The biggest difference between networking 15 years ago and networking today is scale. Sometime over the last few weeks I reached the 1,000 followers mark on Twitter. Do I know all of those people? No. Am I connected to them? Yes. Our networks are scalable because the internet doesn’t care where you are as long as you’re connected. If you were good at networking before LinkedIn or Twitter started you’ll be good at networking now. Social networks are built to connect people and their ideas. That is not a new idea.
The connections are valid
Those who think the new networking creates less valid connections are focusing on the ease of the tools instead of the depth of the connections the tools provide. It is true that most things worth doing are more difficult. Thanks to the internet connecting is the easy.
Even if you’ve never met
Progressing beyond a connection into a relationship is where lives change and the world becomes a better place to live. The internet can help you go deeper in your relationships if you want to. My children live 17 hours from my parents but they see each other through Skype anytime. My mom watches out family YouTube channel (http://www.YouTube.com/Traubfamily) to experience the daily highlights my kids produce. Cliff Ravenscraft and I have done 81 episodes of our podcast Business Tech Weekly over skype. I’ve never met Cliff in person.
Scale the results too
Facebook is measured by the number of friends you have. Relationships are measured by the change they bring; joy, commerce, knowledge, encouragement, wisdom. I think you should ignore the number of friends and connections you have on the digital networks. Focus on the fruit of those relationships. If you use the tools the internet provides us you can not only scale the amount of connections you have, you can scale what those relationships produce.
