOB (Web North of Boston – meetup in Manchester)
- NSWG (North Shore Web Geeks – meetup in Newburyport)
- PopSignal (networking event in Boston)
Also looking at going to the WebInno group event in July, local meetups in NH and Mass, as well as the Boston Mashable event in August. If you know of any others, please drop me a line or post a comment.
Since VendorCity is a recommendation site, it is critical that we take into account best practices when building our own rating and reputation systems. There’s some good ones and, well, some not so good ones. Joshua Porter over at Bokardo.com shared some valuable insights on these issues based upon an article from Boxes and Arrows entitled On A Scale of 1 to 5. A close read of these two articles highlight some critical aspects that any site that provides ratings and recommendations should follow.
