Tag: communication

How do I network effectively? Good tools help!

I’m really looking forward to being one of the three panelists at tomorrow’s Capital Ideas Edmonton event tackling the question, “How do I network effectively?” I guess you could say I have had some success with networking and I definitely have some ideas and thoughts on the subject to share!

How do you approach someone in a crowd without seeming pushy? How can you best connect with someone you meet at an event? Should you send a follow up after first connecting? You have been sharing your networking advice, and now we’re asking three Edmonton entrepreneurs to share their experiences.

We’ll get into those questions and many more during lunch tomorrow, and my sense is that we’ll quickly coalesce around the notion that you simply can’t beat face-to-face interaction. We’ll probably touch on technology, but I don’t think it’ll be the focus. For that reason, I thought it might be interesting to share some of the tools I use to help me network effectively.

Business Cards

I look forward to a time when everyone carries around a device equipped with NFC technology so that we can just tap devices and have contact information shared instantly. We’re not there yet however, so most of us rely on business cards to pass our details to someone else. I tried to do away with business cards for a while, thinking that anyone could Google me really quickly. That experiment didn’t last long though – I learned that people like having something tangible. I’m still using the business cards I designed back in 2009 (with some minor adjustments) and I find they work well. I only have my website and email addresses on the front of the card, which reflects my preference for online communication instead of the phone. On the back of the card is a tag cloud with organizations and words that hopefully jog someone’s memory about where or how they met me. Plus, I think it looks cool! The challenge of course is that I always think of things to add to the tag cloud before I run out of cards. Notably absent at the moment? What the Truck?!.

Website

I have resisted the temptation to make my blog the “front page” of my website specifically so that I have a more static place to put contact information, a brief bio, and a photo. I think this useful for people who want to find out more after looking at a business card or my Twitter profile or some other page that lists my URL. I treat my website as a hub for all of my online activities (you’ll find links to most of my social media profiles). One new service that does this for you is about.me and if you don’t already have a website, I would recommend taking a look at it. Here’s my page.

Online Calendar

You can very often find me at Credo Coffee or one of the other coffee spots downtown because I love meeting with people face-to-face. I will sometimes initiate but very often I get messages from others who want to meet with me to discuss something. I found that keeping track of all the emails and going back-and-forth on availability was time consuming and error prone, so I started looking for tools to help. I settled on Doodle a few months ago, which I had already started using to organize group meetings with others.

Doodle has a great feature called MeetMe which gives you a page that others can use to book time with you (Tungle.me is another option). This requires syncing your calendar with Doodle, but it supports all of the popular options such as Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal, etc. You can see my Doodle page here. Scheduling meetings is now really easy – I just point people to my Doodle page and they can suggest a time that works for them! I have scheduled more than three dozen meetings this way, and I now wonder how I ever got by without it. The basic service is free, but there’s a paid option if you want to customize your page.

Email & CRM

I have been a very happy Exchange/Outlook user for years, and last year I made the transition to Office 365 which is Microsoft’s hosted service. Whether you choose Exchange, Gmail, or some other service doesn’t matter too much, as long as you have access to it from anywhere. I don’t currently use a separate CRM tool, though I have given it some thought (not sure it is worth the effort). What I do right now is store contact details and simple notes about people in my Exchange address book, and I store longer form meeting notes (if necessary) using OneNote. I used Evernote for a while, but I’ve chosen the Microsoft ecosystem, and OneNote simply works better with Outlook, Skydrive, my Windows Phone, etc.

Social Networking

Have a favorite service? Chances are I am “mastermaq” there. I have profiles at most places, though my main networks are Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. These services are great for keeping in touch with people, but they are also a great way to augment my address book. My Windows Phone automatically links contacts from my address book and social networking services together so that I have one master contact list. I can’t tell you how many times I haven’t had a phone number or email address in my Exchange address book but have found it via someone’s social networking profile. Very handy! And the best part is that you don’t really have to keep your address book up-to-date – your contacts do it for you.

Reminders

I use a combination of services to make sure that I don’t forget to follow-up on something or with someone, and I have to admit that I still miss things from time to time (I have a terrible memory). First, I make extensive use of flags in my email. If I can’t deal with something right away, I’ll flag it so that I can review it later. Second, I make use of lists and flags inside of OneNote. Sometimes it’s just easier to have a page with a list of stuff that I know to check. Third, I generally set reminders on events in my calendar. Fourth, and probably most important, I use Remember the Milk. There are dozens and dozens of task list or reminder services out there, but RTM does everything I need it and more. It is frequently updated and improved, it works on pretty much every device, it integrates with a ton of other services, and it’s fast and easy-to-use. Best of all, unless you need some of the advanced features, it is free!

Sync & Backup

I guess underlying all of the tools I have talked about above is that everything is synced to my various computers and devices automatically, as well was backed up. I use both Dropbox and Skydrive very extensively. While these are not “networking” tools, they are important to make sure that all the effort you put into writing things down isn’t all of a sudden lost one day!

Other

Although recent devices and software have improved the situation greatly, I think QR codes are still more of a gimmick than a useful tool. My preference would be to use a short URL that is relatively easy to type or write down instead of a QR code.

And finally yes, I will absolutely Google you before we meet!

I hope you find some of these tools useful for your own networking activities. More importantly, I’d love to hear about the tools you use that I haven’t even discovered yet! Let me know in the comments below.

Can Facebook become the new default?

I find Facebook incredibly useful, if not particularly exciting. My usage reflects that – I like to add people on Facebook in order to maintain connections, and I like to keep my profile looking fresh, but I rarely surf Facebook like I used to. Yet there’s no escaping Facebook. The numbers tell the story. Check out these statistics compiled for a recent Fortune article:

  • 175 million members
  • 3 billion total daily minutes of use
  • 850 million photos uploaded each month
  • 15 million who update their status daily
  • 24 million pieces of content shared each month

Very impressive. Also in the sidebar, Fortune looks at the race to 150 million users. That feat took Facebook 5 years, versus 7 years for the iPod, 14 years for the cell phone, 38 years for the television, and 89 years for the telephone. Obviously it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but you get the idea (and notice how other technologies such as Google or Windows are left out).

With numbers like that, it’s not hard to listen to Mark Zuckerberg and actually think he’s got a shot at achieving his new goal:

"We think that if you can build one worldwide platform where you can just type in anyone’s name, find the person you’re looking for, and communicate with them," he told a German audience in January, "that’s a really valuable system to be building."

In the article, author Jessi Hempel positions Facebook as the new phone system, but I think the new email system is perhaps a more reasonable comparison. I think the “default” right now when you make a connection is to get an email address. You collect business cards at events and they all have phone numbers and email addresses but how many people actually pick up the phone? Email is the default.

What if Facebook could become the new default? Clearly, that’d be a big deal.

Already I think Facebook is the default platform for events, and most people seem to think it’s the default for photos. Can it become the default for communication in general? As I’ve said before, I think Facebook Connect is a step in that direction.

Please don't send me large files via email

email If you’ve ever sent me a large file through email, you probably know how much I hate it. No one escapes a lecture! Just because GMail and other services give you gigabytes of storage, doesn’t mean that it’s okay to send really large attachments. I was happy to read that one my favorite blogs posted about the subject today. From the Microsoft Office Outlook Team Blog:

Putting any issues with your e-mail service provider’s limits on large messages aside, sending large attachments through e-mail is still a bad idea for a number of reasons.

In the post, Outlook Program Manager Ryan Gregg outlines a few of the reasons why you shouldn’t send large files via email – mail servers may reject large files, mailboxes may go over their quota, attachment bloat, attachments may be out of date, etc. He also outlines a number of alternatives, including SharePoint or a Shared File Server, Office Live, photo sharing sites like Flickr, and video sharing sites like YouTube.

When you use one of these alternative ways to share files with your friends, family, or colleagues you help them keep your mailbox and theirs clean, and you can be sure that your file will be available no matter what service or program your e-mail recipients are using.

I would add a couple more reasons to avoid sending large files: slow Internet connections and small devices. If I’m checking email on an unreliable connection, the last thing I want to do is wait for your images to download. If I’m checking email on my iPod touch or a cell phone, I might not be able to read the files anyway.

If you’re sending photos, why not stick them on Flickr and email a link? Same goes for video – use a site like YouTube. Some other alternatives include Box.net, Amazon S3, and SlideShare.

It doesn’t take a lot of extra effort to stick your file online somewhere first, so why not just do it? Send links to large files via email, not the files themselves!

Why Messaging via Facebook Rocks

facebook Facebook has a ton of interesting features, but one of the most boring is increasingly becoming my favorite – messages. The wall is what most people think of when communicating via Facebook, but private messages are the way to go when you’d rather not have everyone reading what you have to say.

Here’s why I like messaging via Facebook:

  1. There’s no need to remember someone’s email address. There are lots of reasons that people get new email addresses, such as when they graduate, switch jobs, or switch ISPs. Unless you converse with someone regularly, keeping track of their email address can be a bit of a pain. On Facebook, all you need to know is a name.
  2. There’s no need to manage an address book. One solution to the above problem of remembering email addresses would be to create and maintain an address book. That can be quite a bit of work though. On Facebook, everyone is responsible for keeping their own information up-to-date, so you don’t have to worry about it.
  3. Receiving a message via Facebook is contextually appropriate. When you receive an email, it shows up in your inbox alongside messages for work, bacn, and spam. With Facebook however, you’re there specifically for communication, so you’re in the right frame of mind to be receiving messages from others. And so far, there’s no spam.
  4. It works on your mobile phone. You can setup Facebook to send your messages to you via SMS. You can also send messages to others by prefixing your text message with “msg firstname lastname”. Sure you can do something similar with some email providers, but it’s never simple to setup, and you often need a smartphone of some kind.
  5. Profile information is just a click away. When you receive an email from someone, you see their name, address, and message. If you’re lucky, they’ll have a signature with other information, but don’t count on it! On Facebook, simply click on the person’s name and you can see all their relevant contact info, their status, friends, and more.

It’s often the simplest features that are the most useful!

Facebook Instant Messaging

facebook If there’s one thing the world needs, it’s yet another instant messaging service. Okay, that was sarcastic! What we really need are better ways for the existing IM services to work together. Anyway, TechCrunch reported today that Facebook is getting ready to launch its own instant messaging service:

Our understanding is that the service will be built into user’s Facebook pages and allow them to web chat with their Facebook friends.

Also, just to be clear, I have not heard that Facebook intends to launch any desktop software around this.

I’m not sure who this is intended for. Everyone I would talk to on instant messaging I already have on Windows Live Messenger. And WLM is an excellent piece of desktop software! I’m not sure if you’ve used meebo, but I have, and while it is cool, it’s just not the best experience for IM.

Maybe they want to add this just to try and move more communication onto Facebook, as Nick O’Neill wrote about today.

Would you use Facebook IM? I think I’d definitely try it, but I doubt I’d start using it regularly.

Read: TechCrunch

Undersea cables carry 95% of the world's telephone and Internet traffic

internet cable On Friday I posted about the three undersea cables that were cut, disrupting Internet access in South Asia and the Middle East. Since then, another cable has been cut, and the story is finally starting to get some coverage. The BBC posted about the issue today, and included a really interesting diagram that explains the parts of an undersea cable.

The most interesting article however, comes from the International Herald Tribune:

Most telecommunications experts and cable operators say that sabotage seems unlikely, but no one knows what damaged the cables or whether the incidents were related.

According to the Egyptian government, no ships were in the vicinity of the cables when they were cut. Seems suspicious to me that four cables have been severed in such a short period of time, but who knows. It seems that this bit of Internet infrastructure isn’t as sturdy as one might think.

“This has been an eye-opener for us, and everyone in the telecom industry worldwide,” said Colonel R.S. Parihar, the secretary of the Internet Service Providers Association of India.

Let’s hope the recent incidents result in some action, before the situation gets any worse. Traffic has been re-routed over the last week, but how well would that work if many more cables were cut, say during an attack?

Maybe you’re not convinced that ensuring the safety of undersea cables is important. Consider this:

Undersea cables carry about 95 percent of the world’s telephone and Internet traffic, according to the International Cable Protection Committee, an 86-member group that works with fishing, mining and drilling companies to curb damage to submarine cables.

Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket!

Read: International Herald Tribune

If I were a terrorist…

…I’d launch an attack on undersea cables around the world.

On Wednesday, two such cables near Egypt were cut resulting in a major disruption of Internet access in south Asia and the Middle East. Today, another cable was cut near Dubai. In both cases the cause remains unknown, but ship anchors seem likely.

Why bother with bombing train stations when you can disrupt global communications, apparently by dropping a few anchors? Maybe it’s sick that I thought about terrorism when reading the news, but seriously, it seems to me that this could be a real threat. And I haven’t heard anything about preparing for it.

The image above gives you a good overview, but this very detailed, up-to-date map of the globe’s undersea cabling is better (and much bigger).

Txt Msg on New Year's Eve

Post Image This shouldn’t really be a surprise, but apparently text messaging on New Year’s Eve is a big deal for Canadians. According to Virgin Mobile, we send an average of 31.5 million text messages per day.

Canadians are expected to send a record-breaking 50 million text messages on the evening of Dec. 31, according to Virgin Mobile Canada.

Last year’s New Year’s Eve text message tally was around 25 million.

The article goes on to say that those of us aged 18-30 will send an average of four messages each. That seems like a really small number to me, but who knows. It is an average after all. I probably send that many an hour!

So happy new year, and happy texting!

Read: CBC News

Get ready for micro-media

I wrote another guest post for the Vidfest blog, this time on micro-media. It’s a topic I expect to be talking about a lot more in the coming weeks and months. While relatively new, the concept of micro-media is incredibly powerful, and I think micro-media services will have a massive impact on the way we live and work. I’m already addicted.

Take tonight, for example. I went to the Justin Timberlake concert here in Edmonton (it absolutely rocked btw, more on that later) and I was able to communicate my thoughts in real-time at Twitter, Tumblr, Jaiku, and others. That’s not all though – other people were able to communicate with me too!

Another example is news. I really don’t like newspapers, and I find myself reading online news sites less and less. The reason? I get all the headlines via the BBC and NYTimes streams on Twitter.

There’s some cool stuff happening, and I’ve given it a lot of thought lately. I like where micro-media is going so far.

Anyway, check out my post, and let me know what you think!

Read: Vidfest

Did you have problems with Telus Mobility last night?

I just got off the phone with a client service representative at Telus Mobility. The good news is that their support service is still fast and effective, as I mentioned back in May. The bad news is that the Telus network doesn’t seem incredibly stable.

Around 9 PM last night, my phone stopped working. I couldn’t make or receive any calls, nor could I send or receive text messages. Every attempt was greeted with an annoying “beep beep beep” and text messages just disappeared into the unknown. I was kind of lost without my phone, and I mentioned to Megan that I should almost buy a backup pay-as-you-go phone on another network for precisely this type of thing. She just laughed!

Calls started working again around midnight, but text messaging still was not working this morning. Hence the call to Telus. The service representative asked a bunch of questions, and by the way I was answering, I think she got the hint and asked if this had happened before. I said yes, unfortunately, and asked her to send the clearing message. She did, and also said she was going to “do a reset” which means I have to turn my phone off for twenty minutes. Stange, I know. Hopefully it works.

I wasn’t the only one with problems it seems:

I’d like to know what happened, and if it was limited to just Edmonton and area or whether it was more widespread. Too bad they suck at communicating that sort of thing. Telus needs a blog!