Is your network deep or wide?

Tiger Woods‘ network is very wide–but it turns out it’s not very deep. Few top players turned up to play his tournament over the Fourth of July weekend. When Tiger, Inc., was at its height, the tournament was a who’s who of stars.

I heard one golf commentator state that players feel that Woods has never supported the PGA Tour. Sure, he made everyone a lot of money (including himself), but when was the last time you saw him play the Frys.com Open or the John Deere Classic?

Networks exist in many shapes and sizes. Most of us have a private network of family and close friends that’s walled off from our business selves. It’s deep, but not overly wide. Beyond that innermost circle, we have ever-wider ones of friends, then colleagues, then contacts.

The best networks are both wide and deep. You want breadth to be able to identify potential partners, new business opportunities, and step outside your own bubble. You want depth so that you have a network of friends and colleagues who have your back. How wide and deep our circles are depends on how we nurture them.

When Tiger Woods private life crashed into the open, it opened up the schisms in his network. So we see he may hit a golf ball brilliantly, but he has no well of goodwill among his professional circle.

What kind of network do you have?

Photo by ellenm1 (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

Remember the Deck of Cards that the U.S. military unveiled after the 2003 invasion of Iraq? In addition to Saddam Hussein, it featured a who’s who of the regime’s inner circle. If you’d diagrammed it, you would have been ended up with a traditional hierarchical chart with Hussein at the top and the lines going down from there.

But that’s not how the military found Saddam Hussein. Instead, Col. Jim Hickey and his colleagues developed a social diagram to understand the Iraqi leader’s network of family, close friends, and tribal ties. (Stick with me here, I promise this post isn’t about politics or military strategy.)

At a recent New America Foundation panel discussion on Social Networks and Modern Warfare, Hickey stressed that filling in the pieces and capturing Saddam Hussein was the result of tremendous teamwork–not just by his troops, but in conjunction with special forces and others operating in Iraq.

Hickey also stressed that:

• everyone worked together to exchange information
• there were no silos
• they worked together to pursue opportunities
• no one asked for permission or ran decisions up the chain of command (i.e., they just went with it)

I’m going to suggest that the way the military pursued its objective offers three lessons learned for businesses:

1. We need to rethink influence. Hickey and his colleagues understood that family structures, not government officials, were the key to finding their man. We still over-rely on traditional org. charts rather than looking at how information truly flows within organizations. This has huge implications not only for how companies operate, but also for how we identify good business intelligence.

2. We need to do, then ask. Best Buy‘s Results-Only Work Environment is a good example. The people who developed the strategy didn’t ask permission to implement it; they tested it and proved it worked–and then sought permission to roll it out more widely.

3. Silos have to go. I’ve written about silos before. Hickey did something atypical of many hierarchical organizations: he shared information, and shares the credit today. Companies also need to let go of their fiefdoms.

What would you add?

Photo by striatic (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

During AdWeekDC, the LinkedIn/Facebook/MySpace panel not only gave their definitions of social media, they also talked about how the McCain and Obama campaigns are using social networking.

All three panelists agreed that having an online presence is critical to being a part of the conversation:

• Dale Durrett, LinkedIn, said the candidates are using the site’s polling product to ask about energy policy and other key topics. They’re also using the Q&A feature (1,500 people answered Obama’s first question about economic competitiveness), plus targeted advertising.
• Tim Kendall, Facebook, said his site enables the campaigns to microtarget, such as advertising to everyone betweeen 18-25 living in Boston or to all Facebook members in a specific congressional district or county.
• Jason Oberfest, MySpace, said his site has created a standalone property, MyDebates.org, that links to each candidate’s MySpace page and offers members an opportunity to share their opinions and get up-to-date on the issues.

In the end, social networking is just a tool — and hopefully not the only one in the candidates’ toolbox or yours. As LinkedIn’s Durrett put it, “People need to understand the people aspect, and how they identify with social media. Once you understand who the people are, the next step is the technology.”

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

What is social media? It’s a simple question, and it’s been the source of much discussion of late in the blogosphere. It was also the first question posed this morning to a trio of folks representing MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook at an Advertising Week DC session on Social Networking: Come a Little Closer.

• Jason Oberfest, MySpace, said social media is “about connecting people.” He defined MySpace’s three pillars: 1) members’ self-expression; 2) enabling the discovery of media assets; and 3) enabling people to meet other people with similar interests.
• Tim Kendall, Facebook, called “the social Web the next great platform” after 1) business productivity on the PC; 2) the Internet; and 3) search.
• Dale Durrett, LinkedIn, defined social media as “people using technology to get information and assets from each other (instead of from companies and institutions). He defined LinkedIn’s role as providing business professionals with the ability to be more productive day-to-day by enabling them to reach out quickly and find needed expertise.

Next post I’ll write about the panel’s thoughts on using social media effectively.

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

One of the great things about social media is how one interesting site can lead you to another. Ever since I set up my RSS feed, I’ve been skimming posts from people as diverse as Interesting conference founder Russell Davies and Harvard Business blogger and author Scott Berkun. And I keep adding more feeds. They’re intellectual breadcrumbs that take me from business leadership to social networking strategy to the art of investing in India. Why? Because knowledge is always valuable, and you never know which byte might help reel in your next client.

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

My IABC/Washington Independents Group had a lively discussion last Friday about word-of-mouth marketing and social networking. We talked for a while about how to use these tools and tactics effectively, a conversation triggered in part by our speaker, who boasts membership in multiple social networks and over 6,500 contacts on LinkedIn alone. This broad-based approach to social networking works somewhat well for her business; it wouldn’t be effective for mine.

Following on that conversation, I found a great post from Brand Box blogger Amber Naslund about how to use social networks strategically. Here’s an excerpt:

Taking the time to understand your customers and how they’re using the Web to engage with businesses cannot be underestimated. Not every social site or network is going to be right for every business. And participating in one or two at a really engaged, invested level is much more important than having a face everywhere but a personality nowhere. It’s also important to recognize that just because I enjoy participating in a social community, it doesn’t mean that I’m connecting with a business audience of potential customers. They may be somewhere else entirely.

Read her entire post here.

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

“What’s becoming clear is that you’ve got to be there, or you may be left behind.” –Ilyce R. Glick & Samuel J. Tamkin, Real Estate Matters.

Check out Real Estate Matters in today’s Washingon Post. Simple, succinct outline of why social networking matters for business development and some quick tips for getting started.

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.