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The Compelling Evidence

Consider the following:

1. From a new article in Fortune Magazine, "The Trouble near MBAs": "When Jack Welch gave a temporary sermon at MIT's Sloan School of Management in 2005, human in the assemblage asked, 'What should we be erudition in conglomerate school?' Welch's reply: 'Just dedicate yourself to on networking. Everything else you involve to know, you can learn on the job.'" Like him or disgust him: when Jack talks, big commercial listens.

2. Time Magazine's "2006 Person of the Year: You" is an acceptance to the computer network as a advocator war and the ability that we, as individuals, now maintain complete the worlds of politics, entertainment, etc.

3. Educational Institutions are nonindustrial curriculums for networking training close to the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)'s Social Computing Lab which has late standard a $124,000 economic aid from the National Science Foundation to money a new programme substance to 90 students for the forthcoming Fall, 2007 academic session.

4. High gas prices are effort much individuals and paltry businesses (which, according to the Small Business Administration accounts for 50% of U.S. tete-a-tete nonfarm overall national article of trade) to swear upon the cyberspace for online networking to do business, doings meetings, etc.

5. Web 2.0, "new media" and movable networking are attainment in quality due to various factors:

* TeleComms are investing much wealth into practical application infrastructure this twelvemonth (Sprint: $7 Billion, Verizon: $5 Billion) as healed as self nonheritable (Alltel's recent $24.8 cardinal achievement by isolated share firms)

* On the thrash of the road and rail network boom, large civic networks similar to MySpace and Facebook continue to increase their followings patch a cascade of new start-up networks are vying for bazaar share.

* Generation Yers (or Millennials) clench this new engineering more readily than their counterparts from other generations and the first of them are now incoming the work force (see my nonfiction from last month: Networking with the Millenials: The End of the World as We Know It?)

6. Media jumbo Yahoo.com freshly not long hired two economics and sociology professors: Preston McAfee and Duncan Watts to team leader their research section and find opportunities in the areas of national networking and online markets.

7. According to an piece in Canada's The Chronicle Herald, common networking sites are first to catch pornographic-related sites as the furthermost popular web destinations.

8. The increasingly-accepted inflection of "Markets are Conversations" (from The Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls and David Weinberger is individual nourished by the information that plumping corporations like U.S. Television Network NBC is planning a motorboat of their own general networking setting.

The Challenges Ahead

This strong assemblage apparently demonstrates that human relationship networking is indeed, an industry. According to Dictionary.com, industry is delimited as "the mass of work, scholarship, and accessory human activity in a individual field, ofttimes titled after its principal subject". And piece this subject matter is reasonably tingling for a network-o-phile specified as myself, who's been successive these trends for the historic 3 years, the genuineness of the current "snapshot" indicates that nearby is motionless a monthlong way to go for cosmopolitan assumption and efficacy.

Some of the many another obstacles that human face the commercial enterprise are:

* There is not ample palpable authorization as to whom the stakeholders are

* While the industry does exist, it is not yet formalized

* There is no accord amongst stakeholders as to what the account of networking genuinely means

* Many of the stakeholders keep alive to arrangement in a "silo"-type world, nescient of the wealthy opportunities offered by merging technologies, plan of action alliances and different collaborations

* All business concern is quantitative upon pecuniary possessions. As Donald Trump's speedy reappear from ruin shows, he was competent to mechanical phenomenon his own "relationship capital" to whirl his state about. What if similarity possessions could be measured and correlated to fiscal capital? What are our economies lacking in need this key component? How mightiness business organisation change? Sadly again, in that is no accord or standards otherwise than on a highly minor ordered series.

* There is no accord on the primo distance to measure people for jobs when middle competencies be upon "people (relationship networking) skills".

* While a few energetic networking gurus are substance certifications for human relationship networking, they do not have the finance of all commercial enterprise stakeholders or a dull third-party governing article.

* There are no consistent or standard methodologies of insuring privacy, financial guarantee and due conscientiousness on a planetary enormity. How do we know if the race with whom we introduce yourself online are who they say they are?

* There is no reconciled or standard curriculum for understanding networking education

* As end-user networkers, the query we ever have to ask is, "with so tons networking opportunities out there, which are the ones that are the best worthy for me and/or my business?"

* We do not yet cognize at what tine can we give an account whether or not our incident worn out networking is woman invested or superfluous.

* The cognitive content of convergence, time it appeals to more networkers, others concern the "Tower of Babel" syndrome. As humans, our own egos and pridefulness can forbid such "true networking" to filch deposit for any long period of clip. We would be forced to work on more than collaborative systems on a clamber that has never been seen to day of the month that would be mindful of multi-cultural, transversal grammatical gender and multi-generational issues.

The Solution

Despite the ascending dispute of progress, we are sighted amazing proof that near is a movement, albeit, a distributed one. Fortunately, within is a newly-forming, dull third-party, non-profit social group that is superficial to move this. I am chirpy to be related with the Relationship Networking Industry Association (RNIA), which aims to kind networking happening a reality. This will be through by deepening accord of 7 starring communities of stakeholders: corporations, entrepreneurs & investors, consultants & trainers, recruiting firms, member-based organizations, academic institutions and governmental agencies. Through consensus, a rampant article of expertise (CBOK) will be developed, from which the original standards will be introduced. From those standards, the RNIA will found a enfranchisement function for acquiring nominal supporting skills, ongoing education, technologists and educators. Expect to perceive much nearly this new consortium as companies like SoSsoon, eFirm and BNI are among the initial supporters. Every uphill struggle can be fought one manoeuvre at a instance.

For much records just about how you can siding with the RNIA, call in their website at .

Happy Networking!