I think it’s safe to say that many online workers would also describe themselves as lifelong learners. I know that personally, I’m always looking for new ways to learn, which is why I was so intrigued when I came across WiZiQ. The web service bills itself as an “Online Educational Platform for Teachers and Learners” and is available free of charge. What it provides is a virtual classroom, the purpose of which is left completely up to users.
Definitely an attractive proposition, and one which I can think of many uses for in terms of web working applications. But in practice, what are WiZiQ’s limitations? Could I, for instance, monetize the service, and offer lessons created with WiZiQ as part of a subscription or pay-per-lesson model?
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In a previous post here at WWD, I gave a list of four essential contacts for web workers. The list included a mentor, a newbie, the walking social network, and the non-techie. While those contacts will help you enrich your career, there are other contacts you’ll need if you want to have more opportunities, or if you need help in establishing the businesses side of your web working practice.
The lawyer. Contracts and legal documents are part of every web worker’s life. We often need to sign non-disclosure agreements, independent contractor documents, and telecommuting agreements. Having a lawyer as a contact can be handy, especially if you want to start a business, translate legalese, or draft your own contracts when templates just won’t do.
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I recently read an article by Social Media strategist Chris Brogan in which he talked about how to Reach Outside Your Fishbowl to Build Community. He says that by reaching out to disparate audiences, you can find those who may not have exposure to you otherwise.
This is great advice and got me thinking about how we can also take advantage of our personal interests and dive deeper into our existing groups for the same purpose, how to use our multiple fishbowls.
Networking is all about building relationships, but who says these relationships have to originate around our area of business? How can we harness the networks that exist for our personal interests as well?
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My Twitter Page
Like anyone using social networks for my work, I struggle with the friend feature. There are a number of theories of how and why to friend other people and when to accept friend requests. Clearly, having more “friends” on your social networks has its benefits, but if friending is done randomly, how much value are those very random “friends” for your business goals?
Some of the reasons you might want to friend someone for your work are:
- facilitating business networking
- connecting to a potential strategic partner or virtual team member
- looking for a job opportunity
- building an audience for the content you publish
- cultivating potential customers and clients
To Follow or Not To Follow
Accepting friend offers often seems to be much less strategic. On Twitter, for example, I personally don’t follow every single person who follows me. I do go to each Twitter page for every person who does follow me and peruse a few pages of their tweets. I can tell pretty quickly if they are using Twitter in a way that is valuable or meaningful and worth following. I follow less people because I really want to pay attention to the people I do follow.
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I hate carrying business cards. There, I said it. While so much of my work-time is spent on-line or at various Wi-Fi shops with coffee coffee shops with Wi-Fi, carrying business cards is a necessary evil in our world. Seems like each time I don’t have any is the time I need to have them, so I don’t leave home with out a half-dozen or so.
Earlier this month at the Mobilize conference, I must have passed out a hundred cards; doing so reduced my weight by about 3 percent because I have the heavy stock card type. Towards the end of the event however, I witnessed “business card nirvana”. Andy Abramson and I were chatting about mobile technologies over drinks when all of sudden he whips out his BlackBerry to send a text message.
Note: we don’t recommend nor condone drinking and texting here at WWD.
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Alex Iskold writes on Read/WriteWeb that there’s no money in the long tail of the blogosphere. What he means is: if you’re trying to make decent money by selling advertising on your niche blog (i.e., your blog that caters to the needs of a few in the long tail) you’re going to have a hard time of it.
But you can earn money because of your blog instead of with it. Blogging can be the centerpiece of your professional promotional and networking activities, leading indirectly to new money-making opportunities. Plus, blogging offers psychological riches — through the opportunities for personal expression and social connection it brings you.
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