This link has been bookmarked by 5 people . It was first bookmarked on 30 Sep 2009, by jasper rädisch.
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In 2005, Rob Cross, Sue Cantrell, and I found evidence of it in some research we did on knowledge workers in four companies. The highest performers in those companies (as identified by their performance ratings) were disproportionately good networkers. They had more people in their networks, were more likely to be sought out by others, and were more likely to exchange valued information with their network members — all compared to average performance workers. They consciously cultivated their networks — and not by handing out business cards at "networking events" or by issuing LinkedIn invitations. They offered information and other items of value to their networks.
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Some of the high performers we interviewed specifically mentioned that they did large amounts of selective forwarding. That is, when they saw an online item that they knew would be interesting or useful to a member of their network, they forwarded it. It's a way of saying, "I know what you're interested in, and I'm thinking about you."
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Howard RheingoldMichael Schrage recently wrote a post on this site about the importance of forwarding information as a way to enhance network relationships. He's right about this, although the title — "The Disadvantage of Twitter and Facebook" — is misleading (and inaccurate, since people retweet things all the time — but sadly, editors know that anything with Facebook and Twitter in the title gets a lot of page views and retweets). Forwarding is the new networking. The fact that you can't do it easily on Facebook is about as relevant as the inability to do it over the telephone or the Dictaphone.
OK, it's not really the new networking, since it's been going on for more than a decade now. Smart networkers saw early on that forwarded email content was a way to nurture network relationships.
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