What is a Professional Network?
A professional network is not just a collection of names and e-mail addresses. It is not your foundation for personal spam-blasts of what’s going on with you or in your career. This may be a common conception, but it is a very ineffective approach to professional networking. I know there are people out there who can boast networks in excess of 500 or 1000 people or more on LinkedIn. Given enough time and determination, you could probably build the same. But I doubt that you’d have a relevant professional network. You’d have a bunch of people and e-mail addresses. Mike Gotta in his post Social Networks: Making Sense Out Of Terminology describes relationships within a social network as Relations: A relation (synonymous with the terms “ties†or “links†), is a type of contact or association that connects actors…. Ties between actors can vary. Some ties may exist for purposes of friendship, advice or mentoring. Other ties may exist because of an authority context (e.g.
