WorkPuzzle

What's a Friend Worth?

If you are a Recruiter or Hiring Manager, you already know that network contacts can be very valuable.  People you know become a repository for new information and new contacts.

While this may be old news for you, the marketing world is just starting to study this topic.  Due to the proliferation of online social networks, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, businesses are starting to put a monetary value on these relationships.

Business Week ran a feature article on this topic last week.  Here are some insights that I picked up:

1.  Most people have many “friends,” but few close contacts:  The average Facebook user with 500 “friends” actively follows the news of 40 of them, communicates with 20, and keeps in close contact with about 10. 

2.  People tend to group other people into one of four categories: 

(a) Closest Friends -- You trade email with these people or have other reciprocal communications.

(b) One-way Relationships -- You send email to these people or post comments on their profile pages (but they don’t respond).

(c) Just Barely in Touch -- You click on something these people post on Facebook or visit their profile page more than twice.

(d) Near Strangers -- You let these people into your network, but you really don’t know or interact with them.

3.  So far, marketers are dismal at figuring out how to manipulate these networks for profit:  It is estimated that Facebook is able to generate less than a dime per member in advertising revenue.  Yes, they have a lot of members, but the end results pale in comparison to traditional advertising venues.  In my hometown of Seattle, radio stations capture about $200M in ad revenue from a population base of $3.2M people.  That’s over $60 per person compared to Facebook’s $0.10 per member.

So, what can we learn from all of this?  First, companies are spending a lot of money trying to crack the code of social marketing.  If it all seems confusing to you, you’re not alone.  Companies like Facebook and Microsoft have bunches of PhDs working on this stuff and they can’t even figure it out! 

Second, some of the traditional techniques you’ve used for networking should not be abandoned.  Most of your results are still going to come from these techniques. 

Lastly, don’t ignore the new tools, but don’t depend on them either.  Spend your extra time endearing yourself to your close contacts rather than adding “near strangers” to your online network.

Why Optimism Matters - Part 2: Optimism and Sport...What it Means for You

On Friday, we took a look at the toll that Optimism (or lack thereof) takes on health.  For those of you who want to apply this to business, the research on Optimism and Sports may be a better transfer of principles:

---

"Sports enthusiasts at every level are intuitively aware that the ‘mental’ part of performance can be just as important as the physical.  Gymnastics is often said to be 90% mental and 10% physical.  Other sports see ‘intangible’ factors, such as confidence and a ‘cool’ head under pressure, make up more than 50% of success.

Many will talk about ‘being in the zone’ when they perform at their peak.  Olympic 100- metre gold medalist Linford Christie described his focus on the starting line as being like looking down a long, straight tune.  His ability to blank out other competitors, the roar of the crowd, the flashbulbs, gave him those extra centimeters over his rivals.

In sport, psychology matters – and at every level.  If you go onto the squash court telling yourself that you’ve never beaten Joe before and that you’re not going to beat him today, then the result is very predictable.

Optimism boosts sporting performance, both at team and individual levels.  Research into baseball and basketball teams in the USA revealed that teams have their own explanatory styles.  The explanatory style used by teams after a defeat or when under pressure in the last few minutes of a game will determine future performance, regardless of the quality of the team.  Those who are optimistic in the face of defeat are more likely to be successful in their next game; those who explain setbacks negatively will perform more poorly.  Research into swimmers revealed that the same trend holds for individual athletes.  Quite simply, when under pressure optimistic sportsmen and women try harder – and they recover from defeat more quickly.

After conducting detail study of sports teams and on individual swimmers, Martin Seligman included a list of 'What Every Coach Should Know' in Learned Optimism: _

• Optimism is not something you can know intuitively.  The ASQ (an optimism test developed by Seligman’s team) measures something you can't.  It predicts success beyond experienced coaches' judgments and handicappers' expertise.

• Optimism tells you when to use certain players rather than others.  Consider a crucial relay race.  You have a fast athlete, but he's a pessimist who lost his last individual race.  Substitute.  Use pessimists only after they have done well.
• Optimism tells you who to select and recruit.  If two prospects are close in raw talent, recruit the optimist.  He'll do better in the long run.
• You can train your pessimists to become optimists."

---

If you're interested, you and your team can go to http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx and take the Optimism Test to see where you rank.  But keep in mind...your entire team can’t be optimists.  Decisions would be far too impulsive.