I was asked the question:

Can you give me a few tips on how to throw a successful dinner party?

Please share your own tips for successfully mixing business with pleasure.

9 comments // In Business Networking

Virtual teams are becoming a norm of today’s modern office, so the question of how best to create quality, collaborative relationships among these teams has become a major new research subject for me. My own company has employees in LA, NY, Chicago, Pennsylvania, and Iowa, and we hold regular virtual meetings for both the entire team and various work groups.

I’m writing a series of blogs on the topic for Harvard Business Review Blog Network. Check out the latest:

Virtual Teams Can Outperform Traditional Teams

That post is part of an online HBR package, The Secrets of Great Teams, that includes dozens of useful pieces on how to lead your team to excellence.

And while I’m at it, a few links to some of my fellow HBR bloggers – I’m so proud to be part of such a smart cohort:

• The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time, by Tony Schwartz
• Get Ahead with a Mentor Who Scares You, by Jodi Glickman (also our guest on the Social Capitalist)
• Why Your Company Should Partner with Rivals, by Eric Lowett

For discussion today: How much of your work life is virtual today, versus five years ago, and how has that affected your professional relationships?

6 comments // In Relationship Development Skills

I was asked the question:

I'm moving to a new city where I have very few contacts. What would you recommend is the best of preparing for this?

How did you hit the ground running after moving to a new city?

2 comments // In Business Networking

I was asked the question:

Are the tips that you give for successful networking specifically suited for the Western culture, or are they applicable to Asia as well?

What tips do you have for networking in Eastern cultures as oppose to Western?

6 comments // In Business Networking

Check out a few of the great posts on the myGreenlight blog this week:

• Create Your Own Steve-Jobsian Reality Distortion Field
• Create Meetings that People Don't Want to Hide From
• Guest Video: How to Use Trade Shows Effectively
• Solutions for Six Common Networking Challenges for Introverts
• International Networking Week
• Relationship Roundup

Enjoy!

0 comments // In Site News and Happenings

Check out a few of the great posts on the myGreenlight blog this week:

• How Introverts Can Get the Credit, Pay, and Career They Deserve
• Bridging the Virtual Relationship Divide
• Be One of a Kind
• Relationship Roundup
• A Quick, Free Tool to Get Your Network in Shape
• Get and Give Outstanding Linkedin Recs

0 comments // In Site News and Happenings

I was asked the question:

"How do I sustain a connection past the initial interaction?"

Share your own tips for fostering a new relationship.

9 comments // In Relationship Development Skills

I met Garrett at Summit Series and was so impressed by his success story launching his nonprofit (buoyed by advice from NEA!) that I asked him to contribute a blog. Audacity and the power of a great idea are the big drivers here. - KF

I was a college student when I co-founded SEE College Prep, a non-profit that has helped more than 1,300 low-income high school students improve their SAT scores an average of 200 points and become the first in their families to go on to college. At the time, I had no idea what it meant to raise large amounts of money, or the kinds of relationships I would need to build to do so.

Fortunately, a friend clued me in to Keith and Never Eat Alone and that wisdom has supported me ever since. It has been an extraordinary learning curve: in a short period of time, I went from not knowing a single person who could donate more than a few hundred dollars, to raising nearly $2 million in 18 months.

I followed my heart, risked embarrassment by asking simple questions, and found the courage to ask for people’s time and eventually money. I was empowered by the mission of what I was trying to achieve, and since I had a calling I knew that no request was too silly or too bold. I reached out to mentor after mentor—first professors, then non-profit leaders, then heavy hitters like Stanford University President John Hennessy and billionaires John Fisher, John Morgridge, and Laurene Powell Jobs. Not all of these conversations were successful, but I saw first-hand how little I knew and how much people were willing to help. Technology has helped people like me: many of the most impressive people I’ve met have agreed to meet following a cold e-mail; some of those people are my closest mentors and advisors today. Read more →

1 comment // In Entrepreneurship

First, an update on donations for Guatemala: Last week we asked you to help us raise $3200 so that we could fund every child from our trip. The balance as of Jan. 13, the day I'm writing this: $3367! I couldn't be more grateful.

Ready for this month's myGreenlight master's mission? John Hagel and John Seely Brown wrote this week's tip to help you diversify your network to expose you to the broadest range of ideas and opportunities. These simple tips will strengthen your safety net – try it! -KF

It is no surprise that we instinctively seek out those who share our interests. This is especially true in times of increasing pressure and uncertainty. We have an understandable tendency in such times to seek out the familiar and comfortable as a buffer against the unforeseen changes around us. In so doing we can inadvertently put ourselves in a cage of similarity that narrows our peripheral vision of the world and our options. The result? We may be even more vulnerable to being blindsided by events and trends coming at us from new and unusual directions.

The Internet compounds this narrowing by invisibly removing subjects and people from our online searches and even our casual exploration of websites, explains Eli Pariser in his new book, The Filter Bubble. Worse yet, we tend to become more extreme and entrenched in our beliefs when we become involved in a tight-knit group that shares them.

The bottom line: the choices we make and the technology we use can progressively narrow the range of experiences we have. To counteract the potential stultifying effects of the filter bubble we will have to overcome our natural instinct to seek out the comfort of those who are most like us. Here are some suggestions:

1. Audit and re-shape your social network. With the advent of online social network platforms we have an increasing visibility into the make-up of our personal social network. Whom do we interact with most frequently? How similar are they to us?

Scan the periphery of your social network and explore those "weak ties", the people you may have met briefly and who come from very different environments. Who are some of the most diverse people on the periphery of your network that you might benefit from getting to know better? How could you use online social networks to reach out to people you have never even met but who are engaged in arenas adjacent to your own interests? Each week, resolve to introduce yourself to a friend of a friend on an online network who seems to be the most interesting and most different from you. Read more →

24 comments // In Business Networking

Check out a few of the great posts on the myGreenlight blog this week:

• Five Ways to Win Over Your Boss
• Relationship Roundup
• Greenlight Highlight: Keith's Executive Assistant Shares the Value of Building Relationships with Gatekeepers

Enjoy!

1 comment // In Site News and Happenings