Robin Blandford [ ByteSurgery.com ]

09/04/08 Network Building: Your Second Degree Network

SINGAPORE - I’ve spent a lot of time thinking thoughts around the ability to get a high quality introduction to a friend of a friend. Not only does it make things easier to get things done, but it also opens out your available knowledge pool.

These are the criteria I’ve developed over the last year when trying to come up with an algorithm to answer this question. The weighting values of each are still undefined, and I’d be very interested to hear your values or additions.

Location

Proximity - How physically close is the person to you? Same desk, room, floor, office, country, region?

Culture - Is the person from a culture with similar person-person values as you? Do they speak your language?

Timezone - Are you catching them at a convenient time? Will they respond during your business hours?

Connections

Recommended - Do they come recommended (Do they have lots of followers?).

Trusted - Are they trusted by your network (Do they follow as many people as follow them?).

Genuine - How genuine will their response be? What is at stake to them? (How many shared strong contacts do you both have?)

Access

Introductions - How many of your contacts know this person very well?

Social Distance - Where do they sit on a management structure compared to you?

-Robin.

(Video Credit: To mark Flickr launching video today, I’ve tried a video instead of a photo. It’s me doing a pretty poor jump and being very pleased to not face plant it, Punggol Country Club, Singapore.)

Tags: access, connections, location, network building, proximity, second degree

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