Blogpost

Happy New Year!

This is a year for thinking big. To help you accomplish big things, you need people with qualities, skills and knowledge you don’t have. My friend and colleague Mike Klein and I invite you to play a game with us. The game is called 17 in ’17. It is designed to connect you with people in your network (and our network is your network) so that, together, you can accomplish big things and have great, unexpected results.

To participate, please complete this brief survey which will help us with selection and matching.

One of the things we ask in the survey is that you define your need. Make this as clear as possible.

Mike and I will each select 17 participants from those who complete the survey. We will introduce someone different to each of these participants, someone we think will be an amazing resource for what that person is up to.

An exercise in transformational networking

17 in ’17 is designed as an exercise in transformational networking, which, as readers of my book So You Think You Can’t Network, A guide to using your connections as resources know, is distinct from the standard transactional approach of collecting business cards and contacts. Transformational networking recognizes our connections as resources, for us and other people.

An opportunity for IABC and Business Communicators

Mike sees transformational networking as a real growth opportunity for people in his line of work: business communicators. This year we will lead two workshops for business communicators, the IABC EuroComm in London in March and IABC World Conference in Washington in June.  The role of communicators as influencers is increasingly becoming recognized as a huge part of the value we deliver, and our ability to quickly initiate beneficial connections in our organizations and markets produces real impact beyond what get created through messaging and management.

To enter to play 17 in ’17, please complete the survey here.

“Networking is much less a set of skills and much more an applied philosophy.  In a way, it’s organized generosity – sharing your connections with people who can do great things with them.  It’s also a generous way of growing your own power and influence in a community, and of sharing your own needs with people who can help you. That’s worth a lot more than a stack of business cards at the end of a conference.”