Do you go to networking events with a pocket full of business cards and hand them out with your elevator pitch in hopes of generating a couple of leads?
Do you meet people at trade shows or seminars and hand out a few more, figuring maybe they have a friend of a friend who might be interested in what you offer?
And how well does that usually turn out?
I don’t know about you, but I have literally hundreds of business cards (all neatly stored in cases and folios) for people I’ve met at Chamber of Commerce events, social gatherings, meetups and any number of “meet-and-greets”. And I’ve never worked with a single one.
It’s not that I didn’t need insurance. Or my carpet cleaned. Or a party planned. Or a massage. It’s just that I couldn’t possibly tell you who, in that massive pile of dead trees, is who.
If that sounds like you, you may be relieved to hear that networking is dead… at least in the traditional mind-numbing way that we’ve been taught to think about it.
You may also be relieved to hear that the new networking is less painful and results in more business.
Want to know how it’s done?
Then you’ll want to read this book.
The intriguing thing about this book is that it’s fiction.
Instead of the usual business book that talks at you like a grad school lecture, this one is told as the story of two individuals who want to boost their networking power.
One is a bit shy and doesn’t have a lot of connections. One is outgoing and has a whole lot of connections. Neither is generating any business.
When they’re introduced to a professional networker – correction, someone who knows how to help people make connections that matter – they learn how to do just that.
I had the chance to ask the authors why they chose to tell this story as a fable instead of writing a traditional business book and this is what they said:

Networking is Dead By Melissa G Wilson and Larry Mohl
Read more at Web Search Social




From May 3 to 5, 2013, at the Summit Executive Center in downtown Chicago, we cordially invite you to be a participant in something special – our 10th SOBCon.
SOBCon is more than just a conference – it’s an interactive 3-day business “think tank” that has been described by past attendees as
This SOBCon will build on our tradition of turning ideas into action, by focusing on
Come to SOBCon Chicago 2013 to learn how
• Customer-centric businesses are more responsive and faster growing - Get 6 models for building deep working relationships with customers across every square-inch of your business.
• Knowing what to measure is more important than measuring. – Discover how to adjust your current business metrics and information filters to have a customer-centric understanding of your competition.
• Leadership is the art and practice of wielding influence - Learn how to foster and sustain persuasive influence through information sharing.
• Engagement drives richer customer experiences – Use gamification to move from transactions to meaningful interaction.
• First impressions create lasting connections - Build meaningful and valuable customer relationships from the very first contact point.
• Learning need not be lonely - Experience true collaboration in action. Discuss the models in depth with your mastermind team and leave the session with new strategic action plans.
We’re also very excited about our presenter lineup for the event – check out who’s confirmed so far:
(Just added 2-18!)) Leadership maven and best-selling author Steve Farber
NY Times bestselling author and WGN Radio Host Carol Roth
Lifestyle entrepreneur & founder of Location 180 Sean Ogle
NY Times bestselling author and Human Business Works CEO Chris Brogan
BlissDom events co-founder and Blissful Media Group CEO Barbara Jones
Chief Customer Experience Investigator™ & founder of 360Connext Jeannie Walters
Author of “Social Marketology” & DragonSearch CEO Ric Dragon
Co-Founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media Sonia Simone
Entrepreneur and Glam Media Co-Founder Dianna Mullins
Entrepreneur, Humanitarian and Co-Founder of BlissDom Events Alli Worthington
Innovation consultant & principal of Primed Associates Drew Marshall
Join us in Chicago - sign up now and save $100.
Hurry, the offer expires on February 28th.
According to the eighth annual Scottish Widows Women and Pensions report released on October 22nd 2012, the gender gap in retirement savings has increased by over 10 per cent in one year.
Half of women report feeling worse off than 12 months ago, compared to 45 per cent of men.
When it comes to retirement savings, women are now saving an average of £776 annually less than men for use in retirement. This is drastically higher than the £700 gender gap evidenced in 2011.
For example, if a 30 year old woman keeps up with this annual rate of saving, at retirement age (65 years old), she will have a £29,800 shortfall in today’s money, compared to an equivalent male.
The amount of women not saving anything at all for retirement has also grown since the previous year.
The study was based on a sample of 5,200 adults and showed that more than a quarter (26 per cent) of women are presently failing to save any amount of money for retirement. In 2011, this figure was 23 per cent, three per cent lower than this year.
In contrast, only 19 per cent of men admitted to not saving anything for retirement, said the report.
This disquieting shortage of provision has reverted back to levels from three years ago, rolling back any improvements made in 2010 and 2011.
Women find it harder to save money for the long-term and retirement because of important lifestyle differences, such as having a full-time caring role or being employed part-time, explained Lynn Graves, head of business development at the firm.
This is why it is vital that employers, the government and the pensions industry raise awareness of the gender gap in retirement savings to assist women in prioritising their pensions. Lombard Odier has a specialist occupational pension team that can assist people in planning for their retirement.
Over the last year, the savings rate among women has decreased immensely partly due to the repayment of short-term debt.
A third of women (31 per cent) are putting debt repayments ahead of saving for retirement.
The average amount owed – excluding mortgages – increased extensively from £10,174 in 2011, to £10,922 in 2012.
Within widespread economic uncertainty, many people in the UK are under pressure regarding their household finances. However it is obvious that women are side-lining long-term saving in favour of a more short-term approach, with 42 per cent of women placing living expenses above retirement saving this year.
Further to this, the most popular reason given by 31 per cent of women for saving long-term is to “save for a rainy day”, not to save for retirement.
The perspective of saving for a rainy day shows that women see their savings as a fund to dip into anytime to cover any unexpected costs, not one to be protected for the future to pay for retirement.
On the positive side, women who are already saving for their pension would rather cut back elsewhere if faced with an income drop, than decrease their pension contributions. Just three per cent said they would decrease their pension contributions.
Additionally, 28 per cent of women surveyed are planning on boosting their contributions over the next year.
While women are right to focus on ensuring their debts are managed, alternative sacrifices need to be made to make sure retirement planning is in place. Lombard Odier has recognised expertise in occupational pensions, including tax consultants, actuaries and lawyers to help people make the most of their pension plans.

Apple’s basic new iPhone costs the company just more than $200 to make, according to a preliminary component report from analysis firm IHS iSuppli.
The materials in the 16GB model of the phone, the firm said, cost Apple $199 while manufacturing shakes out to about $8 per phone. The iPhone 5’s materials come to a slightly higher total than the iPhone 4S. Andrew Rassweiler, IHS’s senior principal analyst for teardown services, said that the lowest-end iPhone 4S had a bill of materials of $188.
The 32 GB version costs Apple $209 to make, while the 64 GB is estimated to cost $230. With carrier subsidies, the iPhone 5 retails at $199, $299 and $399. While there’s no unlocked version of the iPhone 5 for sale, carriers list the full prices of the device at $649.99, $749.99 and $849.99 without a contract. More info at Daily Herald.

Iranian officials are hoping to team up with Facebook in an effort to remove Pages and Groups that feature pornography or are soliciting prostitution. More broadly, the Iranian police force has announced plans to cleanse the Internet of content its country deems inappropriate.
The new tidbit comes from the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA (via the Associated Press), which interviewed Commander Kamal Hadianfar, the head of Iran's cyber-police. He promised the country will work with Facebook for the new initiative, but did not elaborate on what the plan would entail.
"Pornography is a crime not just in Iran but also in other countries such as the United States," Hadianfar told ISNA, according to a translation by Radiozamaneh. "In 2010, Facebook served as a free domain for criminals, but in the name of God and with the presence of the police over the past 15 months, we have made many significant moves to cleanse social networks, especially that of Facebook."
Good Luck with that!


Klout is a San Francisco-based company that TRIES TO provide social media analytics to measure a user's influence across his or her social network. The analysis is done on data taken from sites such as Twitter and Facebook and measures the size of a person's network, the content created, and how other people interact with that content. The company has been subject to substantial criticism, both for its business model and its operating principle.
Klout scrapes social network data and creates profiles on individuals and assigns them a "Klout score". Klout currently claims to have built more than 100 million profiles. Klout is not an "opt-in" service, but individuals who register at Klout can ensure that all of their social networks are accessed and therefore evaluated in their Klout scores. Klout also builds profiles of individuals who are connected to those who do register at Klout.
Scores range from 1 to 100. Many celebrities are ranked 90-100- because they are believed to be "influencers". Justin Bieber is 100.
Blogger Robert Scoble met up with Brin at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco and, seeing that Brin was wearing a pair of the freshly unveiled Google Glasses, took a photo of the two of them with his camera, which he promptly posted on Instagram and Twitter.
Scoble says Brin wouldn’t let him try on the sci-fi specs, which communicate with the wearer’s smartphone to relay information and turn the glasses into a futuristic heads-up display. However, he did say the glasses appeared to be very lightweight and that they seemed to be flashing info to Brin as they talked. He also said they looked “self-contained,” not requiring other hardware (although a wireless connection to a phone wouldn’t be visible).
Yet in spite of the hype and the fact that in February, The New York Times reported that Google was planning to release such high-tech glasses later this year, not everybody is holding their breath for an actual product like the one in the video.
According to Wired, at least a couple of experts say the technology Google is showing off can’t possibly deliver what the concept video depicted.
“In one simple fake video, Google has created a level of over-hype and over-expectation that their hardware cannot possibly live up to,” said Blair MacIntyre, director of the Augmented Environments Lab at Georgia Tech.
WATCH NOW AND SEE PROJECT GLASS!

What's great about it is that it is very fast – especially compared to Facebook.
With the Facebook iPhone app, there are 6 screens a user has to go through before a user can actually take a picture. With Instagram, there is one.
Facebook saw this growth pattern and got a little worried. So they bought Instagram. For $1 Billion!
Zuckerberg says, "We believe these are different experiences that complement each
other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping
and building on Instagram's strengths and features rather than just
trying to integrate everything into Facebook.
That's
why we're committed to building and growing Instagram independently.
Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand
associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand
to even more people."







In the last 2 days, my Facebook pages have been filled with pornography and violent images!