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After yesterday’s post about the neural web, I came upon the following from Chris Saad, which has much in common with the views I has expressed. The last 3 or 4 slides are particularly powerful.

My question, as per yesterday, is who is going to win the race to provide the tools that enable us to create the strong neural connections; whoever is first with a workable solution will get a headstart over their rivals.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the strength of connections, rather than the number of them.

I’ve also been interested for a long time in psychology and how the brain and mind work. One of the things that neurologists have told us is that as we learn skills and acquire knowledge, we form new connections between the neurons in the brain. The more we use those neural pathways, the stronger the connections become. Conversely, if we don’t sue them, they wither and die. So it is with what we might call the Neural web!

Social Media software is great for making connections; most network sites allow you to create huge networks but don’t give you the tools to then manage those networks proactively. This has got to happen if networking is to be taken to the next level and I believe it is something that will be developed in the next couple for years. Otherwise, we may lose the important conmnections and the link will wither away like the neural pathway.

Imagine a network of 10,000 connections. It’s difficult to identify within that list, the like-minded people with whom you want to stay in close contact. Then imagine if you could create several lists, by keywords and could then communicate with them around shared interests. Like the brain creating new neural networks as a new subject is learned, those connections will be nourished with reapeated contact and giving. It is important to have breadth of contacts – we also need to find ways to create depth and strength.

In that way, armed with the knowledge of the group’s skills, knowledge and strengths, you can keep their names close at mind. Then when someone mentions that they are looking for an individual with a particular skill- or knowledge set, you can make the appropriate referral.

This is what nourishing the ‘we’ in web means to me, is consistent with the concept of the neural web and is something for which I’m trying to find solutions. How do you do it, particlarly if you have one or more large networks you are managing?

Howard Mann, author of Your Business Brickyard wrote the following in Seth Godin’s free e-book ‘what-matters-now’ available here

“There are tens of thousands of businesses making many millions a year in profits that still haven’t ever heard of twitter, blogs or facebook. Are they all wrong? Have they missed out or is the joke really on us? They do business through personal relationships, by delivering great customer service and it’s working for them. They’re more successful than most of those businesses who spend hours pontificating about how others lose out by missing social media and the latest wave. And yet they’re doing business. Great business. Not writing about it. Doing it.

I’m continually amazed by the number of people on Twitter and on blogs, and the growth of people (and brands) on facebook. But I’m also amazed by how so many of us are spending our time. The echo chamber we’re building is getting larger and louder.

More megaphones don’t equal a better dialogue. We’ve become slaves to our mobile devices and the glow of our screens. It used to be much more simple and, somewhere, simple turned into slow.

We walk the streets with our heads down staring into 3-inch screens while the world whisks by doing the same. And yet we’re convinced we are more connected to each other than ever before. Multi-tasking has become a badge of honor. I want to know why.

I don’t have all the answers to these questions but I find myself thinking about them more and more. In between tweets, blog posts and facebook updates.”

I believe that too many people on the love it/loathe it side of the social media issue think it’s either or. We need both – face-to-face and ‘virtual’, on-line communication.

Social Media is another communication method, another marketing opportunity, another revenue stream. Some will be highly successful using only on-line or only bricks and mortar; others will take a blended approach. However, I believe that two things are true whatever the business model. You have to:

1. Love what you do

2. Love your cusomers

When the social media dust settles, I believe that people will realise that the technology speeds things up but that the values, communication skills and customer-focus requirements are the same as they are when dealing with people in the physical world. What the internet does do is level the playing field in many industries so that the small business can compete effectively with, and sometimes be better than, their larger counterparts.

And the other thing that many people will have to accept, and sometimes learn the hard way, is that whatever they right, on any forum/blog/website, will be there in black and white forever!

I’ve been reading Penny Power’s Book, Know Me, Like Me, Follow Me and what is clear to me is that those three states are outputs or outcomes; they are the consequence of action that the individual has taken.

This started me thinking about the causes that lead to that consequence and whilst there are many, one word kept coming back to me – commitment, and specifically to 2 questions:

a. How do you demonstrate that you are a committed networker
b. What is your evidence criteria for deciding that another networker is, or is not, committed?

Next week I’ll be posting some of my answers to those questions, and some tips – in the meantime, over to you – what areyour answers?