Networking and Learning

While it's possible to learn from books, film, or audio resources, we learn best when we are shown how to do things by people we know and admire. In fact often the key lesson is in the mode and manner of the person, as much as in the detail of anything they have to pass on. In a very real way we learn our teachers, as much as we learn a subject.

Social networks are important because they give us a chance to make many weak contacts with people who are not in our own environment. It's not obvious at first glance why that is so important.

We have strong and close ties with many people who are family members or who share business activities or who live in our own community. We will share with those people almost the same set of ideas. That is why we can have such close ties with them. But can they be effective teachers? Certainly, but they are likely only to reinforce the expected thinking of the local environment.

Online, or in a new country, beyond your normal environment, you are likely to be confronted with a set of ideas and expectations that are not your own. If there is no personal relationship between yourself and the "new idea set" then you can ignore it. But if you "know" the person in a social way, you are likely to give the idea more than a dismissive reading. The process of giving this "new idea set" serious consideration enlarges your own idea set, and gives you new things to think about. You may then choose to reject the new view, or to examine it further.

The beauty of the "weak connection" is that you don't have to agree, and you don't have make a decision now. You have many options to examine or to set aside or the leave un-examined the issue that has been raised. You can learn from the issue, but only if you choose.

Contrast that with what happens in your own community or at work. There is already a well established climate that everyone understands that enables certain modes of thinking and disables or forbids alternative modes of thinking. There is a cultural climate that is supposed to promote constructive and positive contributions to the team effort. Usually that is the result. However, it can also lead to "group think" where the group in an effort to build and sustain commitment to each other and to the task at hand, become blind to external realities.

Social Networks allow us to make lots of weak links to many people. Because the links are weak, we are free to express our own ideas more strongly than we might at home or at work. We are also able to pay attention to the sort of ideas our own close contacts are unlikely to express. In accepting or rejecting these new ideas a learning process is going on.

If you are to live in a society where knowledge is important, nothing is more important than maintaining your own ability to learn. Learning is a precondition to being able to adapt your own behavior. I call my web site Adapt to Experience. If you can successfully adapt to the environment you are likely to succeed. Those who fail to adapt are guaranteed failure.

People who are members of social groups thrive. People who neglect to maintain their membership become isolated and shut out. They die.

John Stephen Veitch
Open Future Limited - You may comment privately to John S Veitch using this form.

Technorati Tags key lesson learn teachers Social networks weak contacts family members business activities own community close ties local environment own behavior members become isolated John Stephen Veitch

Joe Doe and Jane Plain - Networkers?

When I examine the personal pages of people who are active networkers I find people who have a belief that talking to others and meeting new people is useful and helpful.  But the vast majority of people who join social and business networks are unsure why they joined, and quickly drop out.

So why should Joe Doe and Jane Plain have any interest in what happens on networks like Ryze, Ecademy or Linked In?

First of all, in our lives we all invest a great deal of time and money in various activities that help to identify who we are.  I say "invest" but I mean "over invest" we have a passion for something and we give that activity an undue share of our time and money and attention.  We define ourselves by this activity.  Over time the chosen activity changes, but most of us have a passion for something that we like to express strongly. 

For me that was soccer, later studying, then my job, a journal, a house, public speaking, dancing.  Each of these was pursued with excess enthusiasm for a few years, sometimes many years.  These activities have helped define who I am, and who my friends are. 

On any large worldwide network, whatever your passion, you will find people who share your vision and your desire to succeed, or to be recognized.  On a network like Ryze you can find people like yourself.  Those people can help you to learn more about who you are and about the things you care about.  No big deal here.  Join, find some groups or networks related to the things that interest you.  Then look for a few friends in those groups.  People like you.  Keep in touch. 

Two things will happen, but over a few years, not immediately.  First you may find that you meet more friends than you expect, and that some of them introduce you to new things.  And over time your interests change and you begin to find other groups that are more interesting to be part of.  Being a member, even at low levels of participation, perhaps visiting once a week, keeps you in touch and enlarges your life options. 

Who you are depends on what you've done in the past.  Who you will become depends on what you do now, and on what you do in the future.  Investing time to be connected to other people across the world is an investment in your own future.  If you quietly pursue that idea, join the most interesting groups, get to know the best people, become involved in thinking about the ideas that concern them and concern you, over time you'll become a different person.  You'll become someone with knowledge, someone with ideas, and someone with lots of friends and useful contacts.  We all need that.

You don't need a business, you don't need to go on the internet to make sales.  Your purpose is to become a person who understands "the world" because you know as friends and talk with people in dozens of countries.  Those friends will help you think about who you are and about your own country in new ways.  Your understanding about what is interesting and what is or isn't important will change.  You'll slowly develop a larger "vision" of the world and your place in it.  Because you DID something different, you will become a different person.  You will be a person with new and better options, a person with a changed future.

We become what we do.  We tend to be like the things we think about most of the time.  Our friends are the people who share an interest in the things we care most about.  In the short term you have the life you have.  In the long term you will have the life you made for yourself.  If you have the courage to choose your interests and your friends wisely your life will be like that.  If you choose to not to choose, to just drift along, your life will drift along too, and other people will each day decide what becomes of you. 

John Stephen Veitch
Open Future Limited - You may comment privately to John S Veitch using this form.

Technorati Tags active networkersbusiness networkspersonal pagesJoe DoeRyzeLinkedIntime and moneyattentiondefine ourselvesyour interestsparticipationlong termuseful contactsJohn Stephen Veitch

Network Memberships - Evaluating?

On another network, David Fuller, reviewed his experience using business/social networks. He called his article, "My Networking Subscriptions are about to run out, so do I renew for another year?"

Mr Fuller recommends that to evaluate your networking experience you "Determine what you are trying to achieve" and measure the value of networking against that vision. He says we should measure the return against the budget, thinking about both the cost of money and the cost of time. Finally he asks if the site you are on gives you a chance to "stand out from the crowd", suggesting that we should take every opportunity to present our "elevator pitch".

You can read his full article here, but I disagree with most of what he says, he is uninformed and unhelpful.

It's quite clear that David Fuller doesn't understand the basics of networking practice. I don't blame him for that. Networking online is new, we do have access to many more people, but we don't have personal capacity to keep in memory and consciousness any more people than previously. Those of us who are deeply connected on Ryze, Linked In or Ecademy for instance, have not yet learned for ourselves how best to use this new ability to connect. It should not surprise us that people who are less connected don't understand the process.

David Fuller assumes you can determine in advance what you want to achieve by networking and can measure the cost performance of your involvement. He's wrong. That can't be done in any sensible way. Networking is a journey. You are going into unmapped territory. NO MAPS. Now tell me what you want to find in this unmapped territory that would make your exploration a success? The discovery of gold, oil, slaves, free land, virgin forests, new opportunity? In history when explorers have entered new territory, they often failed to find the "riches" they expected to find, and also completely failed to notice real wealth that existed in this unmapped territory that was beyond their original narrow vision.

Joining a network is taking a journey into unmapped territory. A "friends" list is a rough sort of map that each of us makes of that territory. Joining networks is another way to make a rough map of what's there. But you can't beat living there for a couple of years to sort out which of the "friends" are people of substance, and which networks are sources of both good people and sound data.

If you come to networking like Christopher Columbus, with "orders from the Queen of Spain", determined to establish yourself as the "Governor" and focused on becoming fabulously wealthy, you are likely to get a rather cold reception from the natives. Self engrandizement, elevator pitches, trying to make yourself out to be the "Governor" is the wrong response to the network environment.

In a network, in fact in all of life, nothing is more important that your ability to be accepted as a member. If you are a member, people listen to you. If you are a member you are given good data and help when you need it. If you are a member your rights as a member will be protected and respected by others. If you are a member you pay attention to what other "members" say and do and you respect and protect their rights as members.

So what do I mean by "membership"? There are at least two forms of membership. Let's think about Ryze Networks. (Or Ryze if you prefer) You join, when you subscribe to the network. In one sense "you are a member of this network" but you are not a member to the "members", they don't know you yet. You become a member by reading the posts and by occasionally responding to what someone else has written in a sensible way (so people feel that you have read the posts and that you respond in a way that "fits in".). You need to show knowledge of and respect for the "member" you responding to. When people read what you wrote, they choose, they choose either to accept you or to reject you. If they accept you, your posts will be read, and your opinion listened to. If they decide you didn't understand the group, or didn't show respect for a "member" you might get a lashing, but more likely you'll just get ignored. If they choose to ignore you, it's probably your own fault.

How do you succeed in a networking situation? Listen to what other people are saying. Respond to their needs and interests. Be supportive or other members, and you might become a "member" yourself.

David Fuller doesn't seem to understand the simple social rules that apply to all networks. When he introduces his "elevator pitch" to make sure he "stands out from the crowd" he poisons the place where he's trying to become accepted. The "members" will reject him. It's the same online of offline. Offline, people are less likely to make silly social mistakes. Online you see new people commit social errors all the time. In this sense, the vast numbers of people who sit silently on networks might be doing the right thing. At least if they are reading the posts that is a wise way to behave.

I trust this view introduces some ideas we can discuss. Like how to give newbies on Ryze a better idea of what they need to do in social networks, and how we can help the silent majorities on all our networks to be more involved.

Your Own Web Cluster

Your Own Web Cluster

Ryze is good but not perfect. There are several features I'd like to see added to the site, but money is short, and Ryze seems to develop in it's own way, and in it's own time. (Thankfully it is moving forward.)

I would like to see each Ryze member with space for several web pages and images, most Ryze users need blog space, and a formal easy to maintain contact record is desirable. This can all be done, using services outside of Ryze, with a little effort. All the services have valuable free versions too.

I've been thinking about how to improve the way my Ryze page is presented. It got far too large. I wasn't happy with the uncontrolled way the pictures were displayed. I wasn't sure what to do either. In principle you need to choose the resources you need and to combine them in a little cluster that connects in a seamless way.

Creating your cluster

Blog Space: I have opened two blogs using Blogger. There is a link to both those documents from my Ryze Page.

Web Space: My ISP does not offer free web space with my connection, but most ISP's do. You could put some photographs to use on your Ryze site in your ISP's web space. My solution was to go to Geocities, a site that in my past experience was slow and cluttered with annoying advertisements. I congratulate Yahoo on the amount of web space they now offer and the ease of use of the Geocities site. The free service, currently provided is both usable and manageable.

A Formal Listing: I'm also using Linked In, to hold a different sort of record, something more formal. My record at Linked In is more like a formal record of past employment and activities.

Linking

I've created a little chain of internet connections, each linked to the others. But there are also many links from my material to the material of other people. I hope in the fullness of time other people will link into my material. These links not only bring visitors to your pages, but search engines see inward links from other people (not your own links to yourself) as a sign that particular pages have valuable or interesting information. Of course you need to prepare valuable and interesting information first. If your material is good you might be surprised over time how many people link to you. The world wide web was named because of the linking feature. Too many people neglect to put links to other people into their material, and lose the value of pointing to other places that provide value.

I began at Geocities just setting up a dummy page and adding half a dozen photographs that I could use on Ryze. A couple of weeks later I've built several additional pages. Here's why.

I wanted to shorten my Ryze page. Two large chunks were removed an re-posted at Geocities. They are still available, and my Ryze page is a much better length. For some time in my Veech Innovation Network (at Ryze) I wanted to make a record of the key back posts. So I've done that at Geocities. That inspired another idea, what about listing some of my more interesting posts to various Ryze networks. I've made a start on that too.

Once I got started I began to imagine lots of new possibilities. One was to remove all my photographs a Ryze and house them at Geocities. Now I can create tables in which to put images and comments in the Ryze site, and call those images from the Geocities web space.

These are things I've been learning in the last week. You do need a little skill with HTMl, but you don't need to be an expert. On Ryze you can use the network HTML Helper to get ideas and to improve your skills. It does take some time, but building a web presence always takes time. That's also an advantage. You can do it slowly, and as your skills improve you'll do better.

Regards
John
John S Veitch at Geocities.

Networking Principles?

What Networking Principles?

Joining Ryze or Ecademy or LinkedIn does not make you a networker. You become a networker because of the things you do. Doing things takes time. Sadly for most of us TIME is our most valuable resource: it's your LIFE we are talking about. What are you going to do with your life? Why should you spend part of your LIFE in an online social network?

Effective networking expands your understanding, your thinking skills and your life opportunities. That's something you might want. But online networking is new and there are lots of very unreal ideas about the way to network and the supposed benefits.

Networking Theories: We are new to online networking, and most of the theories about the best way to do it are problematic. I don't personally subscribe to the idea the that more contacts the better, I choose to choose my contacts. That said, I'm not overly particular, you can't tell what qualities new people bring, so an element of randomness does enter who I choose to have as a friend or contact. I do not expect to make any sales directly from my network activities. That may happen, but not because I focused on that outcome and expected it to happen. I do try to find and join expert groups. I'm not active in them all, I don't have the time. I've become a member of too many interest groups. That tends to waste too much of my time, although when I write my own letters to such groups it can be personally involving, intensely interesting, often educational and sometimes even useful.

A Suggested Networking Method

Establish a Personal Profile: This profile should be easy to read, and interesting. 50 keywords as recommended by Ecademy, may be useful on your homepage in Ryze too. Photographs certainly help but they shouldn't be too large. Strive to be professional, but also seek to be a real person with interests and passions.

Be a proactive reader and responder: Join groups, clubs or networks on topics that interest you. Read that mail, at least read the best of it. The very best should be printed, read critically and you should feel free to hi-light it and to write your own notes on it. You learn when you DO things. This is easy when people say things that you agree with. However, take time to identify articulate people who put a good case for opinions you don't feel comfortable with, and try to understand what they say and why they say it. Be critical of course: you are responsible for what you feed your brain.

Find Good People: You should make a point of identifying the people who write quality opinions. Visit their homepage's, leave them messages of appreciation, perhaps at a later stage make them contacts or friends. As appropriate exchange personal messages with these people. Choose to associate with quality people. Whatever you do, remember to be a person, an associate, a friend, and not a salesman.

Use the Network to Stimulate Your Thinking: You are now involved in a network of thinking proactive people who are directing you to certain topics of mutual interest. From your own knowledge and experience you have a new and unique reaction to that. Take the time to put your own view into writing. That exercise is valuable to you, it structures your own thinking. Send your view to the network. Because you are writing for others you will more effort into making your points clear. You will be stimulated to put forward your best effort. It matters not one bit if anyone responds or not, you have gained because you made the effort. If your letter attracts constructive feedback all the better. Over time people will come to recognise you for the type of input you give.

Help Others; Be Useful: As H. Dean Hua said, "Trust is a high form of capital." One of the best ways to generate trust is to listen to other people and to respond to their needs. Be a reliable person. Act in a reasonable and constructive way. Offer assistance where it's required. Do you have some expertise? Can you offer some of that knowledge to other people in an accessible way that doesn't cost you a fortune in time. For me, that's why I maintain this blog. I have another blog for business purposes. This blog is one of my public service efforts. Readership is good. Other people pass on the address to their friends.

Being Strategically Strong: I worked in a previous employment for most of two years before people began to know about me. Face to face networking takes time too. You don't build a reputation overnight.

So it is online. I've been on Ryze for 14 months. I have not made the best use of my time because I didn't know what to do. Slowly my efforts have become more effective. I try to do the things above. I'm a member of far fewer Ryze networks than I could join, about 30 (Limit 100) but I do visit them all at least once a month. I do create new topics and discussions on one network or another at least once a week. I respond to a letter or two at least once a day. In addition I try to maintain the Veech Innovation Network, and occasionally this blog.

Look at my Public Ryze Guestbook. The sort of comments people choose to write, are partly a response to my reputation, and partly a response to how I've treated them as individuals. Over a long period of time those comments start to mean something, not only to me but to other people. It's easy to get noticed. It's more important to get noticed for the right reasons.

Slowly, things have begun to happen that I couldn't plan for. People have begun to approach me, often just asking for help, but often at the same time making me a reciprocal offer of help, or suggesting an opportunity for me, so I might be even more useful. When people approach you, you have increased options, you can deal from a position of strength. That doesn't place you in a position of power, more in a position of responsibility. As H. Dean Hua said, "Trust is a high form of capital". Trust is hard to earn and easily destroyed.

You learn by what you DO. Use your contact with your network to do more things, read, respond, write, think, be useful to other people.

Be Patient. The cream rises to the top of the milk. You can see that on Ryze too, over 2-3 years the people with much to offer distinguish themselves.

Regards
John
Veech Innovation Network

Why Network?

Why Network?

Some of us are really dumb. I'm including myself in that group. I'm by nature or family indoctrination or childhood education one of the people who likes to join groups and to be an active member of those groups. For me the idea of the internet and listservers and chat rooms and social networking always made basic sense. But hundreds of hours online have not been productive in the way I imagined. As with many examples what happens on the internet is often confusing and counter intuitive.

20 years ago I was talking to a lawyer about the failure of my business to attract the right sort of clients. I was building my client base by door knocking, by face to face contact. That was working, but I was being invited to help mostly as a low cost accounting service, we were not dealing with the key issues of business structure, strategy and innovation. The lawyer said, "Are you approaching your clients, or do they approach you?" Of course I was approaching my clients. In his eyes that was a strategically weak position. When new clients approach you because you are the person many people recommend, you have a strategically strong position.

The value of networking is that over time you can develop a strategically strong position.

Networking Theories

Maximize Contacts: Many people involved in both face to face networking and in online networking believe that the numbers are important. When you first meet people, or when people first become known contacts, you can't tell if that will be helpful of not. This theory says, "since I can't choose the good or the bad contacts it's best just to accumulate as many contacts as possible. If one in 20 is likely to be "productive" in a business sense, then I'm better to have 10,000 contacts than 100 contacts.

Random Contacts: Thomas Power of Ecademy is very strong on the idea that "random contacts" have value. My expertise is in innovation. One of the realities of most innovations is an accident or a random event that allows the innovator to see what he or she couldn't see before. Even so, if you are planning to do something you try to make a plan and to act in a constructive and directed manner. Randomly casting about isn't likely to be most productive way to behave.

Making Sales: It seems so obvious that with a few million people online, that one should be able to "sell" things to these people. But in fact the power of online advertising and email marketing is weak. Not many of us have a product that has real value that we can effectively deliver "online". If your product can be more efficiently delivered locally and face to face, you probably have a competitor in the local market who is much better placed to make the sale than you can ever be. It's much easier to spam people and to offer products of zero or doubtful value to people than it is to offer products or services that have genuine value. "Free" has become a dirty word because it's been consistently misused on the internet. Despite the news to the contrary, online sales are not "taking off." Despite what you are told, "advertising online" is not a value proposition.

Expert Groups: One of the key reasons I have joined so many networks is to be part of many expert groups. In the early days of the Internet these groups were easy to access and very informative. Sadly These groups have become inactive or harder to access. Spam attacks killed the very useful Usenet system. Yahoo Groups were for a time very valuable, but lax security at Yahoo allowed the group mail addresses to be harvested by robots, and Yahoo groups members became the target of spam attacks. Today expert groups have largely become private. They are on university or government servers, or inside social networks like Ryze, or are perhaps operating as Yahoo Groups or Google Groups. These groups may not be available to the public. Many website's offer a bulletin board for user discussions, but these are usually poorly used.

Expert groups exist. Usually membership is free and open to peers, but unless you are a peer you are unlikely to know how to find and access that group. Peers openly and routinely share information and expertise with each other. But generally they charge other people for this sort of help, so if you arrive as a newbie, you will probably need to prove your status as a peer before you are accepted. You might be able join a list, but you become a member, when the existing members accept you as a serious voice. Most of the expert groups that were too public have gone silent.

Interest Groups: Many groups that look like expert groups are in fact mostly populated by wanabees. There may be peers of two types, the inexperienced and the experienced. Both groups tend to sit silent. The inexperienced not knowing what to say, and unwilling to expose themselves to adverse comment. The experienced looking to find and meet their real peers and not very interested otherwise. Most of these groups have limited amounts of mail and the quality of that mail is only fair to good. So how does that help? First it gives you a clear idea that the Internet is chest deep in newbies. When you get a letter that misunderstands an idea you know about, you can reply. Lift the quality of debate. Offer your own knowledge. In answering letters like this you often discover were your own growing knowledge lies. You don't learn much by mearly reading the posts of others. When you research and write your own post, you stand to learn a great deal. First you consolidate your own ideas, second you may get some feedback that will enlarge your thinking on that topic. Then you slowly establish your reputation among those who read the mail. Finally, you come to the attention of the few real experts in the group. When you are recognized as a peer you will be contacted by them. To succeed in networking you need to be proactive. Do things. Initiate activity. Take a stand.

Many people join social networks and make no progress as members. They simply don't know what to do. But H. Dean Hua, isn't like that. He joined Ryze and did all the right things. He was very active and built lots of contacts and an excellent reputation, but it didn't turn into immediate business. Here's what Dean wrote in December 2004.

When networking, don't expect too much
by H.Dean Hua

Regardless if you are networking online or offline, try not to expect too much from a meeting. Sometimes, you should just try to enjoy the journey before arriving at the destination itself. It's been said many times, but it takes time and trust to develop any sort of relationship with people. Trust is a high form of capital that many individuals don't have yet. But once you have gained it, you may well consider yourself to be very wealthy...in more ways than one.

That's my thought of the day.

Dean ~~ the financial quarterback

I understand what Dean is saying. I share that experience, but I've learnt so much, I can have no regrets. The problem is that what Dean and I have done takes too much time for too little result. So how can we network more wisely? More Tomorrow.

Regards
John
Veech Innovation Network

First Steps on Ryze

Ryze is a very friendly and very effective social and business network. But most of the people who join don't go on to become participating members. Here are some really bad numbers that I want to change. These numbers are based on a small sample, but they are indicative of a problem new members have.

74 people join Ryze. 30 never join any networks and 30 more only join a few networks. Of the other 14 about half never generate more than 4 or 5 friends. Of the 74, only 8 became well established on Ryze. So I ask why? The simple answer is that it seems too hard. So I ask, Why?

One problem has become clear to me only after being active here for three years. When you first join you have some idea why joining Ryze might be useful. Then perhaps immediately you strike a barrier, something you've never done before. It seems too hard. So you do nothing. OR The reason you joined, maybe to sell your product, is made difficult on Ryze because the rules prevent (or at least limit) sending spam to people, and advertising AT them doesn't work either. If this is you: don't rush off too soon. There is much more here of value, far more valuable than all the sales you might make. The opportunity to discover new directions and a new life for yourself. That opportunity is real, but the discovery depends on what you do.

My research on the things successful people do comes up with these 4 simple things.

1. Complete your Ryze Page, simple plain text is OK, you don't need to write, HTML.
2. Join at least TEN networks and read enough of the mail to get to know some of the people who write.
3. Drop a personal message to some of these people or make entries in their Guestbook's. Tell them you like what they write.
4. Ask some of these people to become your friends.

There is nothing too hard about any of that. Join, show and interest in other people, tell them you are interested. Be an interesting real person yourself, let people see what interests you.

Complete your Ryze Page: I suggest you load a small picture of yourself, or of something you love. In addition in plain text write a few words about yourself and add half a dozen quotes that you like. Half a page is fine. Fill in the "Have" and "Wants" fields. Finally if you wish, and I suggest you do, make your guestbook public.

Join TEN Networks: Just put your interests into the search engine on the networks page. You'll soon find at least ten to join. In the beginning as you join the networks leave the mail notification turned on. Back in your mail system create a file for "Ryze Mail" and when the first letters begin to arrive make a filter to sent that mail directly to the "Ryze Mail" box, rather than into your own "In-box". Finally, one or two of the networks you have joined might turn out to be "high traffic networks". 20 or more letters a day for instance. Go to your Network Page, "Edit Networks" and turn off the mail from those high, traffic networks. (But remember to look in most days and see what mail is there.) Ten networks should be easy to manage. If you want to join more, by all means do so.

Read the Mail and Respond: Try to read at least some Ryze Mail every day. Of course you don't need to read it all. Try to find the interesting stuff. When you find something you really like, tell the author. Go to the author's guestbook, or leave a personal message. If you feel very confident you can even write to the network, but if you do that try to say something that adds to the debate. (Don't say something like, "I agree." That wastes far too much of the valuable time people never have enough of.)

Ask people to be your friend: It's simple really. First you get to know people in the networks. When you know them, it's no big deal to agree to be friends.

There in four simple easy to do steps is a "how to get started on Ryze" that everyone can do. I wish you well. Remember you join a business network like Ryze so that you can learn from other people. When you join a Ryze network, it's like taking up a position on a crossroad. You get to see all the passing traffic. That traffic allows you to learn. You can learn by just lurking, but you'll pay far more attention and be much more engaged if you begin to make posts yourself. Where learning is occurring there will be innovation, and that innovation is the key to your future. Make a start now, join some networks and find out what other people are saying.

Regards
John
The Innovation Network

Technorati Tags Ryze OpenBC guestbook friends networks personal profile engagement thank you crossroads

Paid Membership On Ryze

Paid Membership On Ryze -

Ryze earns part of it's income from paid memberships. In my view the description of what's offered is not well considered. Ryze pretends there are several "benefits" that a not real for most people. However, there are real benefits. Ryze management is just confused (temporarily I hope) about what they are.

Gold membership of Ryze costs $9.95 per month. (Annual Gold membership for $99.95/yr) Many pay for the satisfaction of knowing that they are full participants in Ryze. It's expected that paid membership of Ryze will mostly interest business people and have a business purpose. By recently creating restrictions on the ability of Free Members see and contact each other, Ryze has made Gold Membership more important. Time will tell how that change will affect how Ryze develops. (Ecademy has restrictions like this too. That was one of the key reasons I focused most of my efforts on Ryze.)

Loading More Pictures: Gold members can load up to four extra pictures on their Ryze Homepage's. Can I make a plea here for small pictures. Too many pages have four or five large pictures which have not been compressed. If your page won't load in 20 or 30 seconds change the images.

Send Messages to Distant Members: Ryze says, "With a Gold membership, you can communicate with up to 25 distant members per month, people who are not within 2 friends of you and not in the same Networks as you." This is the new restriction posing as a benefit. However it's a fair call. If you needed to build a network and you can only invite 25 distant members a month, you can still contact a lot of people in a year. Considerately contacting new people takes time. You must choose your audience and write only to people who are likely to be interested. You can use pivot searching to find people who share interests.

"If you want, you can let any member communicate with you, without counting towards their communication limit." You should turn that option on, it doesn't help you, but it may help others.

Increase Your Ability to "See" and "Be Seen": Ryze says, "Web site URLs in profiles are now only visible if you're a Gold member or visiting a Gold member's page, or within 2 friends of the person." That means that if you are promoting a business, your business URL will not be visible to many "free members" unless you are a Gold or Platinum Member. In addition as a paying member you get to see almost all the content of any members page, including their business links and the networks they have joined. (But not their guestbook's if they are set to "friends Only".)

"Have your photo displayed in a large size (instead of tiny) next to your posts to the message boards, giving you better visibility and marketing" It's certainly true that recognition by your photograph is very useful. People are visual, they remember images.

Scan the List of Newest Members: Ryze says, "Save 4 hours each month using the Newest Members List -- Scan through mini-bios of the newest members all in one page without having to click through to each." This is a non-benefit pretending to have value. New members are not good material to network with. (They might be great to send spam too, but we're not doing that.) A few of those who join are new to Ryze but not really internet newbies. People like that will find materials like this Blog quite easily. They will very soon come to visit you. Trying to chase them isn't good use of your time. There are better things to do on Ryze.

New members on Ryze need mentors to help them get established. I suggest to Ryze that they establish a mentor programme for volunteer established members. A trade off. New Members are asked to choose a mentor, to be their "guide for a month". The person chosen gets a month's Gold Membership. Thousands of people join Ryze and never really get started. What a waste.

(Off Topic Note) Internet Newbies: Internet Newbies (About 80% of all Internet users in my view.) are unresponsive to realistic messages. They are newbies because they lack understanding and confidence. Any time you spend on them is 90% wasted. Please note that I believe training newbies is a very important task. This Blog is my response to that need. But I'm not going to hold every hand until each one develops the confidence to be independent. There is an enormous need to train newbies, but it costs a fortune in time and effort. I've met people with five years of internet experience who remain newbies. The main problem is that they won't "join" so they never get into a group where they might learn something. All learning is social. Newbies are human beings. They are probably engaged in some other social activity, that gives them pleasure. In the worst case they watch TV. They don't want to "join" or to be "trained" so they "resist" in every conceivable way. They will learn when they are "ready" and not before. Newbies have to turn themselves "on". Joining Ryze is a wonderful step in the right direction. But thousands of people join Ryze, partly set up a Ryze Homepage and then lose interest or get frightened off by fear of the unknown.

Your Own Network: Gold members can "Create a Network on Ryze, adding hundreds to your network and increasing your prominence and visibility" This is a real benefit, but most network leaders fail to build successful networks. Note the emphasis on "adding hundreds to your network". That will only happen if you know how to work with people. There is a great deal involved in being a successful network leader. Much of it is in the art of being useful to other people.

Success as a network leader involves choosing an interesting topic, setting fair rules for your network and creating yourself a large number of interesting posts while the membership slowly grows. You can use the pivot search process to identify people who might enjoy your network. As a Gold Member you can contact up to 25 such people every month and advise them about your network. Please do more than that. Be useful to these people, offer them something that helps.

There is a Ryze Network called Ryze Network Leaders and another one called The Virtual Handshake. All people leading networks should join both of those.

Writing in HTML: Ryze says, "Use of an HTML Editor, that lets you create your home page, message board posts, event descriptions, etc., without programming or installing software (it's in Flash)" I view this as a doubtful benefit. There are much better HTML editors available free. I usually suggest using the Composer function of the old Mozilla browser.
Warren Contreras suggests the Arachnophilia Editor which looks functional to me.
I've just discovered the joy of Mozilla's Firefox Browser, and you can add the CuneAform HTML Editor to it's toolbar.

You only need six or eight tags to write functional HTML text for letters to Ryze forums. Anyone can do it.

Face to Face Meetings: Ryze tell us to "Save $3+ at Ryze mixers and other featured events (easily covers at least half the cost of gold membership)" This is another doubtful benefit. You have to spend money to make the "saving" and there needs to be a programme of Ryze Mixers in your area. On the other hand people report excellent benefits from attending Ryze Mixers. Any social gathering is as good or as bad as it's organization. That depends entirely on the skills and abilities of the local organizer. If the leadership is good the mixers will be worthwhile.

Be a Person of Value: Ryze suggests that you should "Plan for productive networking at Mixers using the View Attendees Bio's. You get a summary of all attendees' backgrounds all in one page, without having to click through to each! So you can connect with the 5-10 most relevant people for you to network with at an event." This is another benefit in theory, that doesn't exist for most people. The emphasis here is on, "What can I get for me." The focus should be on, "What do I have to give the group?" Make yourself USEFUL to other people. Start by reading their Ryze Homepage's, take an interest in their posts to networks, listen to what they say. Be real to them.

Platinum membership

Ryze Platinum Membership costs $19.95 per month (Annual Platinum Membership $199.95)

"With a Platinum membership, you can: Enjoy all the benefits of a Ryze Gold membership, plus"
"Lead up to 3 Networks on Ryze, instead of just one, giving you more visibility and the ability to market to different groups with different focuses." There is a huge amount of work to leading one successful network, let alone three. Leading three networks on different topics is likely to confuse people about your purpose.

I can see uses for multiple networks in a business framework. You can run an active public network, and run two related "private" networks for your "paying customers". Access to the main network is open to all. Access to the private networks is restricted, invitation only, and subject to your approval.

Plus; you can "Communicate with up to 35 distant members per month, people who are not within 2 friends of you and not in the same Networks as you." That's the ability to contact 10 additional distant members a month. Useful I guess, but if you are running three networks you'll probable never get the chance to use them.

Innovation Realities

The new restrictions on what you can see and who you can contact are I believe intended to drive up Gold Membership. I expect that after some people drop away, that effect will occur. Ryze needs a strong revenue model. If the network doesn't produce cash returns it will die. Ecademy tries to drive up revenue with advertising. Let's not use that model on Ryze.

[insert] Adrian Scott, Ryze Founder & CEO remarks in comment "1" below "The changes are designed to reduce spam and encourage thoughtful networking. The effects on Gold membership are unknown and a risk for Ryze, rather than a goal of these changes." There is access to the "Updated version: improving the quality and experience of business networking on Ryze" here. Thank you Adrian for the input. I don't mind being wrong, I just wish it didn't happen all the time. [/Insert]

In my view Ryze Platinum Membership, has been badly thought through. My expertise is in innovation. My knowledge tells me that all innovations are messy, and when large groups of people are involved bloody too. It's easy to be wise afterwards, very difficult looking forward.

None of us really know why Ryze works so well, and what small changes might enhance it or kill it. All our theories about that are simply ideas that we can't easily test. What will happen because guestbook's have become "Friends Only" areas for most people? We can't tell. Ryze hopes that people will use the guestbook's for chatty little personal notes I guess. Text Messaging via guestbook's perhaps. Maybe that will work. That's not what I see as the purpose of a guestbook.

There is enormous opportunity for Ryze and several other Social Networks to grow and prosper. These are early days. As our experience grows we begin to see new possibilities. We try to make changes that take us forward. We do something. We learn. Some of what we learn confounds our expectation. Why? We get some new ideas and we try again. Research Scientist, Andrew Wylie (He published in 1972 a paper on the discovery of apoptosis), described the innovation (discovery) process as like crawling down a blackened corridor on hands and knees looking for an exit. The problem is that you can find exits into rooms that have no real windows and only a single door, back into that black corridor. Trying to move forward with any innovation is like that. When you can "see" you are probably not making progress. When you are making progress you usually can't be sure if you're doing the right or the wrong thing. What you can be sure of, is that time teaches valuable lessons to those with eyes to see. We are all wiser with hindsight.

The latest changes to Ryze are interesting. Lessons will be learnt. Real innovations take a long time. Progress is made in many small steps, not always successful steps. It's important to conserve resources. Wrong moves and mistakes teach you how to succeed. So long as innovators maintain their resource base ( best ideas, people, customer base, leadership and cash) they can go forward to fight another day.

If innovation interests you see the Veech Innovation Network on Ryze.

John S Veitch
You may comment privately to John S Veitch using this form.

Technorati Tags Gold member Platinum member distant members network leader new members Adrian Scott HTML useful Ryze success Ryze

How to Prosper On Ryze - Free Access

How to Prosper On Ryze - Free Access

Privacy: When you join the Ryze Business Network your page is marked "private" until you make it "public". This gives you time to organise your page and make it look interesting. Provide a small photograph, if not of yourself, then of something that you are interested in. Add some basic personal details, but don't include your real email address. Find half a dozen quotes you like and put them on the page. Make your page "public".

Your Ryze Name: You might also notice that almost everyone on Ryze, joins using their personal name, their real name. There are quite a number who choose a nickname, and a few who register under a business name. Using real names encourages trust. But it's possible that using a real name could cause you problems. How confident are you? How public is your real life? I've had lots of good things occur on Ryze because I use my real name. But I've also been abused by two people. (Called a "communist" and "Liberal moron" and a few similar things.) I'm a big boy, and things that are not true only hurt if you let them. Still there was a spat, I stepped up to the plate in defence of civil discussion and I got abused for it. That seldom happens on Ryze, but it's possible.

Who You Can Contact: Ryze says, "Basic level members can only communicate with people within 2 friends of them, or in the same networks as them." This means that there is encouragement for you to join many networks, or to develop a large lists of "friends". I personally think that works against building the best quality networks, but this emphasis on numbers is driven by commercial realities. Ryze is still learning how to make a great social success into a stable business.

Guestbooks: Ryze Guestbooks are "On". You have the option to turn your guestbook "Friends Only" or to turn it "Off". You can change your guestbook Preferences Setting. I suggest that you keep your guestbook public, but there might be good reasons why you would not want that. (You might for instance be the Prime Minister of some country. You need to lurk, but you don't want to be "public" and you of course don't use your real name.)

Scott Allen is one of the leading authorities on internet networking. Scott says, "I'm a big advocate of guestbooks, but I believe they're best used to promote the other person, not yourself. Thank them publicly for a favour they've done you, congratulate them on a recent success, provide a testimonial regarding their product or service, etc. Do them a service by calling public attention to something positive about them. And you look better in the process, too."

Public Guestbooks: When people visit your page they may leave a guestbook entry. In the beginning you might be "attacked" by a few foolish people trying to attract a newbie into their network marketing scheme. If you are not interested pay no attention. Delete the guestbook entry. When you visit a members Ryze page, you may have a chance of leaving a guestbook entry. If you have something interesting and positive to say, by all means make an entry. If your thoughts are negative, don't bother. It's a rare person who will appreciate an honest but critical remark. Save your efforts for things that are productive.

Join some networks: I suggest that in the beginning you join one high traffic network and six to ten low traffic networks. You can't tell which is which until you see the traffic flows. Join networks that are related to things that interest you. Use the filter on your email system to direct all the mail from Ryze Networks into a Ryze Network folder, this mail should not go into your inbox at all. If you have joined a high traffic network the mail messages from that network will be huge, maybe as many as 100 letters a day. Turn the message notification to that network off. Decide to visit that network every day, and be sure you do that. The other networks with low traffic will get mail in little bursts. There may be nothing for a week or so and then a little clutch of 4-10 letters. You need email notification for networks like that.

Ryze says, "The Networks section of home pages is only visible to members within 2 friends or who are both in the same Network." That means that one restriction on free members is the inability to see who's there, and to see all the information about the people who are there. This policy forces "free members" to join more networks if they want to extend their range of contacts. I think that leads to silly behaviours like joining networks you never visit and have little interest in.

Successful Lurking: Now you need to spend perhaps half an hour a day reading the mail on your networks. They call this reading behaviour "lurking" because although you are a member, and although you read the mail, none of members of the network know you are there. This is a learning time. You will lurk until you have the knowledge and the courage to change your status and to write something yourself. Most people can't imagine that they will do that. Please remember this idea for later use: As a reader of a list or network you are not fully engaged. Once you identify yourself and begin to write to a network your engagement with the group changes, and the benefits of membership begin to multiply. All learning is social, but to benefit you need to behave in a social way. You decide when to claim your full rights as a peer. That starts when you begin to offer your own viewpoint in a public forum.

Friends: One of the standard features of the social network scene is the identification of friends. As a new member, you may feel obliged to accept everyone who turns up as a "friend". You need not do that, just accept as "friends" those people you have developed a knowledge of, people who are known to you and who have a good reputation in your eyes. Choose your friends wisely. And choose wisely when you ask someone you know to be identified as your friend too. Current Ryze policy encourages people to add as many people as possible to their "friends List" which is entirely contrary to what I think a friends list should be. There is pressure for a second level of friends, perhaps, "People I know", but that option doesn't currently exist.

Contact Manager: On Ryze there is an option to place a record in your "Contact Manager" when you visit the homepage of any Ryze Member. This tool is poorly understood and poorly used. I suggest you establish a routine were you add to your contacts anyone you are likely to be interested in at some future time. You can edit the information in the Contact Manager. If you leave a guestbook entry or send a personal massage, you might choose to record the date in the Contact Manager. If you make an offer to someone, you might record the date and the type of offer made. There is a place for Phone Numbers. Email, URL:, Company, Company Address, Home:, Home Address, Category, Follow Up Date, Interests, and Notes plus a direct link to the persons Ryze Homepage. I've neglected this facility, but now I see that I can edit the record and that it's private to myself, I'll make more use of it.

Pivot and Advanced Searching:You can use the pivot search process to build a list of people who work in an industry, or to find out who lists photography as a hobby, or who shares my interest in innovation. If I'm looking for specific and uncommon expertise, this can be valuable. As a free member though, you will not be able to "see" all the people available because of the "two degrees" restriction.

Collecting "Knowledge" Data: There are several more things you need to do as a member of Ryze to get the best benefits. First of all look for ideas and opinions that inform your knowledge base; learn. I end up printing several pages a day of interesting material collected on Ryze. I cut and paste the best letters, or parts of them into my word processor, edit slightly to remove extra blank lines and extraneous address details, and print the resulting text. It's much more efficient to read papers than to read text on screen. (However it also costs much more. I run a laser printer.) The very best of these papers eventually get filed in a subject labeled vertical file.

People Data: Second, find people you identify as interesting and knowledgeable. Perhaps you might print part of the homepage's of those people, and keep that detail in a folder somewhere. Too little attention is given to finding good people. When you seek information on a topic you find something useful but specific. When you find a good person, he or she is likely to have sound ideas on hundreds of topics. Good people are the pure gold of networking. Of course you will do your best to be a "good person" in the eyes of other people. Ryze works because mostly that's what people are doing.

Network Data: When you visit the Ryze pages of people you admire, check-out the networks they have joined. Have they found something interesting that might interest you? Some of the Networks you originally joined will be run by people who have poor leadership skills. Leave. You don't have the time to waste. As a free member sometimes the network memberships of a person you are visiting won't be visible to you.

Writing to Networks: You can write to networks in plain text. Write only when you have something to say. Please avoid wasting the valuable time of other people, by posting two line "replies" that add nothing to the knowledge of the group. Form an opinion. Express your opinion. Quote from previous letters, but generally delete any previous text that's not part of the issue under discussion. You only become a full member of a network once you begin to post your own letters. When that happens your interest in the network will increase, and other people will learn that you are there, and who you are too.

Writing in HTML: This seems like an advanced skill to a newbie. If you need to, get a copy of the Mozilla Browser which has a WYSIWYG editor caller Mozilla Composer in it. You can make headings, bold text, change fonts, and create links all without any special skills to learn. You can view the source, and you can cut and paste the source into a Ryze page or a Ryze letter. It's a simple process. You'll soon learn how to make minor changes to the source code. One day you will find you don't need the WYSIWYG editor any more.

John S Veitch
You may comment privately to John S Veitch using this form.

Technorati Tags Ryze Business Network Ryze name communicate guestbooks contact manager your knowledge good people your opinion free member writing HTML

Social Networks like Ryze and Xing

Newbies Avoid Social Networks like Ryze and Xing

Newbies Avoid Social Networks like Ryze and Xing, they even avoid places like MySpace. They say that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Likewise you can give people good advice but you can't make them understand it. Below I try to give you some excellent advice. You choose what to do.

There is so much that is new on the internet, much of it confusing to newbies. The news media is often seeking to promote fear of the internet, creating a negative attitude in the community and making many people reluctant to explore what the internet can really do. If you are connected socially with people who are not really internet literate, you will learn from them how to be like them, internet illiterate. All learning is social. Find the most skilled user group you can. Mix with them. They will teach you what you need to know.

To learn about life on the internet you You will probably need to change these settings, but the idea is to understand the need to mix with people who are strong internet users. You can find people like that on Ryze.

You'll only become a full citizen on the internet when you are a member of a group which contains people who have good skills. Social networks like Ryze and Xing offer that opportunity. Even so, most of the people who join such networks never learn to reap the benefits of their membership. If you just sign up, nothing will happen except that your space will be reserved. You need to participate to get any benefit, you need to become socially involved.

I'll talk about Ryze, because that's the network I know best. Xing has some nice features too, but it's even more complex and more difficult for newbies to cope with. Free membership of Xing is a bit restrictive. Free membership on Ryze lets you do a great deal more.

This rather long piece is more than busy people need. For a quicker way to get to the key things see "First Steps on Ryze" before you read this one.

Getting Started on Ryze

Your Basic Page Header: On Ryze when you join you get an opportunity to establish a home page, with some details about yourself. What your name is, your present occupation, the firm you work for, the university you attended, the city you live in, your goals and objectives. Without these basic details your page can't begin to function. Then you can add a photograph, the web address of your company, and if you have them, your personal web page and your personal blog address. These latter enhancements are useful but not essential parts of a Ryze page.

Privacy: Your first Ryze page is private and your guestbook is set "on" for public access. (You can change it to "Friends Only" but since you probably don't have any "friends" yet that means there is really no guestbook.) This permits a few foolish newbies on Ryze to spam your page. That might last about as week until your listing as a new member ends. You can delete those messages if you choose. Don't be put off, it won't last. Yes the big frightening world of public internet use does exist, but it's very safe on Ryze, trust me. More on this later.

Show that you are a real person: Within a few weeks of joining Ryze you should put some personal text into your Ryze page, perhaps adding some small photographs. Most people do this by choosing some quotes they like and they include a photo or two. An image of the city you live in, perhaps a family photograph and a pet photograph. Simple stuff. Sadly hundreds of people who join never have the confidence to do that. Their pages never become interesting to read. The message is clear, "I'm not an interesting person, please ignore me." They will get their wish.

Join some Networks: On Ryze there are hundreds of networks that you may join, most of which have a very low message load, but some of which get hundreds of messages a day. People can't know that when they join. Far too many people never join any networks. Some people join a large number, and turn off the email notices about postings. In both cases you are essentially not connected.

I suggest you join several networks. Make a list of your interests. In the Search Function on the Networks Page try each of your interests in turn. Join some of the networks that you find. Leave the mail option functioning. One or two of those groups are bound to have massive mail traffic. When you see that go back to the network page and turn mail from that network off. Make it part of your schedule to visit that network, once every day.

Don't let yourself be overwhelmed with 100 or more new letters suddenly arriving in your inbox. Use your mail filter to put all Ryze Network Mail into a Ryze Folder on your hard-drive. ( All mail from "Ryze Networks-Admin".)

If you've done that much you have set the foundation to be a successful member on Ryze. If you need help with any part of that, ask someone.

Try these networks where beginners questions are welcome
http://htmlhelper-network.ryze.com/ HTML Helper
http://thevirtualhandshake-network.ryze.com/ The Virtual Handshake
http://nfst-network.ryze.com/ Networkers First Stop

John S Veitch
You may comment privately to John S Veitch using this form.

Technorati Tags social networks joining Internet Literate peer to peer literate email folders Internet safety Ryze rules lurking