6,800 yard par 72 course or 9 hole par 3 executive course, the effect will be the same— a premium golf experience that surpasses your greatest expectations. It will challenge the best and promises to reward all. The distinguished Georgian-style Clubhouse offers panoramic views of the 9th & 18th greens as well as beautiful Sandy Lake. 
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Pay InvoiceJuly/August 2010
Pressing Buttons or Pressing Flesh: NETWORKING in the
DIGITAL AGE
By Richard Woodbury
With the rise in popularity of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, it’s natural to question what effect that will have on traditional face- to- face networking.
The reality is the two will be used to complement each other and neither will disappear. Social networking is merely an added tool in the networking toolbox, says Brad Smith, a partner with Sandler Training, a sales and sales management training company. “I don’t think it replaces it, I think it enhances it,” he says.
One of the reasons is that most communication comes from body language. A commonly cited statistic on body language says that 55 per cent of communication is based on physiology (how you look, act, dress, etc.), 38 per cent is based on tonality (or how you say it) and seven per cent is based on your choice of words.
“Social media cannot replace all of those other components,” Smith says. “You cannot replace the human element. The human element is always critical.”
In a city like Halifax, which is neither small nor large, the supply pool can be rather shallow at face-to-face networking events.
“Halifax is a very networked town and we do a lot of networking,” Smith says. “It’s amazing how often we run into the same people at the same events over and over.”
This is an area where social networking will help.
“It means people have a bigger pool to draw from,” says Joel Kelly, a marketing specialist with Radian6, a social media monitoring and engagement company. One of the beauties of social networking is that it makes people’s real world connections easily visible to them. “It does the sourcing for you,” Kelly says. This means it’s easier to understand your network and connections because it’s essentially compiled for you.
It also becomes easier to make connections with certain people because you can see if you have common connections with them. And everybody in networking knows that it’s easier to deal with somebody if you have a mutual acquaintance or some sort of entry point than if you are going in cold.
In marketing circles, authenticity is a big buzzword these days. The question of what sort of authenticity one can get from social networking is an important one. The good news is it’s possible (but it’s not guaranteed).
“I think the fact we’re so connected and all our connections are so visible, it might make people a little more careful about being authentic because if I lie online, one person’s eventually going to find out, which means everyone is going to find out,” Kelly says.
With what people post and share online, it can allow others to see who they really are.
“If you’re willing to show your vulnerable side and be honest with people, I think it comes through,” says Gayle Hallgren Rezac, co-author of Work the Pond! Use the Power of Positive Networking to Leap Forward in Work and Life. “People know if you’re just selling.”
Kelly agrees. “With regular IM communication, regular e-mail communication, or seeing someone’s updates everyday on Facebook or Twitter, you start to feel like you know them better and you might be able to vouch for them,” he says.
Online authenticity isn’t perfect, but neither is face-to-face networking.
“When it comes to networking, what comes up for me is memorizing an elevator speech and then standing in front of somebody just reciting that rather than speaking to the passion of what you do, what you’ve created and how much you love it and what you can do for somebody else,” says Judith Richardson, CEO and senior strategist of
PONO Consultants International Inc., a strategic management consulting and executive coaching services company.
This is especially true in Halifax where, at times, people know exactly what somebody’s elevator speech is going to be because they’ve already heard it so many times at different networking functions.
For those considering taking the social networking plunge, it requires a real commitment.
“Don’t jump on just to jump on,” cautions Richardson. As with anything in life, you will get out of it what you put into it. The move to social networking should be viewed with the same thought process as making a business decision – it involves research, planning and careful execution.
And it isn’t just a numbers game. “Networking is about quality,” Smith says. The connections have to be real and meaningful.
Blogging is an area where there is great interest these days for people to get out information about themselves and their businesses. So what should potential bloggers be thinking about?
“If you have something to say and you have a market that’s interested in what you have to say, consider blogging,” Hallgren-Rezac says. “But if you make that commitment to blog, then it’s got to be: 1. Not all about you; 2. It’s got to be interesting; and 3. It’s got to be very well written. For a lot of people, that eliminates them (from) starting a blog.”
The first point is especially crucial. Social media is based on sharing content.
“The beauty about these spaces is the thrill of sharing,” says Ryan McNutt, the new media officer at Dalhousie University. “It’s the idea you find an interesting article about something, you find a cool insight, you learn something interesting at your office or something is going on that other people would be interested in.”
This means social media isn’t just talking about what you had for lunch or how the weather is today. Even with the growth in social networking, ultimately people will still want to connect with people faceto- face.
“It’s that face-to-face communication that’s the most powerful because that’s how you build levels of trust that are important in any kind of relationship,” Hallgren-Rezac says.
Smith agrees. “At the end of the day, people do business with people who they know and trust and respect,” he says.
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