Clay in the Hands

I just finished a book recently by Clay Shirky entitled, Here Comes Everybody.  The book deals with issues around technology and social networking.  There is a lot of information and challenging thoughts in the book but one of the things I took away from it was that as a leader, I should be developing my network.  Let me  explain.

Development of a network does not mean growing the number of contacts you have exponentially.  For example, I tweet (you can follow me at @jbrianhill on Twitter).  I get a couple of followers per day who are using online tools to gain followers.  When I look at their follow and follower counts and the numbers are over 10,000, then I know that they have no desire to really connect with me as part of their network, they are just trying to see how many followers they can get. So I choose not to follow them back.  The result of my choice is that in a day or two, they quit following me as well.  But what is the point of all of that?

Development of a network should be about pouring yourself into others to develop them.  As an employee or a member of an organization, if you are not working to contribute to the goals of that organization then you really hold no value to the organization.  But as a leader, if you are not contributing to the organization by investing in those whom you lead, then you are not relevant and even worse, possibly a detriment to the organization.

What are you going to do to develop your network today?  When you take the time, the dividends are huge!