I've been writing a lot about networking lately and my efforts to learn/leverage LinkedIn, and along the way taken a few hits for opening up my Linked In network to include those of you who read my blog regularly and want to connect. The essence of the complaint (and I've felt this way in the past myself) is that networks should be people you know. People you'd call to borrow money, that would attend your funeral, give blood for you - ok, maybe not all of them have to be that close, but the idea is that if I pointed to a name on your list you'd be able to instantly go "yeah, that's Bob, and he and I go way back....".

I get that. Really, I do.

We should all have a network that includes people like that, and the more the better. The underlying argument is that unless you really know people, they serve no purpose other than to dilute your network, or perhaps reduce the value of even perusing your network once I connect to you somehow. That just seems...wrong. In fact, I've seen the opposite from my efforts, but I don't know that all would agree with my evaluations.

I should stop here and say that it's entirely up to you to decide how you measure and expand your network. If you want a closed network, or a very open one, or something in between - not for me to tell you it's wrong, and vice versa! I'm just in the middle of asking "what if my network wasn't closed, and in fact, what if it was much larger?", and sharing thoughts related to that.

I've mentioned LinkedIn, but I'm not 100% sold on that yet, and in fact, I think for this part it's smart to exclude it. To a large degree our choice of tools will be governed by our strategy, though I can see it also working in the reverse.

So, back to the title. What do you do with business cards? From your plumber, the guy you chatted with in between sessions at PASS, the guru (or beginner) you met at the local user group? Do you throw them away because they aren't people you know? Do you add them to your contact list in Outlook or whatever? Stick them in a pile for a rainy day? Go high tech and scan them in?

It's not the cards that matter! It's the people behind them. The bigger question is, based on meeting someone once - let's say more than 5 minutes up to an hour, does that person mean anything to you? Would you mind hearing from them again (non sales pitch contact)? Would you contact them again? I think that the cards are a short hand way of transferring information, but aren't they also a way of saying "it's definitely ok to contact me"?

I don't see any way around recognizing that within a network we have a lot of different tags. People I've been to dinner with. People I'd go to dinner with again. SQL people. Former co-workers. People whose opinions I really value. So far I've elected not to import all those contacts into Outlook and tag away, but if I found it useful or necessary I would. Using Facebook for one set of your network and LinkedIn (or two other tools of choice) is another way to separate groups but ultimately - collectively - they represent your network.

Rambling a bit, but see if there is some value in thinking about how you view business cards, and whether it's all about defining sub groups, or not!