Networking Information

Measuring Value for a Networking Group


How do you measure a group's worth to your organization?

It is sometimes necessary to measure the value of a group. You may be asking yourself why you would want to measure the value of a group whose purpose is business. You would want to measure the price of membership vs. the business you will get out of the group through either referrals or direct business with members. There are several ways that the measurement can be taken. First, you will need to assess the current membership. You should develop a scale of 1 to 10 and give each member a rating based on a set of predefined criteria. What criteria should you use? That will depend entirely on your goals for belonging to the group. For example, if you are selling services for repairing computers, you may rate members by the number of computers they have at the workplace, and you may also add a factor for who they are currently using on the servicing side. It is best to define at least 3 criteria for a sampling of the members. You will not want to measure every member, but a small cross-section will do. Second, you should measure the amount of business each member (or a sample of members) has received by joining the group. You may also want to know how much business they do with other group members as well.

Once you have the measurements, these same criteria should be applied to each of the groups you are interested in. Next you will want to do a comparison of the groups and then make your selection based on facts rather than emotion.

Now that you have thought out and used a measurement tool for deciding the value of a group, you will want to test as many groups as possible. You may decide to join only those groups that measure in the top 20% of your scale. One thing you may want to consider is the time and place of the meeting. Your calendar must be open and flexible enough to deal with attendance requirements.

Bette Daoust, Ph.D. has been networking with others since leaving high school years ago. Realizing that no one really cared about what she did in life unless she had someone to tell and excite. She decided to find the best ways to get people's attention, be creative in how she presented herself and products, getting people to know who she was, and being visible all the time. Her friends and colleagues have often dubbed her the "Networking Queen". Blueprint for Networking Success: 150 ways to promote yourself is the first in this series. Blueprint for Branding Yourself: Another 150 ways to promote yourself is planned for release in 2005. For more information visit http://www.BlueprintBooks.com


MORE RESOURCES:

ABC News

T. Boone Pickens, Facebook Guy? ‘Pickens Plan’ Taps Social Networking
Wall Street Journal Blogs, NY - 11 hours ago
The Pickens Plan is setting up its own dedicated social network powered by Ning. That network includes message boards for supporters and the ability to form ...
T. Boone Pickens: a man with an energy plan CNET News
T. Boone Pickens and the Pickens Energy Plan Associated Content
T. Boone Pickens Has a Plan Greentech Media
all 212 news articles


Reuters

Small businesses fuel boom in virtual networking sites
Reuters - 9 hours ago
By Deborah L. Cohen CHICAGO (Reuters.com) -- Small businesses thrive on their ability to network and as they shift that zeal to get-together online, ...


HOK Sport Venue Event Selects XO Communications for Home Run ...
CNNMoney.com - 13 hours ago
XO Communications (OTCBB: XOHO) today announced that it has successfully delivered a nationwide IP-based wide area networking solution to HOK Sport Venue ...
XO Communications Delivers Nationwide IP-Based WAN for HOK TMCnet
all 6 news articles


Nortel Power Savings Drive Enterprise Customer Adoption
CNNMoney.com - 16 hours ago
Enterprises are plotting a course to save money and at the same time, help the environment by minimizing networking power consumption with Nortel's(1) (TSX: ...
P2 Energy Solutions Announces the Release of Enterprise Land™ 2.5 Business Wire (press release)
all 18 news articles


ZDNet

Firefox 3 and community — How Mozilla used social networking to ...
ZDNet - 8 hours ago
As more social networking venues have opened up and expanded to businesses, Mozilla has adapted to putting up appropriate channels and resources. ...


Pringo Adds Micro-Blogging to Social Networking Solutions
Market Wire (press release) - 7 hours ago
This marks the first white label social networking platform which allows customers to employ Twitter-like functionality. Micro-blogging merges the ...


Google Unveils Home-like Social Networking App for Facebook, MySpace
Shacknews - 4 hours ago
Built with social networking web site integration in mind, Lively allows player-designed rooms to be embedded within a user's page on such sites as Facebook ...


The Six Commandments of Social Networking at Work
PC World - Jul 7, 2008
It can be easy to disregard social networking's professional potential if you're only going on what you see on television. Between endlessly replayed clips ...


AFP

Obama harnesses power of Web social networking
Seattle Times, United States - Jul 7, 2008
By BRIAN STELTER Chris Hughes, 24, a founder of Facebook, left the social-networking company in early 2007 to help develop the Web campaign of Barack Obama. ...
Obama + Web 2.0 = A (Presumptive) Presidential Nomination bMighty.com
The Facebooker Who Friended Obama New York Times
Obama Fails to Put Out the FISA Fire in His Own House AlterNet
Javno.hr - TMCnet
all 292 news articles


Social Networking Site Xiaonei Rumored to Enter HR Market
RedlineChina, CA - 10 hours ago
Oak Pacific CEO Cheng Yizhou stated today in a press interview that claims about the company was acquiring China HR, China’s top site for job hunting were ...

Networking - Google News

home | site map
© 2006