Who’s Who in Business Networking (2)…

My buddy Kfir Pravda recently published an excellent, though slightly sexist, post titled “5 Characters We All Met in the Social Media Place“.  

Kfir introduces 5 obsessive/disturbed types –

·        The Babe – a good looking female, which about concludes her attributes.

·        The Plaxo Spammer – an obsessive distributor of (his/her) contact information.

·        The Obsessive Networker – an obsessive collector of connections in the various business and social networks. This character strongly reminded me of The Hunter Guy, I mentioned in my previous Who’s who post.

·        The Virtual Stripper – an obsessive story-teller, where the main hero is oneself…

·        The I-Am-All-About-Business Guy – a healthy individual desperately trying to separate between his professional and personal life, and evoking criticism in the process. This character somewhat reminded me of The Abstaining Guy, I mentioned in my previous Who’s who post.  

Kfir’s post is definitely worth reading and pondering. 

One comment, though -  

Kfir, I do not think of myself as a PC freak, but I do have one issue with your “babes”. I do not ignore the fact that the social media space is abundant with babes, but why not mention that some of them are male?…

Prof. Alice Shalvi is awarded the Israel Prize…

The Israel Prize (“Pras Israel“) is one of most prestigious awards in Israel. It is handed out by the Israeli Government every year, as part of the Independence Day ceremonies and celebrations. It is awarded to Israeli citizens who distinguished themselves with outstanding achievements in various areas, such as art, science, culture, Judaism and more.  

This year, one of the awardees was Prof. Alice Shalvi, who was awarded the prize for her lifetime achievements and contributions in the areas of education and women status in Israel.   

Prof. Shalvi was the headmaster of Pelech, one of the best high-schools in Israel, for 15 years. I had the privilege of attending Pelech under her rule. Prof. Shalvi is an extremely gifted speaker, who could mesmerize an audience of teenage girls (Pelech is an all-girl school) for hours. However, the reason why we learned from her so much (and we did) was her rare leadership style, leadership by example. 

Prof. Shalvi – Your students salute you. Congratulations from the bottom of our hearts.

Happy Birthday Israel…

What do Israelis do on Independence Day?  

Israel is a young country; It still struggles to generate a tradition, common national themes, if you will, for Independence Day.

There are several national ceremonies and celebrations that developed over the years, but I bet that if surveyed, many (if not most) Israelis would answer that they celebrate the occasion with a hearty barbecue (In Hebrew – “Mangal”…), involving family and friends.  

This year, on the Eve of Independence Day, I had the privilege of attending the Ceremony of the Kindling of the Torches. This Ceremony is held every year, and it marks the end of the Memorial Day and the beginning of the celebrations of Independence Day…   

This instant shift from the subdue mood of Memorial Day (most of us have lost friends and/or family members in Israel’s 59 years of continuous struggle) into the ecstatic mood of Independence Day, which I find to be one of the most defining and moving moments, was even more apparent while attending the ceremony in person. 

Happy Birthday Israel!  May “Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces” (Psalms 122:7) 

Oh, and we did hold the traditional family barbecue on the morrow…

The Historian…

I just finished reading “The Historian“, a novel by Elizabeth Kostova. The plot is basically a quest, which develops over time and space for the historical Dracula. It includes several interleaved narratives, and intriguing descriptions of Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria.

My aunt and I enjoy, basically, the same type of books. We both enjoy a good tale. Hence, when I started reading The Historian, I thought I might recommend it to her as well.  I asked her if she liked the horror genre, and she answered that she did not. However, she mentioned, she was in the midst of an excellent historical novel. Turns out both of us were speaking about The Historian.  

This goes to show you that like many excellent novels, this one pertains to multiple genres, and can appeal to multiple tastes. Highly Recommended.

SaaS without HaaS…

The-Marker recently published an article titled “A New and Wonderful World of Software” regarding SaaS – Software as a Service.  

The article is in Hebrew, but is basically outlines the known advantages of SaaS applications. An interesting point that is raised, though, pertains to information security.  

The article quotes some key speakers who claim that one of the main pain-points in SaaS is a psychological barrier, deriving from firms’ apprehension of storing their sensitive information in a remote server.  

I tend to agree. I have experienced the same apprehension during the period I made use of the Salesforce.com CRM. I was quite reluctant to upload detailed information into the CRM, and eventually, this was one of the reasons I gave it up altogether…  

I hope that a trend of SaaS without HaaS would soon emerge, pure Software as a Service, without Hosting as a Service. This means that my information would be kept solely on my servers, while I would be able to run, upon demand, the software itself from the supplier’s server.  

True, this would add a layer of complexity to the software, which would have to identify and deal with cases in which the information is not stored properly on my servers.  

However, SaaS without HaaS is technologically feasible. From the vendor’s perspective, potential advantages that come to mind are –  

1.  Reducing the SaaS psychological barrier. Of course, the vendors would have to convince the Customers that none of their information leaks in the process of using the software.  
   
2. Reducing costs. No need to cater for the information hosting, storage, backup, etc.  

Your thoughts? Yes, dear readers, this is another invitation to comment…

Enough 2.0?…

My buddy, Tsahar, wrote a mutinous post regarding the excessive use of the 2.0 suffix, titled Enough 2.0. He admits that he might be a bit edgy because of the holiday, which was a bit more suffocating that usual, but he does make an interesting point.  

So, for those of you who aren’t Hebrew readers, and cannot enjoy the source, following is a crude translation of the highlights:  

“Change the disk, change the keyboard, or simply change the title, as long as you stop reusing (the term 2.0), especially when the context of the 2.0 to content is extremely vague. 

I don’t have anything personal against the figure 2, but recently, it causes me to become quite edgy. This happens especially when it appears in its community version, 2.0, with another word before it.   

There are ample examples: The Passover holiday became Passover 2.0. In parallel, the Haggadah vas converted to Haggadah 2.0, and our email was full of greetings 2.0….  

So, it may be the unbearable crowdedness during the Passover Seder (2.0?), and maybe I have become less tolerant to title reuse, but I am desperately demanding: Enough 2.0!!!. “.   

In Tsahar’s defense, the Passover Seder, which is usually a large (and long) family gathering, can definitely weigh on one’s nerves.     

However, Tsahar does raise a valid point: 2.0 – banal term that should be banned or brilliant marketing? 

I vote for brilliant marketing. Marketing 2.0, that is…

Tact in Business Networks…

I was presented today with an interesting “moral dilemma” with regard to Business Networks, which got me thinking… 

Let’s say that you are part of a business/social network, and that you receive an invitation to connect from a person with whom you do not want any connection what so ever.  

What’s the “right” or “polite” thing to do? Decline the invitation? Ignore it? Somehow make it disappear from you list of invitations? Should you accept it just out of politeness?

I am not sure there is a text-book answer for this dilemma. Hence, I will share with you my practice in two relevant cases:   

The first (and more straightforward) case is when you receive an invitation to connect from someone you don’t know, was not introduced to you by someone you do know, and does not provide a good enough reason for his request. I receive such invitations on a regular basis (mostly via Skype), and tend to quickly “decline” them (and even block the user). My underlying assumption is that in most of these cases the intent is malicious.   

The second case is when you receive an invitation to connect from someone you do know (perhaps from years ago) or from someone who has been introduced to you by an acquaintance. 

From my perspective, this cases in similar to someone approaching you in a convention. They may be acquaintances you vaguely remember or simply networkers doing some legwork. Chances are that you will never speak to one another again. However, the polite thing to do is to shake hands, exchange some small talk, and perhaps even exchange business cards.    

In a similar manner, I would always accept the on-line invitation of an acquaintance or someone who is referred to me by an acquaintance. These sore of invitation have yielded concrete business for me in more than one cases.  Moreso, in the remote possibility that any of my connections would abuse his welcome, by spamming or in any other way, I would always have the option to remove/block this user…     

P.S. This is as good a chance as any to share with you the fact that my blog has presently accumulated more than 100 views. However, I am still waiting for the first comment, so…

Happy Passover and Easter

Friends, Colleagues and Blog Reader –

Wishing you all Pesach Sameach (Happy Passover), a Happy Easter and a joyful spring and summer ahead.

Social vs. Business Networking…

A friend of mine recently pointed me as to an interesting post by Shahar Nechmad regarding on-line social communities.  One of Shahar’s interesting points is that social communities will thrive if they succeed in –

(a)   bringing local communities together; and (b)  maintaining themselves as closed (and unique) communities 

I make a distinction between social communities and business communities.  While I agree with Shahar’s assessment regarding social communities (his comparison with a bar is a sound one), I believe that people join business communities (which I compare to exclusive clubs) for other reasons.

Hence, other factors would determine whether a business community will enjoy long-term success.

IMHO, the main themes that should be incorporated into successful business communities are:  

• The ability to continuously expand one’s personal business network. This is especially relevant to The Hunter and Addicted characters, which I refer to in a previous post on the subject.
  
• The ability to interact with one’s contact regarding wants and haves. Successful communities allow, for example, mechanisms for seeking and offering jobs, introductions, questions and answers, etc. 
  
• A measure of exclusivity. This is similar, though not identical, to Shahar’s second theme. Even global networks, constantly aiming to expand their users-base, can maintain a measure of exclusivity. For example – by allowing closed groups within the business community.  
  
• Finally, successful business communities should be mail-driven. Some users, especially “Hunters” and “Addicted Guys”, would enter their network on a regular basis regardless if updates were “pushed” to them or not. However, I believe that the majority of users would not. Hence, it is important to allow users to receive major updates via their mail…

The Miracle of Skiing…

Originally, I learned to ski in French. At the time – and if you are following my blog closely, you already know it was 18 years ago – I was a student at the Israeli School in Paris, and our yearly field-trip consisted of 10 days at a ski resort in Chamrousse. Naturally, all ski lessons were held in French.

There is a rich ski-related vocabulary in French. In my recent vacation in Chamonix, after a semi-nasty fall, I complained to Catherine (the excellent bi-lingual ESF ski instructor that led our group) that my falling was due to “loss of traction”.

Catherine, who speaks perfect English, failed to understand my meaning. Naturally, she understood the word traction, but she insisted that it did not apply to skis on snow. Eventually, after some mutual word searching, in English and French, we agreed that my actual meaning was that my fall was due to “loss of the skis’ stickiness on the snow”.

OK, some of you know me by now, and understand that such a statement is not neat enough for me. A candy is sticky, glue might be sticky, but skies?!… 

Anyway, Catherine identified my uneasiness, and thought the problem through. Eventually, when we were riding together on the telesiege (the chair thingy which carries skiers up the slope), Catherine recalled the French word for “stickiness” – adherence – commonly used for describing skis’ stickiness on the snow. Apparently, I fell because my skis lost their “adhérence “.

During the same telesiege ride (which was quite a long one), Catherine and I discussed also what I refer to as the “miracle of ski”.  

Consider tens and hundreds of skiers skiing down the same slope at the same time, mostly in speeds ranging from 20-40 KM/hour, following different routes down the slope, some slaloming (In French: triage) and some skiing straight down, and yet – I seldom saw collisions.  

This phenomena which I consider as one of the miracles of ski, requires each and every skier to concentrate on his route, while following simple rules (ex. The skier coming from above should strive to avoid the skiers below him), and while demonstrating the highest measure of consideration to his/her fellow skiers. This also requires skiers to trust one another, each counting on the other’s skill and adherence to the same simple rules. The concentration, rules, consideration and trust maximizes the chances that all the skiers will reach their goal safely. 

This got me thinking about the business world, which can be at times a ruthless world, where business people do not hesitate to dangerously cross one another in order to maximize their gain. 

Perhaps, if all business people practiced the same four traits – concentrating on their goals, following simple, and commonly accepted, rules, demonstrating consideration to one another and trusting one another – the business place would be a better place…

P.S. In the above picture you can see “the a1 group”, I am on the right, and next to me is the almighty Catherine.