Finding Personal Knowledge Management Contacts (Social Networking) part 2

10. A former employer or instructor, especially if you left either of them thinking well of you, would be an excellent PKM contact

11. In every job you have held you make contacts which may have lasting power. Such contact belong in your contact matrix containing facts about their particular knowledge value or expertise level.

12. Referrals from your trusted PKM contacts may also be added to your contact list.

13. Previous clients, if apropos to your particular job skill set, are always strong PKM contacts. In particular the importance is greater if the contacts believed that you provided them with excellent contract deliverables.

14. Current or existing clients who are also satisfied with your contract work are excellent contacts. I have often been offered jobs with clients satisfied with my contract work.

15. If you are a qualified college instructor, you can make many student contacts who might make very valuable employees in your area of expertise or interest.

16. If you are a college student, all the bright students are possible contacts of potentially valuable future use. If you are working on a graduate degree, seek out those students already employed in your areas of interest. Not all jobs are posted, and these possible “inside sales people” can keep you apprised of activities within their own companies. A recommendation from someone inside the company could be quite valuable to you.

17. Your PKM is not only “people” contacts – it might also include web URLs and other sources of valuable information which will help you do a better, more professional job.

18. If you are a consultant or salesman, current and previous clients belong on your PKM matrix. Additionally, current and future client prospects should be there. Some contact stratification ought to be made. Current qualified buyers should be separated from future prospects, who might not yet be identified as qualified buyers.

19. I know a recruiter who works for a large, billion dollar company. He is always alert for PKM opportunities. Once, while getting a haircut, he noticed one of those waiting for his haircut was reading an Oracle certification book. Because the recruiter’s company had a continuing need for Oracle expertise in IT new hires, he stuck up a conversation with the man. The result was a new employee from the local area. Costs were reduced because neither recruitment nor air travel was required, and more possible PKM contacts in the immediate area with Oracle experience were added to the recruiter’s PKM list. Again, PKM contacts abound. You just have to be aware of them. I often hear discussions on IT topics when I go to a restaurant for a meal. I am always looking for more.

If a meeting is important enough for you to attend (banking, Rotarian, professional, etc), then you ought to make an effort to learn who all the attendees are, what they do and think, and begin to make a decision regarding what notes to add about them to your database of contacts.

Finding Personal Knowledge Management Contacts (Social Networking) Part 1

Finding Personal Knowledge Management Contacts (Social Networking) Part 1

1. MBWA – managing by walking around gives you the opportunity to develop contacts informally. These lower level workers can always become communication “linking pins in the future.
2. By becoming a member in professional groups, you can make contacts who are useful for providing ideas, and possibly other job opportunities.
3. If you take a college class, your contacts can range from the instructor to the other students, and each person in the class has his own PKM. By establishing trusting personal and professional relationships, PKM contacts may be sharable by mutual consent.
4. If you attend church, at least one member in each family has a job – and even retirees possess informal PKM capability.
5. If you are employed in a large company, formal meetings or training may introduce to possible contacts. As you move up the corporate ladder, these contacts will also mature over time to hold similar positions in their own departments or divisions. Contacts, like fine wine, only improve with age, and the trust you established long ago with these contacts continue.
6. Even jury duty provides you with possible contacts, although quite varied in value and nature. Opportunity is where you can find it.
7. Even belonging to IT vendor user groups can help make you better contacts, both within the IT profession and outside it. Because IT is so important to the entire organization’s productivity, proper contacts in this specialized area will become more important to you as your job opportunities progress.
8. Make further and more frequent contacts with people who are smarter or are more capable than you are. You will be forced to improve your own capabilities just keeping up with them. You may even learn from these contacts how to think outside the box.
9. E-mail contacts offers another kind of PKM matrix which did not exist twenty years ago. The importance of e-mail PKM matrices can be seen by the grants given by the government for the data mining e-mail contacts for national security purposes. Even if the e-mail is encrypted, the address of the sender and receiver are not.