Dan Hall’s Sourcing Seattle Blog

I had coffee at Zeitgeist with Brien Thompson from Haystack Creative. We were meeting after being introduced by a mutual connection from LinkedIn. I don’t accept invites on LinkedIn if I haven’t had at least one fairly substantial value added conversation with the requester.

I have thought much about Open Networking lately, there is a seductive lure of having thousands of connections at your fingertips, but the real question is what the value of your network? I am convinced that while there would be some value to having that many connections, for most professionals ,myself included, it would actually dilute the value of my network. For social media to be effective and actionable there must be a distinction between one’s contacts and one’s network, even though many use these words interchangeably.

Brien and I had a great conversation about the shortcomings of current social networking sites, the lack of specificity and this notion of dilution in social networking. He mentioned the need to be “superniched,” that is being radically different. I really liked that phrase and what it means. Most professionals understand the import of differentiation, creating a personal brand image that distinguishes you from your peer group. Are you radically different though. He asked me what my personal brand image was, I told him to my brand was being a subject matter expert of Human Resources in Seattle to include recruiting in Social Media and Web 2.0 companies. I am both passionate and skilled in this particular niche. We agreed that this is radically different from the traditional human resources manager mindset.

You have to embrace change, technology, social media and networking no matter what field you are in. Brien is an expert in his field, it is obvious by sitting down and talking with him. He humbly laughed at the notion and he added, all I do is this:

Say what you are going to do (clearly) (parantheticals are my emphasis)

Do what you say you are doing to do (well)

And tell people what you did (every chance you get)

If you follow these simple steps, become an expert, hone your personal brand, and always add value, you will be well positioned to take advanage of future opportunities as they arise.