So, here is my advise for getting ready for the battle of 2009: spend some time on building high quality profiles, inviting the
right people, networking with your peer groups, and building your social capital. What looked like a major time-waster
when I first got involved (i.e. LinkedIn back in 2003 I believe) has now become a true life-saver - we all need qualified and
pre-approved connections that we can easily use when push comes to shove, and this is one of the best ways
to do it. Lastly, give yourself a nice Christmas present, b
uy Yochai Benkler's book "The Wealth of Networks"
- it rocks.
2) Show people who - what - where you really are. This trend is becoming more pronounced every single
day: if you don't publish anything about yourself, who you are, what is special about you, what you stand for,
and yes, what you may offer, sell or provide, nobody will care about pinging you in the first place. Today, if you
are '404'-person-not-found on the Net, it usually means one of 3 things: a) you live in one of the few remaining, so-called
developing countries that has not yet been uprooted by the Internet b) you are a bona-fide but under-the-radar VIP and
are thus exempt from any such trivial need for self-presentation c) You apparently haven't done anything worth mentioning
in the past 5 years - at least this will be people's perception w
hen they Google you!
In either case, a total lack of any content about you (or your company, your project or your creations) is already enough to
make most more connected people suspicious, and this trend will drastically increase in 2009. No network, no 'friends', no
comments, no links - and many people will feel reluctant to do business with you. This is the new power, and maybe also
the curse, of the paradigm of hyper-transparency.
So how to show people who you really are? My recipe: publish stuff that you care about, content that's personal, unique
and different, such as updates on your social networks, book reviews on Amazon, F
lickr pictures from your mobile phone,
playlists from
last.fm, Ovi (Nokia) sharing updates, blog posts, comments, videos... whatever you feel most inclined to get
involved with. Does it take time? Yes, but guess what: this new
process of sharing will actually grow on you, and these
previously considered time-wasting activities will become an important part of what you do. Suddenly, what once looked
like seriously wasting time starts looking like a good investment: a powerful network may yet spring from the wasteland of
bizarre tweets, bad blog posts and random Internet friending - we just need to learn how to juggle it all a lot better. Just
like 10-12 years ago, when email was often considered a waste of time and it was mostly geeks that had an email ad-
dress - now it has become the essential tool for business communication. No email, no pings, no business. In 2009, it will
3) Have real conversations. In 2009, you can stop pushing yourself, your products and your marketing messages via
email, newsletters, snail mail, phone calls or print ads; and you can stop yelling at people to get them to pay attention to
you. Start pulling them in by being part of conversations, by adding value to something that exists al-
ready. Show people that you care about an issue or a topic, signal that you have something of value to
give, and they will ask who you are and what you do, and invite you to show them your goodies.
Broadcast less to the masses, and start narrow-casting to the ones that actally want you (this, btw, is the
your value in an irresistible way: give something of value, for free. Add value and get value.
Cool down on the monologue (ouch, yes, I should be talking!) and get into 'duo-logs' i.e. conversations.
Yes, this is really though; but the times of winning-by-sheer-dominance, of closing a deal because of sheer force, of 'I talk
you listen', of
monopoly of attention are coming to an end. In the future, you simply won't be hired if you can't talk
withpeople, if you can't listen, if you can't attract rather than force, whether you're a lawyer, a CEO, a marketing exec or an
artist. This is what I like so much about
Twitter, btw: I can have real conversations with people, as microscopic as they
may be. I can check them out very quickly, by looking at their links, and their followers etc, and I can get as engaged as I
want - but it's all out in the open.
4) Don't think Money - think Attention, Trust, Merit (Money2.0). This is crucial: the new cur-
rency in this hyper-connected economy, is Attention and Trust, based on Merit. In other
words, if what you do is good, if it has value, if it maintains that value, over and over again,
and if you can get attention repeatedly (by publishing that value in the right context), and if
you can get people to trust you and spend time with you, then the money, the remuneration,
a very tangible economic benefit will be forthcoming, without a doubt. Money is a conse-
quence of attention, not the other way round.
On my end, during the past 3 years, I have switched my approach completely: I publish, I pull, I
try to maintain a reasonable level of quality, and I trust this will return economic benefits. And it has, indeed: 2009 looks