Home

Partners

Workshops

Software

Contact

 'A basic tenet of almost all social capital theories is that a network is one of the most powerful assets that any individual can possess.  It provides access to power, information, knowledge, and to other networks-the totality of which provides a much better indicator of how 'well-off' one is than many more acknowledged sources of wealth or advantage.

  Lawrence Prusack & Don Cook

Social Capital Group

Making Organizations and Networks More Intelligent.

Why Personal Networks Matter to Organizations

Two Examples and Four Myths

List with more examples.

First Myth:  Senior executives don't need to use Web-enabled professional network tools.

Second Myth:   Using a professional social network is for people who like "networking".

Third Myth:   Using the organization's collective social networks only benefits a few people in the organization.

Fourth Myth:  Having a profile in a professional social network is enough to get the benefits.

Demonstration Projects:  Putting it all together, and proving the case in your own organization

First example:

You’re an entrepreneur looking for funding from a VC -- or a social entrepreneur looking for funding from a foundation.   You can do your research and find the funding source you think looks like the best fit and send them a business plan or proposal – and join a very long line of others doing the same.    Or, you can also search your organization’s professional network using a free Web service like LinkedIn and find who can personally give you the inside story on which funding sources to approach and who can also personally introduce you to someone who trusts their judgment. 

 
Second example:

You need to hire a new executive or key staff person and the supply of truly great talent is tight.   You can post the job, do the interviews and check references, and hope.   Or, you can also alert your professional network of the job and have those people forward the job to their networks.   Once you’ve found someone, you can also quickly find who in your trusted network has a connection to your candidate in order to get an honest and confidential appraisal.

Generic examples of needs where the organization's social network can produce high value:

• Business development, strategic partnerships, & funding
• Finding, validating, and hiring new employees & consultants;
• PR & marketing;
• Managing & tapping alumni relationships;
• Effective use of teams (internal, cross-boundary, and virtual);
• Knowledge sharing and Organizational Learning and Development; 

First Myth about Professional Social Networks:

Only introverts and junior staff need to use professional networking tools like LinkedIn.  People with many years of experience already have great personal networks and don’t need those tools. 

Not so.  Otherwise there would not be hundreds of thousands of senior executives (from Fortune 500 companies and smaller), venture capitalists and foundation executives, attorneys and other senior people already using and benefiting from these tools.    Experienced senior people already have great networks, but they’re not omniscient.   From experience they may know exactly which two or three trusted colleagues to ask when they need a new inside connection or intelligence; but in actuality, they don’t know what they’re missing by only talking to those two or three.   By being able to search several hundred of their important personal connections, and the extensive trusted networks of those several hundred people, they are often able to find important connections which they would not have found without a tool that can quickly search through a map of literally millions of trusted connections that make up the networks available to their organization.    

Even small organizations (fewer than 20 people) can have hundreds of thousands of trusted connections two degrees out (contacts of the organization’s closest members and contacts of those contacts) and millions more three degrees out.  These networks are large; and they are based on trusted connections and are extremely valuable.  But because they’re so large a robust social network database and search engine is required to tap anywhere near the full potential of the network.
 

Second Myth:   

Using a professional social network is the same as “networking.” 

“Networking” often refers to the practice of attending business events and exchanging leads with people you’ve just met and know little about.   There is nothing wrong with this and many people use this technique to increase their success.  However, here we are talking primarily about using trusted personal networks; that is, people with whom you’ve already established mutual trust and reciprocal relationships.  

Third Myth: 

Very few people in most organizations have frequent needs to use their own trusted networks or the networks of their organization. 

To be precise, this is actually not a myth.  However, it is not a good reason for most people in an organization to not participate in a professional networking tool.   There are instead several good reasons why it’s in their own interest to participate. 

First, by participating they will help make their organization more successful.  Specifically, they will be contributing their personal social capital to their organization so that the smaller number of executives and staff who do have frequent and high-value needs to use the network can be more successful (with funding, hiring, obtaining inside intelligence, introductions, and influence). 

Second, they will be helping both their colleagues in their current organization, and their colleagues in other organizations, including organizations working on causes they care about.   Social capital is always increased by extending help whenever possible. 

Third, they may not have frequent needs to use the trusted network, but they do have at least occasional needs where the value can be very high, both for doing their current jobs, and for the times when they’re ready to move on to new challenges.    For less active users, keeping an updated presence in a site like LinkedIn takes only minutes a few times at year (at most).   Yet it insures that their accessible network will be robust and useful when they need it; and it will also insure that they won't miss any opportunities sent their way through their trusted connections.

Fourth Myth:

Having a profile in a professional social network is enough to get the benefits.

Again,  this is only partially true.   It is very helpful for an organization to have a number of people who have professional profiles and connections in a shared Web-enabled social network.   However, it's also essential for the people in the organization who can benefit most from using the network to understand how to fully use it, and then to actually use it.    This is the intent of the workshops we offer, and the follow-on demonstration project that some organizations may want to consider..    

The Demonstration Projects that we are facilitating go beyond the scope of a workshop to help organizations and individual professionals implement what has been learned to create viral, peer-driven processes for both growing and using the organization's networks, and to measure and learn from the results.   For more information about these services, please contact Duncan Work, duncan@socialcap.net, or reach him via LinkedIn.