I personally believe that the best way to hire, find partners, and find a job is through a network. So the key question is: How can I leverage my network? One Page Networking Tool One of the best things I've seen done by a person doing a search was to provide folks he knew with a one pager that roughly contained: Background - two sentences Job Sought - two sentences Company Characteristics - geography, size, industry, etc. Make it your top 25 where you think For some reason over the past week, I've been asked by three different people I know about job opportunities that might fit them.

Last Saturday, I was a panelist at the CalTech - Social Networks event. It is almost universal that there are opportunities around social networking. Generally these are oriented around: Niches & Content Oriented Networks You see all kinds of niche networks coming up. But the innovation right now is encouraging It was a really good event with lots of interesting folks in attendance. I would guess that there was about 100 people - on a Saturday in Pasadena.

Just a quick note that I'll be moderating a Technology Council Event : Social Networking as a Business Strategy May 19, 2009 - Culver City Social networking media are used on a daily basis to grow businesses and expand career opportunities. Individuals use social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Plaxo as career-advancing tools, even more useful in a down economy. Corporations increasingly see social media as a key PR, communications and marketing medium. Social networking sites and microblogs are used not only to build company brands, but to foster productivity;

This past week has had an interesting confluence of events that's led me to conclude that I want to start doing a lot of visible networking among the tech / web crowd here in Los Angeles. I want to take you through a bit of what brought me here, because I think it will help explain what I mean by visible networking. Networking Events – Questionable Return on Your Time Last week I posted about Networking Events in Los Angeles and Southern California and received back some interesting comments, some of the best from a LinkedIn Group. Several of the comments there echoed what I've been feeling: Person 1: I have attended a plethora of networking groups and have also found it harder and harder to continue to be motivated to go. Person 2: Very discouraging (few if any happy with their networking efforts) but not unexpected.

I've never been able to walk into a large group of people and feel like I can "work the room." Sure, I've read various articles on this stuff, but honestly, I still struggle with meeting interesting people. I seem to be very adept at meeting financial planners, attorneys, accountants, etc. -

Frequency: Multiple times a month, in Los Feliz, Carlsbad, Burbank, Irvine Cost: Free Review: You'll need a free membership to Xing to see the details on the community page Added 10/2/09 by Todd Zebert Name: Challenger Networking Group (CA) Sites: www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2037237 home=&gid=2037237 Self-description: "This networking group sponsored by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. This is will be a continually updating post. I'll be creating additional lists for educational, chamber of commerce, etc. Organizational representatives: please contact me directly for updates, etc.

He talks about a bunch of the different networking events that occur in Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California. Often good topics and interesting networking. And here's where you can find more events: SoCalTech Calendar – A great aggregation of events around Southern California that has been pulled together for years by Ben Kuo. Meetup – My personal experience has been mixed with these. Southern California Tech Central – Brings together posts from top bloggers around Southern California including John's blog and this blog. Great post by John Shiple.

My friend Mark Long recently asked me about networking in Los Angeles. This past couple years, I have been doing a ton of networking. Rather than write something just for Mark, I thought I would let everybody else know what the good, tech-oriented networking events are in Los Angeles. For the tech-oriented networker, there is one primary thing to Mark is a CTO, see, and his company, PortBlue , was recently acquired (congrats, Mark!). After transitioning to the new team, Mark was left to wonder, what now?

Business networking is a big part of how business deals get done these days -- but it has become harder and harder to make business networking beneficial. For some people, face-to-face networking at meetings for professional groups and association chapters works well to meet new people. For others, online networking using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail discussion lists works well to increase I have used both methods for a long time, and they work well for meeting new people.

but I digress) without seeing articles/blogs relating to social networking, VC "overheated fundings ", communities of millions run by kids at Starbucks, and "how many people follow me on Twitter when I say I am going to bathroom." Social networks are still relatively new. wonder if there is an inverse correlation between "having You can't read, view or listen to any news media channel (Web mostly of course because mainstream old news media pretty much discounts Web 2.0 and vice versa...just