TNNW, November, 2008, Week 2: "New Writers at TNNW"

By Adam J. Kovitz
CEO, Founder & Publisher

I've always considered November to be one of those transition months, bridging the gap between Autumn and Winter. We start off with the sugar-high of Halloween (and the subsequent crash that follows), turning our clocks backwards and then moving towards the Holiday Season (anyone else seeing ads on TV and hearing carols yet?) as we approach Thanksgiving (one of the major holidays in the U.S. that truly unifies the country as it knows no religion or ethnicity). By the end, everyone is thinking about getting together with the family by the fireplace and "hunkering down" for the winter as the days get shorter.

Well it's transition time for us at TNNW as well. This week we introduce two new writers as we transition our humble publication into something more. More information to follow on that...

In the meantime as the weather gets colder and the nights get longer, we are proud to bring back the warmth and the sunshine of America's Southeast with our newest Bureau Chief, Larry Block. When he's not bringing you the best in networking from the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, Larry serves as the President of Mobile Marketing Technologies, a firm dedicated to wireless marketing out of the greater Atlanta-metro area. WELCOME LARRY!!!

We are also proud to bring back Douglas Castle this month. Douglas was gracious enough to fill in for me on my featured column last month - the first time in nearly four years that I took a month off. Douglas, aside from being a good friend serves as the Product and Program Development Director for TNNW, helping us to develop new features for you, our readers. Douglas is also a prolific writer, and as such, has agreed to become TNNW's new Political Editor. WELCOME BACK DOUGLAS!!!

Still more to come this month...stay tuned!

As always, I look forward to Networking with you...

- Adam
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Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newletter, go to www.TheNationalNetworker.com. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free RSS feed, go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com.
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TNNW, November, 2008, Week 2: "New Writers at TNNW"

A House United Versus a House Divided

By Douglas Castle
Political Editor

Dear Readers:

Firstly, I am apolitical, and I tend to assess people by who they are as individuals. As Political Editor of THE NATIONAL NETWORKER, my principal objective is to redefine and examine the political processes into their counterparts in the area of networking, Relationship Capital and team-building.

While I do not support any political party per se, I will seldom turn down a catered affair hosted by any political aspirant or group. In between bites of sweet and sour chicken, and platefuls of baked ziti, I observe, and I learn. While it is sometimes painful, I spend a great deal of my time merely watching, listening and nodding my head.


Everything in politics revolves around persuasion. In fact, the principal objective of any candidate running for any office is to be elected -- and this essential first process requires either wielding or utilizing power in order to persuade voters to say "yes..."... whether reluctantly or tentatively, for fear of reprisals or of an even greater evil, or "yes!" because they (the voters) perceive something of great value in the candidate.

As an interesting observation, negative campaigning has becoming increasingly prevalent, generally speaking, due to its inherent psychological advantages and its tremendous efficiency. It is Human Nature to fix blame -- it gives listeners (or readers) a focus away from their own miseries and failings, and unites them in distaste or hatred for the candidate or out group portrayed as "bad" or "dangerous". The "good" candidate does not have to render a cogent or convinging argument about his or her abilities, merits or plans -- these require pursuasion, inspire thought and possible debate, and would obviously require a demonstrable mastery of the political subject matter. It is easier to persecute and prosecute than it is to put one's own record of achievements and plans for the future in the spotlight. In these types of campaigns, voters cast their ballots against the mailigned candidate instead of voting in favor of the candidate who demonstrates superior skills.

My sainted mother (who is actually very much alive and living in Florida, actively hustling her elderly lady friends out of vast single-digit sums of money at nightly card games held at an undisclosed Senior Citizens gaming hall or profaned house of worship) once said to me: "It's easier to unite people through hatred than it is by trying to achieve concensus by merit." Although I am paraphrasing, she is, and has always been a flowing font of folk wisdom.

More to the subject of this article, political influence and political networking tend to operate through two principally different means -- yet, ironically, they are both focused on the goal of siezing and keeping power. Each employs a separate value system (i.e., an inherent assessment of Relationship Capital) . Each employs a separate promotion system, with different criteria for advancement.

Traditionally, Republicans have been successful in their networking and team-building because the following attributes have been generally stressed and rewarded:

1. Unconditional public support of the party line and agenda. Utter unity;
2. The ability to keep secrets and suppress personal objections which could foster intr-party division, exhibit a lack of certainty and ignite debate;
3. A focus on fighting enemies and threats, and uniting through base Human fears, instead of on courting friends and championing positive causes or solutions to problems;
4. Personification of emenies, e.g., making the assualts personal;
5. Respect for seniority (and occasionally senility) within the party, and advancement by A) seniority, and B) a willingness to put party principles ahead of personal preferences and individuality, and be be trusted, beyond morality and reproach, to carry forward the party mission.

As a side note: these techniques helped Hitler to gain power, to enable McCarthyism, unified the old-school Mafia Families, and are actually valuable (and mission-critical) qualities in soldiers under battle conditions. I urge you to suspend moral judgment, and simply view the merits of policies which work. These are powerful lobbying and networking strategies for recruiting, assessing and uniting people to work together. From an NLP perspective, these strategies all have visceral and emotional appeal. The track for growth and rewards is predictable -- this is very comforting to many people who are terrified of uncertainty and risk-taking.

Traditionally, Democrats have been successful in their networking and team-building because the following attributes have been generally stressed and rewarded:

1. The ability to formulate and articulate ideas (i.e., a cerebral approach, and an appeal to reason);
2. The willingness to engage in spirited debate in order to refine or trouble-shoot ideas. Obviously, the difficulty emerges when these "family fights" within the party chambers become media fiascos, and are interpreted by many (including the social icon "Joe Six-Pack") as weakness and indecision;
3. Their technique of speaking to the public, and willingness to listen to, and to incorporate, constructive feedback in terms of policy or platform modification;
4. Their aggressive use of volunteers, interns and communications technologies to stay in touch with the voting public on a personalized level;
5. A time-honored sytem of promotion by A) meritorious work and intelligence, and by B) the ability to frenetically socialize and build interpersonal rapport.

Again, suspend your judgment of how you feel about the traditional party platform, and simply look at the merits of their techniques. Look at their value system.

From the perspective of networking, both principal parties have certain strengths in their approaches to networking and measuring Relationship Capital. Each system has merits, and they are not completely at conflict. I believe that the ideal system should incorporate a synthesis of both approaches.

If I had to summarize the most powerful points of this brief article, it is that the two values which seem to compbine to produce the greatest measure of merit in terms of our assessment of others, are trustworthiness and competence.

Every one of us campaigns every single day. Do your colleagues and prospective constituents see you as trustworthy and competent? If they do not, you are not campaigning as successfully as you otherwise could.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

THE GLOBAL FUTURIST

THE INTERNATIONALIST PAGE

HUMANITAS MAXIMUS

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Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newletter, go to http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free RSS feed, go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/.

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A House United Versus a House Divided

TNNW, November, 2008, Week 1: U.S.'s Ultimate Networking Event

by Adam J. Kovitz, CEO, Founder & Publisher

First and foremost, I wanted to thank my good friend, Douglas Castle, who filled in for my regular column last month.

It seemed that while I was "off", so much has happened...
- Several networking events took place during this past month as Expo season was in full swing and TNNW had the pleasure to partner on several of them
- The Philadelphia Phillies won the 2008 World Series...even though I'm a die-hard Mets fan, I couldn't help but take part in the festivities and celebration considering I now live in the Philadelphia suburbs
- Daylight Standard Time has given us in the U.S. an extra hour of sleep - how sweet it is!, and
- We are now just a few days away from deciding who the next president of the United States will be.

In many regards, the U.S. Presidential Election is the largest networking event we have as a country. The candidates tour around the country to make appearances at debates and "town hall" meetings. Supporters canvass neighborhoods to get others to come out and vote on November 4th. Volunteers man the voting booths tirelessly while local constituents pile in.

I always look forward to going to vote. I bring my kids with me to their school (where the voters' booths are set up) and we proceed to catch up with folks that we usually don't get to talk to. It's a great way of feeling like you're part of the collective whole.

What makes things even more exciting is that this election is historic. There is much passion and hype around as the winner of this election will be dealing with some very tricky times. No matter the outcome, it is an opportunity for all of us to make a difference.

Speaking of changes and politics, this month we will be unveiling some new writers who will be making their debut (and in one case...return). Hint: the return writer will be joining us as our regular Political Editor. Stay tuned!

As always, I look forward to networking with you...

- Adam
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Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newletter, go to www.TheNationalNetworker.com. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free RSS feed, go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com.
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TNNW, November, 2008, Week 1: U.S.'s Ultimate Networking Event

The Impact of Publications on Networking (Part 2)

By Matthew Best, Political Editor

Last month we started to explore the relationship between political publications and networking by interviewing Chris Voccio of The Pennsylvania Republican for a conservative take on the issue.

This month I had an opportunity to interview Mike Lazzaro - known as “Hunter” on Daily Kos. Daily Kos, in case you were not aware of it, is the most visited political blog in the world. According to Mike, Daily Kos is a community website dedicated towards progressive, liberal and Democrat Party goal. It exists to influence the agenda by reporting on what’s going on and have opinions and providing a forum for those opinions.

When I asked Mike about what impact networking had on the website he said that what they are attempting to do at Daily Kos would be difficult without the internet. The Internet “allows people to come together with common interests” from all over the world, whereas previously, geographic boundaries isolated communities. “The internet allows interest groups to operate on a national level and as a result – have exponentially more influence than 100’s of local groups could ever have.”

I asked Mike what kind of impact the website had on networking. He mentioned that it has been slow in making an impact on politics, but recently Daily Kos has been seen as more of a part of the national media stream and hence had more influence on the Party and the media. “Our site is changing how politicians interact with constituencies because we can organize nationally. Subgroups start to form by states or causes making these subgroups more efficient structures.” Overall geography is not a barrier as it once was.

One of the main reasons I wanted to interview Mike was because of Daily Kos’ uniqueness. Beyond the number of hits the site receives every day, the site has also done some interesting activities to test “online work in the real world,” as Mike puts it.

The website sponsored a conference “Yearly Kos,” to gather fans of the site along with activists. “People wanted to test if online action and activism could have real world effects. So the conference was really an experiment.” It was a success by their standards and they have since renamed the conference “Netroots National Convention,” to expand the focus of the conference and cover what the convention is really about – online grassroots activism.

When I asked Mike for his thoughts on how well publications were tapping into established social networks, he said that they “don’t do a good job of tapping into each other,” or blogs, Facebook, etc. Mike stated that he didn’t know why it hasn’t happened yet beyond to answer that he thinks that most of the publications aren’t sure how to yet.

Lastly, I asked Mike about what trends he saw in political networking. He said that political networks are “getting larger and more professionalized” when it comes to online networking. He mentioned that the trend is to move away from the many “single-voice communities” like blogs where only one person is writing to multi-voice communities. The reason for this trend is that “members are demanding higher levels of quality” which means there is more work, and too much work for just one person anymore. Mike’s thought about trends in online publications is that they will continue to look more and more like newspapers, “but where the community writes the content.”

Stay tuned next month for an interview I did on government, business, and networking.

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The Impact of Publications on Networking (Part 2)

PR Web: Podcast Interview Series Analyzes Latest PA Election Results

Podcast Interview Series Analyzes Latest PA Election Results: The Keystone Report on Good Politics Radio

Host of the Keystone Report on Good Politics Radio, Matt Best, interviews Brett Lieberman, political news reporter about the recent elections in PA. Coming interviews are with two political science professors at Grove City College.

Olympia, WA (PRWEB) November 22, 2007 -- The Pennsylvania Keystone Report on Good Politics Radio presents an interview series providing expert analysis of the recent November elections. Host of the Pennsylvania keystone Report, Matt Best recently interviewed political news reporter Brett Lieberman about the statewide judicial retention races, the changes in the county courthouses, and the impact that this year's elections will have on the 2008 national elections. This lively interview is available online at www.pa.goodpoliticsradio.com. Lieberman is the Washington correspondent for the Harrisburg Patriot News and has covered elections for TV, radio, and print.

Listen now...

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PR Web: Podcast Interview Series Analyzes Latest PA Election Results

Podcast Interview Series Analyzes Latest PA Election Results

Coming soon on Pennsylvania Good Politics Radio are Best's interviews of Dr. Michael Coulter and Dr. Paul Kengor. The interview with Dr. Coulter, professor of Political Science at Grove City College, analyzes election results. The following interview with Dr. Kengor, Political Science professor, covers the recent elections, presidential politics, and Dr. Kengor's most recent book, "God and Hillary".

Matt Best is the President of Best Solutions, an entrepreneurial coaching firm and co-author of "Speaking of Success". He also serves as the Political Editor of The National Networker, an online magazine.

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Podcast Interview Series Analyzes Latest PA Election Results

Matthew Best on Good Politics Radio

Matthew Best is the newest podcaster with Good Politics Radio. Matt lives in Carlisle, Pa, and will be podcasting and writing for the Pennsylvania GPR channel.

Matt has an amazing resume of experiences. He has worked for a U.S. Representative and for a Pa. state legislator. He has also worked for a lobbying organization. And he has experience working for political campaigns.

Additionally, Matt is involved with several political ventures online. He is the political editor for The National Networker, a portal website dedicated to networking activity and information, and Matt’s writings and interviews can be seen here. He is also working on a new website called Linked to Politics, which is all about networking in politics.

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Matthew Best on Good Politics Radio