On E-Groups, Networks and the Competition

I have recently joined several Linkedin email interest groups. One is for people who have big lists of contacts. There I am starting to discover how puny my couple thousand numbers are. Another list is international which is interesting because I was expecting different and got same.

This has paused me to look back at what I was doing with Linkedin two years ago. Seems that over time since 2003, I just relaxed my zealotry about connecting to only known trusted resources and not to the competition. In retrospect, I see how my views have changed about networking, Linkedin and competition.

What are the lessons learned?

• Connect to anybody and everybody if it gains you increased access to the 6.5M user base and you can manage the requests load. This gives me and all my connections visibility to the multitudes beyond the high-paying recruiter and sales-folks. I can be found by the rest of the list who just use the free basic degrees of separation approach.
• There is no competition. It just doesn't matter who is linked to you as it is just a connection on a networking site. The person may have a similar or the same profession as mine but, really no two of anything is the same unless you are twins. Everyone has their own style, skill-set and unique gifts that they bring to the table.
• I met somebody recently who was mad at me for not linking to them over two years ago. It takes a lot of psychic energy to carry grudges and resentments. If you have a lot of them, you end up with a lot of baggage you're dragging around, which eventually will drag you down and only you down.
• Never rely on one on line source for networking, connections and business. I realized that I gradually renewed connections on different email groups that I had dropped for the social networking sites.