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!

My team and I have decided that we should tweet on Kraft for a week and see what results we get. Now, there are rules with Networlding as we are all about the GOOD that companies do in the world. What does that mean?

If you have something that we should know about that Kraft is doing well, let us know. We will also be happy to retweet your “good news” tweets. Our goals is to spread good news about companies that are big enough to make a difference. We think that if we focus and leverage the good things they do they will, most likely, do them more. But we’ll see . . . .  You can never know the outcome of a social media-social networking experiment unless you try.

Thanks!

The Networlding Team of Kerry LaCoste, Jon Malysiak and Me, Melissa Giovagnoli

Many people through the years have benefited from the following formula I created for writing a book. As a book coach and book marketer I have used it often in the last decade. I hope it can benefit you also.

But what made this exchange more meaningful was that John moved from a potential vendor to my company to a partnership. The brand of BookSurge grew more relevant and more personable especially when John sent me a LinkedIn invitation. Smart move, John.

Now the personless face of a company suddenly was “personalized” into a living brand with traits that are more human like compassion, creativity and lots of care. So just like SAS, the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market.,  that is on my favorite company list because they “got personal,” the employees at BookSurge are empowered to be more connective, and just like Frost’s “The Road Less Traveled,” when it comes to branding . . . that. . . . that has made al the difference.

p.s. And John even has his one blog. Check it out. It’s good.

That’s like saying if you want to buy a car the first step is to go to the car dealer and let them know that you have a passion to own a BMW. But does that get you a car without more steps like finding the money to pay for the car? Similarly getting a job is so much more than just letting your network know about your passions. There are steps such as:

1. Figuring out where the jobs are out there.
2. Finding more people than just the ones you know–in other words the people they know–often called “The Hidden Network” who can help identify available jobs now and also within the next three-six months.
3. Knowing the best things to say to connect with people so you don’t make the conversation all about you. For example, you should not call people and say, “Can I pick your brain? I need a job.”
4. Know that, most likely, according to extensive research on job searches, the job you will get won’t likely be a result of the people you know well. There is a phenomenon called “The Law of Weak Ties.” It goes something like people who actually don’t know you well will be more likely the people who will be the “connectors” who lead you to a new job.
5. Know how to move the job search along by building a good network of these new targeted connectors using tools like LinkedIn. The growth of what is called the LION or Linked in Open Networker means that there are now thousands if not millions of people who are out there who would be happy to  help you find a job.

And there is more and more. So how do you get started and how do you do it without spending a lot of  money? Well, I am offering it to you for free. Yes. I mean FREE. I took six months a year ago to create a “Networking for Jobs” e-learning program and I am going to give it to you for FREE. It is chock full of all the details and even scripts to  help you know who to connect with and what to say once you do connect.

So what’s the catch? Nothing. I would only ask that if you really like it and it helps you, you tell me exactly how it helped you. I am looking for people who can do what I believe the process I recreated can do–cut your job search time by 50% or more. Also, if you really like the process I do hope you will tell others about it who work at companies where they can hire myself and my Networlding Certified Coaches with more opportunities to share the Networlding system inside companies where they have some budget for training because Networlding works well also for sales and marketing initiatives.

Finally, what do you need to do to get the free e-learning program? Just email me at info@networlding.com and ask for the program. I look forward to helping you.

• Learn continuously
• Endorse experimentation
• Break old patterns
• Identify commonalities
• Build unbroken "circles" not networks
• Leverage your assets (behaviors, skills, relationships)

Networlding recognizes the naturally occurring organic interconnectedness of people from all walks of life and simply provides a fertile soil for those seeds of value-based relationships to be planted to create endless possibilities. These possibilities are truly transformational. Think about that.To transform means to change. Something cannot change beyond itself. Its possibilities for change exist only within the limits of its inherent nature. What I see most often in business today is that most business professionals put limits on the people they think they can reach. The truth is we are truly six people or fewer away from anyone we want to meet. It’s really just a matter of making up your list, finding the right partners and believing “anything is possible” which is the number one belief of those people who do build that leadership support network that helps them leverage transformational opportunities for a lifetime.

Is it time for you to begin too? Are you ready? If not now, when?

In contrast, networking connections are flimsy because they lack
support. When networking, people are bound together because one person
needs another to do a deal or create a sale. One particular situation
binds them together, and as soon as this situation disintegrates or
disappears, there’s nothing left of the relationship to keep it strong
enough to survive.

Melissa is one of the world’s leading experts on the development of individual and community leadership networks as a means of growing and accelerating brand loyalty and performance improvement inside and outside organizations. For more than a decade Melissa’s organization, Networlding, has provided exceptional relationship marketing and management programs for organizations like AT&T, CNA, Motorola and Disney.

Melissa is the author and/or co-author of nine top-selling books. Her seventh book, co-authored with former CMO of Office Depot, Jocelyn Carter Miller, held the #10 spot on Amazon (in Chicago) for a year. Other books include:

- Networlding:Building Relationships and Opportunities for Success
– The Chicago Entrepreneurs Sourcebook (rated one of the top 10 small business books in Chicago)
- 75 Cage Rattling Questions that Change the Way You Work(McGraw Hill)
- The Power of Two: Rethinking and Reforming Strategic Alliances (Jossey Bass)

Four of Melissa’s books have been on top business book lists, including The Power-of-Two and Networlding, recognized by Booz Allen as two of the top ten alliance management books.

Melissa has also been a guest on both radio and television including The Today Show, CNN, WGN, CNBC and FOX. One of her books was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She is a frequent presenter at conferences looking for interactive sessions. Her unique program, The Extravaganza, has been highly evaluated by Meeting Professionals International (MPI).

With a BA in Sociology and a J.D. from DePaul University College of Law, Melissa went on to found Service Showcase, Inc., an innovative consulting firm started in 1986. For the past twelve years she has grown the company to include clients Price Waterhouse, AT&T, Dean Foods and Motorola as well as dozens of smaller companies and organizations. In 1998 she was chosen one of six extraordinary women of the year by The University of Chicago Women’s Graduate Business Alumni Board. Networlding was recently licensed by Yale University through their graduate school of business.

Melissa resides in Chicago and has two sons. She loves to travel, especcially to Italy. Her top values are 1. Spirtuality 2. Integrity 3. Making a Diference. and 4. Adventure.