Social Networking and CRM...

Don't know if you are familiar with the social networking site www.linkedin.com or not, but the concept is potentially very powerful.

Was talking about it at lunch today with some colleagues about how they use it. I've played around with it, but haven't figured out exactly what the "killer app" component of the concept is just yet.

Anyway, that led to a conversation of how we keep in touch with our networks. Mine is very simple in strategy, but difficult to execute, simply because it requires discipline and focus.

Basically, I divide my world into personal and business networks. Then, those people are divided up into "Special Interest Groups" that associate with areas of moderate expertise of mine. These are technology, Jewish/Israel, Germany, Japan, and then groups I belong to, like alumni of Hopkins or JDS (my high school).

Each person is tagged in Outlook with any of the multiple categories to which they belong. When I find something of interest to that group, I'll just send an email to everyone in the entire category.

That's the ad-hoc stuff. The programmatic effort is as follows.
I send a quarterly update to the business and personal networks. The personal one gets a linked to the blog, pictures of my kids, and other personal stuff. The business group gets commentary on business world and a more straightforward update. Obviously, people can move from business to personal (and occasionally the other way).

I also make a point of calling everyone on the personal list on his/her birthday.

I've found a few things out.
1. people, no matter how old, appreciate being remembered on their birthday
2. people remember each year the fact that I remember their birthday
3. if I talk to someone only once a year-on his/her birthday-then that's ok

Basically what this does is when I arrive in, say, Denver and call someone I haven't seen in 5 years, it's not as awkward because, at the very least, that person knows what is going on with me and I've spoken (or left a VM) to him annually for a few minutes.

Some days there are 0 or 1 birthdays. Some days, like tomorrow, there are 6 or 7. So, I invest up to 1 hour in relationships...big deal. At the least, the person appreciates it and at the most, I have a good conversation with someone.

Is it shallow? No, I don't think so. I'm not keeping people in my network because I want to "use" them for some advantage. These are people I've met, have had an impact on me over the years, and with whom I'd like to keep in touch. I appreciate their life perspectives and what they can share with me.

A colleague of mine said yesterday that, "aside from your parents, the things that have the most influence on you over the course of your life are the books you read and the people you meet."

That's why I invest the time and energy to keep in touch and stay up to date.

I also love www.plaxo.com for this reason, but that's another subject.