Business Networking for Entrepreneurs

Networking is an essential skill for most business people, but especially for entrepreneurs. The strong association between the entrepreneur as a person and his or her business demands that entrepreneurs get out into the world and create and maintain business relationships. Here are some tips and resources to help you improve your networking skills and extend your reach.

A Pocket Full of Business Cards
Timely and consistent follow-up is the key to successful marketing. Meeting someone once is rarely enough to bring you business -- repeated contacts are what do the trick. You always want to follow up with prospective customers, of course, but you should also follow up with potential referral sources.
The Importance of Being Memorable
Have you ever attended a networking event, collected a bunch of business cards, and when you go through them the next day, you can't remember who many of them are? Well, you certainly don't want to be one of those that other people can't remember, do you? Here are five tips on how to make yourself memorable when meeting other people.
Giving First: A Personal Experience
In this fourth excerpt from the newly updated Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts Into Sales, Bob Burg shares his personal experience of The Law of Successful Giving and Successful Receiving in action.
Real-World Examples of The Law of Successful Giving and Successful Receiving
In this third excerpt from the newly updated Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts Into Sales, Bob Burg shares some shining real-world examples of The Law of Successful Giving and Successful Receiving in action.
The Grand Paradox: “Real-World” Giving and Receiving
In this excerpt from the newly updated Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts Into Sales, Bob Burg explains how giving a great use value for a small cash value is the fundamental key to creating wealth for yourself.
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Understanding The Law of Successful Giving And Successful Receiving
In this excerpt from the newly updated Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts Into Sales, Bob Burg explains how giving a great use value for a small cash value is the fundamental key to creating wealth for yourself.
How to Cultivate a Network of Endless Referrals
Instead of thinking of "networking" as something you go to "networking events" to do, make it an integral part of your everyday contacts. Develop win-win relationships and let the referrals come to you.
How to Profit From Networking
Sales are frequently developed through the relationships we have created with other people. Networking functions provide the opportunity to expand our contact list, particularly when we create and nurture quality relationships. Here are five strategies to make networking profitable.
Effective Networking for Busy People
With all the demands on our time made by our business, professional and personal lives, it's tempting to assign a lower priority to networking as an activity designed to meet new people. That would be a mistake.
Networking Like a Pro: Make a Lasting Impression
Networking is less about meeting new people than having them remember you after the fact. So how do get someone to remember you from the other ten people he met that very same night? Try these three simple questions to make a lasting impression.
Do You Make Your First Impression Your Best Impression?
The first impression process occurs in every new situation. Within the first few seconds, people pass judgment on you – looking for common surface clues. Once the first impression is made, it is virtually irreversible. Guest author image consultant Michelle Sterling offers tips to make sure your first impression is your best impression.
Why I Network
Ecademy founder and marketing guru Thomas Power shares his thoughts on the importance of networking. Ecademy is certainly one of the largest (if not the largest) online business networks, with over 13,000 members around the world.
Business Network International
BNI is one of the oldest and certainly the world's largest business networking and referral organization. Over 2,700 chapters around the world offer their members an environment in which to develop personal relationships with other, non-competing businesspeople.
Ask the Networking Expert - Dr. Ivan Misner
Dr. Misner, the founder of BNI, answers questions for Entrepreneur Magazine readers about networking. Topics include the six types of networking groups, how to network with a large group, the ROI of networking, and networking with confidence.
Network Moves
This free monthly newsletter includes interviews with top networkers, networking group spotlights, and networking tips. The current issue and selected items from past issues are available on the website.
Effective Networking
Diane Darling's free monthly newsletter, "The Net Effect", covers such diverse and creative topics as "What Dogs Can Teach Us About Networking", "What I Learned at MIT Charm School", "Holiday Party Networking Techniques", and "The Rolling Stones Know How to Network, Do You?". Archives of past newsletters are on the Web site.
Networking Articles from Susan RoAne
The best-selling author of "How to Work a Room", et al., offers more than twenty free articles and tips on networking, with a particular emphasis on the social skills - how to converse with contentious people, mingling, schmoozing, and how to avoid being a sleaze.
Networking Articles from Donna Fisher
The internationally renowned speaker and best-selling author ("Power Networking", "People Power", "Professional Networking for Dummies") offers full articles and excerpts on networking, word-of-mouth marketing, and breaking out of your comfort zone.

What is IBM's role in IPv6?

In 1997, IBM was the first vendor to have an IPv6-enabled UNIX® product (IBM AIX®). As a leading participant in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), IBM played key roles in producing the IPv6 standard and continues to lead in the standard's evolution and IPv6 enablement worldwide.

IBM is strategically enabling key products with IPv6 capability and functionality to meet demands of the next generation Internet. The timing of product enhancements will depend on individual product release schedules and marketplace need. IBM end-to-end solutions include appropriate application, middleware, hardware and service offerings. Read more about IPV6 and IBM.


ARIN Board Advises Internet Community on Migration to IPv6


ARIN and the other Regional Internet Registries have distributed Internet Protocol version 6, IPv6, alongside IPv4 since 1999. To date, ARIN has issued both protocol versions in tandem and has not advocated one over the other. ARIN has closely monitored trends in demand and distribution for both protocol versions with the understanding that the IPv4 available resource pool would continue to diminish.

The available IPv4 resource pool has now been reduced to the point that ARIN is compelled to advise the Internet community that migration to IPv6 is necessary for any applications that require ongoing availability from ARIN of contiguous IP number resources.

On 7 May 2007, the ARIN Board of Trustees passed the following resolution:

RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF ARIN ON INTERNET PROTOCOL NUMBERING RESOURCE AVAILABILITY

WHEREAS, community access to Internet Protocol (IP) numbering Resources has proved essential to the successful growth of the Internet; and,

WHEREAS, ongoing community access to Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) numbering resources can not be assured indefinitely; and,

WHEREAS, Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) numbering resources are available and suitable for many Internet applications,

BE IT RESOLVED, that this Board of Trustees hereby advises the Internet community that migration to IPv6 numbering resources is necessary for any applications which require ongoing availability from ARIN of contiguous IP numbering resources; and,

BE IT ORDERED, that this Board of Trustees hereby directs ARIN staff to take any and all measures necessary to assure veracity of applications to ARIN for IPv4 numbering resources; and,

BE IT RESOLVED, that this Board of Trustees hereby requests the ARIN Advisory Council to consider Internet Numbering Resource Policy changes advisable to encourage migration to IPv6 numbering resources where possible.

Implementation of this resolution will include both internal and external components. Internally, ARIN will review its resource request procedures and continue to provide policy experience reports to the Advisory Council. Externally, ARIN will send progress announcements to the ARIN community as well as the wider technical audience, government agencies, and media outlets. ARIN will produce new documentation, from basic introductory fact sheets to FAQs on how this resolution will affect users in the region. ARIN will focus on IPv6 in many of its general outreach activities, such as speaking engagements, trade shows, and technical community meetings.

Network

In general, the term network can refer to any interconnected group or system. Several different types of networks exist, including:

Human networks

• Business network
• Economic network
• Entrepreneurial network
• Old boy network
• Sexual network
• Social network
• Value network

Media

• Radio network, create and distribute radio programming through multiple channels that connect in a network
• Television network, create and distribute television programming through multiple channels that connect in a network
• Network (film), an Academy Award winning film from 1976
• Nettwerk, a record label
• The Network, a band
• Network (comics), a name given to several Marvel Comics super heroes
• Network (computer game), an economic simulation for the Apple II personal computer

Technology

• Electrical network, a network of electrical components
• Computer network, a network of computers
  • Computer networking, the scientific and engineering discipline concerned with this kind of network
• Telecommunications network, a network of telecommunications links
• Energy transmission and distribution networks
  • Electric power transmission network, a network of conduits for bulk transmission of electric power
  • Electricity distribution network, a network of conduits for delivery or short-haul transmission of electric power
  • Pipeline transport network, a network of pipes for transmission of gases, usually natural gas
  • Gas distribution network, a network of pipes for delivery of gases, usually natural gas or, formerly, town gas
  • Network Systems system network, a system of combined networks of main systems

Science, mathematics, and engineering

• Network theory, the applied mathematics counterpart of graph theory, especially in combinatorial optimization
• Flow network, an assignment of flow to the edges of a directed graph where each edge has a capacity
• Network (mathematics), a type of diagraph in graph theory
• Neural network, an interconnected group of biological neurons
• Artificial neural network, an interconnected group of artificial neurons
• Gene regulatory network, a directed graph representation of the regulation of gene expression
• Signal transduction network, a directed graph representation for proteins and other biomolecules involved in Signal transduction
• Protein-protein interaction network (or Interactome graph), an undirected graph representing possible interactions between each pair of proteins in a proteome

Other

• Transport network, facilities on which people and goods move
• Spatial network, urban networks or networks of rooms within buildings
• Network effect, a characteristic that causes a good or service to have a value to a potential customer dependent on the number of customers already owning that good or using that service
• NETWORK (Catholic Lobby), a national Catholic social justice lobbying group based in Washington, DC.