I  get a lot of emails and phone calls from people I don’t know yet, to discuss things they’re working on, or get my advice on a project, or to propose a potential collaboration. About 5 a day… which is awesome. But that adds up to over 150 interesting new people every month!

Due to the Law of There Are Only 24 Hours in a Day, unfortunately I don’t have time to schedule phone calls or coffee with most of them. So I thought I’d try to streamline conversations so I can have more of them. Here are the best ideas I’ve come up with so far.

How to jump start our conversation:

If you just want to say hi and introduce yourself, awesome. I love meeting potential future allies and like-minded spirits. Facebook is really good for this. And tell me where you live so I can invite you to a talk or live game event!

If you want something from me, send lots of information in your first email. The more I know about you or your project, the more likely I won’t be able to stop thinking about you or your project and simply HAVE to write back.

Let’s plan to start our conversation on email, not on the phone or over coffee. We can always schedule calls or coffee after a few emails if things are going well! If you really, really want a face-to-face conversation, try to connect at a conference or a game or a festival. I attend a LOT of them.

If you have actually played a game that I’ve made, PLEASE mention that. I give super-top-priority to people who have actually taken the time to play one of my games. If you haven’t played one of my games, you can always ask me in your email for a game that’s currently live that you can play. If you come to one of my live game events, that’s the best way to connect.

There will be no “brain picking.” That’s really one-sided and I hate that. I have a ton of articles and slides and video lectures online that afford all the online brain-picking you could ever want. Beyond that, I’d much rather have a conversation and hopefully learn something from you. So, it’s always a good idea to start an email by telling me something interesting I probably don’t know about yet. I love to talk to people who share instead of brain picking!

If you want me to come somewhere, that’s awesome — I love to travel. But please let me know in the first email if you have budget for travel support, honorarium, or speakers’ fees. It helps me prioritize so I can pay the rent while still meeting lots of interesting people.

If you want me to work on a project with you, that’s great! Can you tell me upfront what specifically you have in mind for my participation, what the project’s for, what the timeline is, if you have a budget, the intended audience? Really as much information as possible.

If you want to interview me, send as much information about the story you’re working on as possible, ideally with the kinds of questions you want to ask, and whether it’s for background or on the record.

If you want me to give feedback on something you’re working on, send me a link or an article or a video or slides or whatever else will help me get up to speed on it as quickly as possible. This is much better than trying to schedule a call or a meeting. Although this is the kind of thing I really often don’t have enough time for, since I am usually developing several projects myself at any given time. If you are going absolutely crazy for my advice, ask for a half-day or day of my consulting time. I can make time for formal advice more often than I can for informal advice.

Okay, now that you’ve read all that, you can email me at my first name @ the domain of this website.

xoxo,

your future ally/co-conspirator/collaborator, Jane

Now, you may wonder what my take on this request is regarding how I will approach Jane. The way I see it, you only get one chance to create a winning first impression. I really want to connect with Jane but I think in order to really connect with her what matter is to experience her games first. Her games matter to her. To connect what matters to Jane is the first step in saying “I took the time to connect to what matters to you.” Now, I do want to show Jane something that I think would truly be mutually beneficial–specifically, my innovation center I want to open in the Borders store on Michigan Avenue (they are going out of business January 2010). 

My vision is to have approximately 20 of the top innovative companies, complimentors to one another, providing real-time innovation advice, support, games and contests continuously for all those with creative passions and minds. I believe just like Jane, in play there exists connections and opportunities. That’s Networlding! Looking forward to connecting Jane!

Jessica Kizorek is a founding partner of Two Parrot Productions. Two Parrot is an international video production company whose expertise lies in commercial HD video production and journalistic documentary coverage of charities around the world. Jessica has also just authored the industry-defining book, “Show Me: Marketing with Video on the Internet.”

Tell me a little bit about your work and your new book.

My background is in documentary filmmaking.  I’ve been doing that for almost ten years now.  I own a video production company where I produce video content for clients ranging from corporate clients like Bacardi to Moet Hennessy to Hyatt Hotels.  I also work for a lot of substantial, large non-profit corporations. 

About two years ago, I knew I was going to need to put my videos online for my clients. I started researching it purely from a business standpoint – how do I do this for my clients?  I was shocked at the lack of information out there on how to put something up on YouTube.  There was no good guide on how to compress it, how to shoot specifically for web, how to display videos effectively over the Internet and so on.  I started compiling all of my research, which then became the book. 

The book is called Show Me:  Marketing with Video on the Internet.  It covers a really wide range of topics, everything from planning to how to shoot a video and how it then incorporates with other more traditional media forms.  It answers questions about how to have your video sync up with your website, sync up with your business cards, sync up with your brand identity, sync up with your overall business objective.  We also address the issues of how you shoot the images that look best on the internet; how do you distribute have watch people watch it, interact and respond to the video.  It covers the whole breadth of the subject. 

The book was released in January.  You can find it on http://www.showmethebook.com.  You can find out more about the book, read what other people said about the book, and access the blog about the book. You can purchase copies there. 

Tell us about your non-profit work and how you got involved there.

My father and I are both involved in this organization called Landmark Education.  I lead the SELP (Self Expression in Leadership Program).  He did that program, and his project was to go over to Thailand and, while there, to videotape and do a short documentary for a non-profit organization.  He consequently was deeply moved by using his expertise with camera and video to communicate what these people were doing over there.  He was so moved by it, as was I, that we really saw an opportunity to create a business model that was primarily philanthropic in nature.  We donate a lot of our services to these on-going projects.  In Tanzania, for example, we’re working for an organization called Kids of Kilimanjaro.  The kids in this neck of the woods have to walk two hours to get to school.  Because it’s so poverty-ridden, they literally did not have the food it took to walk four hours a day.  This organization started a school lunch program. All the kids get fed at school, and the attendance rate is close to 100% now.  So we go over there and shoot these films and do it free of charge.  They pay for the editing on the post-production side.  We do about 8-12 jobs like that a year. 

How do you fund these projects?

We use the frequent flyer miles we’ve built up over the years.  We donate our time. 

We typically work with projects that are outside of the United States, but they have to be pretty significant sized.  They pay about $15,000 on the post-production side of things.  It requires that they have a marketing budget.  But a lot of these organizations would never be able to afford what we provide them.

Before, having a website used to be enough.  But now, people are so oriented around audio visual communications that when you can’t communicate that way with potential donors and potential givers, organizations are really missing out on an opportunity to pull people’s heartstrings. 

How does social networking and social networking technology tie in with both your business and your philanthropic contributions?

Social networking is really incredible, and I’ve explored it primarily through my own research and have just been amazed.  I was at a conference on Wednesday, and the analogy the speaker used was that in the past, people used to sign each other’s year books upon graduation in high school, “Good luck with the rest of your life! I loved knowing you!  Good luck!”  Now, people don’t sign one another’s year books any more – because they never lose touch with them!  They are all on Facebook or Myspace.  It’s a perpetual web.  There’s no longer very much distance between people.  The ability to stay in touch and remain connected to people over the course of time is what we’re really developing. 

The power of that in the business world is significant. Say I’m on Facebook, and I have a bunch of friends personally; I have business acquaintances; I have business leads.  I change my profile that says, “Jessica is delivering a presentation in New York City to the American Association of Advertising Agencies.”  It immediately goes on an update that goes to all the people on my contact list.  The ability to communicate rapidly with short-fire phrases has dramatically impacted how we do business.  It has provided access to information about what is going on with any one of your contacts at any given moment. 

You get that on LinkedIn.  I use LinkedIn, and it’s the same kind of thing.  I see my contacts and who they’re meeting every day.  On my home page on LinkedIn, I can see who’s active – some are more active than others.  Those are the people I want to be in contact with.  Last time I went to NY, I was hunting around for appointments.  I was going through all my contacts’ contact lists, asking who is it that would be a potential client or someone I want to talk to in New York.  There I was able to go through and look at the close connections.  Then I could immediately send an email and say, “I’d like you to introduce me to John, Rick and Jane in New York because I’d like to see them next week and see what I could provide them in the world of video.”  So I had access to meeting people.  I’m much less likely to do a cold call because social networking is facilitating people being connected and introducing one another in ways that I have never heard of before. 

What’s so intriguing to me is that people are more connected, meaning you keep in touch with more people, but the way that people relate to each other is on a more superficial level.  As people become more connected, they become less connected, paradoxically.  People are physically divided, not spending as much time previously as they did in person.  They don’t know the sound of one another’s voice any more.  They aren’t acutely aware of the facial expressions that people make. It used to be that kids would go to spend three hours at the park on the swing-set together.  Now they spend three hours on MySpace, instant messaging each other. 

In the business world, rather than having a business meeting, they send emails or instant message or communicate from afar. From a business standpoint, there’s a need to foster the depth of relatedness.  That’s why I think that video email and video communication are really going to change the nature of this game.  We’ve been emailing for years and years now, but when we’ve got video email, that becomes the methodology for communicating.  That’s going to be incredible.

You can find out more about Jessica, her book and her business by visiting her website at www.TwoParrot.com. 

Jobs For Youth has made over 25,000 job placements since 1979 and over 900 young people have received their GED through Jobs For Youth. With over 100,000 youth ages 16-24 in Chicago out-of-school and not working, they say their job is not done.

“We want to serve more youth. We want give them hope in an otherwise hopeless situation. We want to prepare them to become self-sufficient.”

And they need our help.

Find out how you can help by checking out their website: Click Here

Support comes in many different forms. Find out how you can help Chicago’s Youth.

For further questions please contact Barbara Olson, Community & Volunteer Relations Director, at 312 – 499 -4778 x 129 or e-mail.

For information on Networlding and our services please call 312 – 421 – 4213 or click here.

Great Blog for Women:

Kirsten Osolind, CEO of Re:invention Marketing has a #1 goggle ranked blog for and about enterprising women.

Re:invention is a full-service integrated marketing company for corporations that are looking to sell more of their products and services to enterprising women — women entrepreneurs and executives.

For more information about their services please Click Here.

Kirsten’s blog is chalked full of information about women entrepreneurs, business statistics, business resources and more importantly fun. She has a great way of presenting information so that it is readily accessible, informative and interesting.

Every Saturday Kirsten posts “10 Tips for 10 Million Women”. These posts feature successful women entrepreneurs or executives. In addition to their current position and a brief bio, each entrepreneur or executive shares their list of 10 tips for women in business.

Kirsten also shares information about her business, the people she meets, and the companies she interacts with. She reviews professional women’s organizations, discussing their history, member benefits, programs, and networks. The blog delivers a tremendous amount of information about resources for women.

Always in tune with what women want, Kirsten does not ignore the importance of business fashion. One post reviewed the trend of handbags and the dangers of carrying a bag that is too large. Additionally, on the side bar there is a featured business shoe of the season. Included in the staff’s bios – their shoe of choice.

The amount of knowledge presented and the span of topics covered makes the re:invention blog one of our favorite resources.