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

• Christine Comaford Explains How What You Wear Can be an Act of Generosity
• The Road to Good Relationships is Paved with Communication
• Contact Management Report: Connected
• Relationship Roundup - some suggestions for getting relationships off to a great start, managing relationship priorities, and picking the right atmosphere to develop them.

Enjoy!

0 comments // In Site News and Happenings

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

• A Good Employer Won't Ask to Peek at Your Privates
• A Career Expert's Advice on Creating a "Newsfeed" of New Opportunities
• Win a Year of myGreenlight - Scholarship Contest
• Heidi Roizen Gives You an All-Access Pass to Meet Anyone
• Relationship Roundup - Fresh New Features at myGreenlight

Enjoy!

0 comments // In Site News and Happenings

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

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

• Heidi Roizen's Top Tip for Getting Emails Answered
• You're in Permanent Beta, So Let Your Network Help - LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman recently said about personal branding, “…you’re always investing in yourself. You’re always adapting. You’re not a finished product.” He continues to explain that his colleagues have been influential in his success. Have you thought about the way the people around you have (or could) contributed to your success?
• Relationship Roundup - This week in the Roundup, the latest technology apps to help you make deeper connection points in your networks.

Enjoy!

0 comments // In Site News and Happenings

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

Two years ago we visited Carlos' school which was running out of funding and couldn't pay the rent or salaries for the teachers.  A major problem in Guatemala is the economic disincentive for kids to go to school. Either you can pay for tuition and books from money a family doesn't have, or send your child into the fields to make money for food. Carlos was a rare advocate for an alternative solution. His was the only daycare and school option in this small village,  preventing these kids, some as young as 6, from having to go to the coffee fields. But he was running out of money.

However, Carlos had a vision. A vision of sustainability for his school. What if he could create something that he could sell and fund his school? Like any entrepreneur, he had his false starts. A sewing program to make clothes for the kids and also sell them locally. A program where the kids could make jewelry from materials found locally and sell that. None panned out.

Then Carlos came across a soy milk machine. He could make milk, have milk for his kids, sell the extra to local schools, and make enough money to pay teachers with the profits! We had to give the guy credit for trying.

The last piece his venture needed was a refrigeration system to preserve the milk. It seemed like a long shot, but I wanted to reward his philanthropic zeal, so I asked our community for help and one of our followers stepped up with a $500 donation to help complete Carlos' project.

Unfortunately we didn't hear anything from him after that. I knew the communication infrastructure was scarce, so I wasn't offended. But after repeatedly asking others in the community how the soy milk project was doing and not hearing reports, I wrote off my expectations for that particular investment. Oh well, one out of all the projects here, no sweat.

Then last night we threw a "Big Task" dinner for all the project leaders we have been funding and invited a number of the local business leaders and larger NGOs, like the Peace Corps, hoping to advance new relationships and gain some greater collaborative action among these local groups. My desire was to create collaborative support among the non-profit community and to extend and accelerate their network, not only among each other, but up to the larger NGOs and the major money and business leaders in the region.

I walked in and there was Carlos. He had the biggest smile, walked over and gave me a hug. Through translation we discovered that indeed our investment paid off. His soy works are in full force. He now feeds the kids a soy milk snack rich in nutrients and also sells the milk to other school, making enough profit to pay his teachers!

So, the obvious next question for a successful entrepreneur, what's next? What can I fund that would give the highest return?

I got two answers. For $500 I could fund recyclable glass jars, so he could package the product better and save on containers. Done. I funded that. He also said that a $3500 investment would fund higher grade production that would allow him to sell to commercial entities like McDonalds. I said I'd consider it and solicit our community for support and perhaps get back on that one. Anyone interested in investing in this project?

Then I had an idea. I brought Carlos over to a woman who oversees projects for nearly 10 villages. "Lilian, I'd like to purchase $500 worth of soy milk for your kids." The idea of bringing Carlos a new 500 dollar client seemed like a big deal, and perhaps I would seed the idea with Lilian to become an ongoing client of Carlos. She was so shocked and excited. She said, "One of my dreams for the coming year was to find a way to provide a nutritious daily snack for our kids who sometimes eat only a small ration of tortillas." Collaborative action comes to life in Guatemala!

When we started www.BigTask.org and Big Task Weekend, we had the vision of bringing the most powerful companies TOGETHER to collaborate on key social reform and societal issues like health care reform, American wellness, education reform... And now the same principles were playing out for mutual benefit and societal gain in Guatemala! Mission advanced!!

Anyone want to help Carlos up his manufacturing standards for the big commercial projects? Any contribution, I'll match. If we raise half of the $3500 needed for Carlos to get to the next level, I'll contribute the rest!

2 comments // In Philanthropy

MyGreenlight is gearing up to launch Course II: The Relationship Action Plan, so I thought I'd give you a sneak peak at one of my favorite resources in the new course.

In this video, I describe the relationship strategy that transitioned me from CMO of Starwood to CEO of an innovative startup of its day. Hope you enjoy it!

If you want to give Relationship Action Planning a try yourself, get yourself enrolled in myGreenlight!

Have you ever sat down and consciously written out a relationship strategy to achieve specific goals? Did it help?

3 comments // In Relationship Mapping

Today's post is a myGreenlight Mini Mission: Do something to mark the end of summer – a get together with friends you haven’t seen, surprise your office with donuts, or even send the postcards you didn’t get a chance to mail during your vacation.  Use the transition of seasons as an excuse to connect. (Although you don’t actually need an excuse!)

As for me, I went fishing this weekend!

Share what you will or have already done!

7 comments // In Relationship Development Skills