Madison Who’s Who Blog

Partners in a small start-up company have planned of only networking locally in years past, but small businesses today have to plan for an effective global networking strategy as well. Is your “widget” marketable overseas and at what juncture do you envision expanding to a global reach? Is your service executable via an effective global network and what are the implications for your business if you deal on an international level?

In the present the sole proprietor offering a marketable service or a best selling commodity will be advertising that service on the web and a well executed web site on the Internet is the front door to a business’s effective global networking.

Musicians, free lancers, artists and craftsmen who often wait for the “right break” have only had a few opportunities to expose their wares or creations to a only limited audience now have the whole world as a stage, thanks to effective global networking.

YUNiTi.com is a social or peer-to-peer network site like Facebook, Orkut, and MySpace. Its creators, Marcos and Mateus, chose the name as a play on the word Unity. Unity is the theme while working towards a global network where everyone can get to know each other and become friends.

This network combines some of the best features of the other peer-to-peer networks. You have the option of decorating your profile page like in MySpace, with backgrounds, slideshows and other features. It allows you to choose your privacy settings. There are also forums and other features such as quizzes and blogs.

It seems as if this network is going to be successful. The great thing about this new social network is that it is global. We live in a global age, where many of us have friends from various parts of the world. This is a great way to keep in touch.

(Source)

Madison Who’s Who is a professional registry where business professionals list bios and view bios of others, creating an avenue for social networking. The site has business professionals from all ethnicities and localities from large and small companies. What it really boils down to is a who’s who of big names. At Madison Who’s Who, effective global networking is its chief objective. To achieve this, the company provides a forum for executives and professionals to shear their knowledge and get to know each other while developing long lasting relationships.

Each business professional in the registry gets a full and concise biography that lends itself to helping others in the registry find them. The Madison Who’s Who also has a powerful blog with lots of business and professional news to stand by.  In the fast paced business world, knowing what’s going on and having the right people to discuss the issue with is a major step in ensuring that you are on the right track to success.

(Source)

AT&T has honored the Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) with the AT&T Information Technology Advancement Award for their innovative use of technology to support the agricultural industry. Through effective global networking, the team was able to make the business more productive for farmers and business partners. AT&T created this award to recognize companies that are using technology to implement global networking solutions.

ADM’s 20-year relationship with AT&T has contributed to the company’s position as a global leader in the agribusiness industry. ADM uses AT&T’s IP-based networking technology for global and efficient access to the innovative online services. E-ADM is a private and secure Internet site where:

• Farmers can view live truck information.

• Farmers can view ADM grain bids and market intelligence.

• ADM customers can pay invoices, access accounting, inventory management and transportation-logistics information.

ADM’s partnership with AT&T is bringing cutting-edge technology to the agriculture industry. Global networks such as e-ADM will have a tremendous impact on the agriculture industry and on farmers throughout the world.

(Source)

B2B networking stategies, acquiring business referrals, promoting your brand were a totally different ball game, even a mere decade ago. That the internet has changed the face of business is beyond question - and in not that long an expanse of time. Network strategies demand forecasting future innovations in what is fast becoming the essential medium in which to conduct business.

Rob Millard of RobertMillard.com takes strategy seriously and references a study he’s currently reviewing that prognosticates what global networking might function, look and act like in the near future.

The deployment of a global network: “A majority of respondents agreed with a scenario which posited that a global, low-cost network will be thriving in 2020 and will be available to most people around the world at low cost. And they agreed that a tech-abetted “flattening” of the world will open up opportunities for success for many people who will compete globally. Still, a vocal and sizeable minority of respondents say they are unsure that the policy climate will be favorable for such internet expansion. The center of the resistance, they say, will be in the businesses anxious to preserve their current advantages and in policy circles where control over information and communication is a central value. In addition, a significant number of these dissenters argued that the world will not flatten enough to wipe away persistent social inequities.”
[…]
Luddites, technological “refuseniks,” and violence: Most respondents agreed that there will people who will remain unconnected to the network because of their economic circumstances and others who think a class of technology refuseniks will emerge by 2020. They will form their own cultural group that lives apart from “modern” society and some will commit acts of violence in protest to technology. But many respondents argue that violence arising from conflicts over religion, economics, and politics, will be more prevalent.
(Source)

Millard highly recommends the site Imagining the Internet if you wish to anticipate what your online future might be.

You spend seemingly half your life in international airports and foreign cities. You live, drink,and eat the global network and have lost count of miles logged and conversations engaged in with strangers. You have a keen eye,an appetite for innovation and the ability to spot what is unique and cutting edge. Might as well put your trend spotting acumen to good use and join up as a springspotter.

“The Springspotter Network consists of: thousands of business-savvy individuals from all over the world, who email us whenever they ’spot’ a promising new business idea. Accepted contributions get rewarded with cool gifts, and may appear in one of our newsletters.”

You will be looking for new, existing businesses with noteworthy forward thinking modes of operation. Find what has not been found, what is local and unheralded and waiting for discovery.

“For example, if you live in Seoul, please scan local papers (business sections!), blogs and business magazines: that’s where you can deliver tremendous added value.
[…]
A person who joins Springspotters will receive non-monetary ‘points’ for each accepted submission, which can then be redeemed online for gifts, delivered anywhere in the world. Anyone can sign up, no strings attached, no costs involved: from marketers to entrepreneurs, and from students to management consultants. The key requirements are a healthy dose of curiosity and some business smarts. Send in spottings, and, if accepted by the Springspotter Network, you will immediate start accumulating points”.

To get a taste, visit Springwise.com

“Free agents quickly realized that in the traditional world, they were silently accepting an architecture of work customs and social mores that should have crumbled long ago under the weight of its own absurdity. From infighting and office politics to bosses pitting employees against one another to colleagues who don’t pull their weight, most workplaces are a study in dysfunction.”

If you are a freelancer, consultant, or any type of entrepreneur, you can define yourself as a free agent. You have rejected the orthodox, tradition clad model of earning a living and are determined to carve your own niche. And you hardly are alone. You are joined by an entire global network of free agents who have forsworn the corporate trap.

“If we add up the self-employed, the independent contractors, the temps — a working definition of the population of Free Agent Nation — we end up with more than 16% of the American workforce: roughly 25 million free agents in the United States, people who move from project to project and who work on their own, sometimes for months, sometimes for days.”
(source)

Free agents represent a philosophy that was impossible for their parent’s generation to adopt. Without the Internet, only lonely artists were trying to carve a career outside the security net provided by a corporate position. Today’s professionals are gladly creating their own security and defining work as a fun an integral component in their life, not a 9 to 5 drudge that demands sacrificing identity or passion.

The bloom fades fast on the appeal of an international assignment if the executive is poorly prepared or unwilling to adapt.

“…up to 40 percent of expatriate managers terminate their assignments early, costing their companies between $50,000 and $150,000 and derailing their careers. Moreover, 50 percent of those who do not terminate their assignments early function at a low level of effectiveness.”

What initially seemed an exciting opportunity can easily devolve into frustration with cultural and language differences, unfamiliar geography and unfamiliar business practices. Six months is the usual amount of time it takes for an executive to become disillusioned and return home or to make the necessary adaptations to be productive.

Diving into the global network will call for skills and knowledge outside your usual area of expertise. No matter how effective you are on your home turf, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you will be able to deliver an outstanding performance abroad. The minimum you should know before embarking to a new country include:

• acceptable greetings and the accompanying body language (bow, handshake, smile);
• the proper use of business cards;
• the country’s dress code;
• the country’s concept of time;
• proper dining manners;
• gift giving protocol; and
• religious and political taboos.

Before you decide if an international assignment is really for you, you should carefully weight its costs and benefits by reviewing your career goals, engaging in self-analysis, and discussing such opportunities with your mentor and family.”
(Source)

1. Don’t quit your day job.
2. Don’t incorporate.
3. Don’t get a bank account.
4. Don’t rent an office. Work from home.
5. Don’t hire an attorney.
6. Don’t hire an accountant.
7. Don’t get a loan.
8. Don’t hire anyone.
9. Don’t get a business license.
10. Don’t try to patent anything.
11. Don’t design a logo.
12. Don’t waste time picking a business name.
13. Don’t advertise. A
14. Don’t buy office supplies.
15. Don’t buy any equipment.
16. Don’t try to find a partner
17. Don’t join the Chamber of Commerce.
18. Don’t tell all of your friends about the business that you’re going to start someday soon.
19. Don’t write a business plan.
20. Don’t get a business telephone number or mailing address.

At first glance the above list of start-up advice seems counter-intuitive. Before becoming an entrepreneur at play in the global network, some very basic and unglamorous labor is needed first. Yet a pitfall many entrepreneurs fall into is spending an excessive amount of time and precious capital structuring for a would-be business launch without having thoroughly explored or tested the market for their product or service.

The author contends that more often than not, a product or service as first conceived ends up falling flat. The natural enthusiasm an entrepreneur feels for his own innovation is usually not tested beyond a small circle of uncritical friends or supporters.

“Nine times out of ten, what you originally thought was going to be a big hit in the marketplace is a dud, and you have to go back and rework your product. If you spend all of your savings establishing your corporate presence, you won’t have any money left to pay yourself when you have to go back to the drawing board.”
(Source)

Will a new, re-designed Internet be conducive to more efficient and effective global networking? For those companies and enterprises who have spent millions becoming integrated into the existing global network, the idea that the Internet is being viewed as ripe for re-design may be a bit disconcerting. Yet there are serious inquiries into formulating and funding initial research to do just that.

“The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a “clean slate” approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969.

The Internet “works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions,” said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean-slate projects. “It’s sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today.”

The goal of building an entirely new architectural infrastructure would, obviously, result in the necessity of replacing existing networks and entirely new software.

“Guru Parulkar, who will become executive director of Stanford’s initiative after heading NSF’s clean-slate programs, estimated that GENI alone could cost $350 million, while government, university and industry spending on the individual projects could collectively reach $300 million. Spending so far has been in the tens of millions of dollars.

And it could take billions of dollars to replace all the software and hardware deep in the legacy systems.”

Projected fruit from such research isn’t anticipated for another 10 to 15 years and experts are basically agreeing that though such research is worthwhile for the out-of-the-box thinking it stimulates, some researchers envision a more evolutionary approach, not a “clean-slate” tact.