Connected Worker

Let’s be honest: we all want our friends, family, and colleagues to remember our birthday — even if we appear to be nonchalant about it when they do. It’s the one day of the year we’re allowed to be truly selfish and not feel guilty about it.

But if you’re a smart Connected Worker, you’re making sure that you remember the birthdays of the people in your personal and professional networks, too. Calling or e-mailing friends or colleagues on their birthdays is the perfect way to catch up, or reconnect, with people that matter in your life. You’re also being thoughtful.

… but remembering is the hard part
When I was younger, I prided myself on being able to recite the birthdays — and ages, too — of all my friends and family. I was like that with phone numbers as well. I could retrieve this information seemingly at will.

But as I’ve gotten older and put more and more “stuff” into my head, birthdays — along with plenty of other things — have become harder and harder to remember.

I need a reminder system.

Facebook displays birthdays
Now there are plenty of sites out there that could do that for me — just see the Google search results for “birthday reminders” to get an idea — but why not choose a social networking tool that I’m already using to make my life easier?

I’m talking about Facebook.

If you’re a Facebook user, take a look at the right sidebar of your “home” page. You’ll see a list of your friends’ birthdays (yes, that’s my wife’s name at the top of my list for today; happy birthday, Stella!).

Facebook also has a fun application called Birthday Stats, which keeps you informed of upcoming half-birthdays!

So work a Facebook birthday check into your daily routine, and then go and spread that birthday cheer.

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Know the feeling of looking at a stack of business cards the day after returning from a conference or networking event and already forgetting the faces and stories of the dozens of people whose names, titles, and e-mail addresses are now scattered across your desk?

Well, what if you were holding one of the new business cards from my friend Christopher S. Penn, a super Connected Worker?

I bet you’d remember some of his stories, then.

And what if you next flipped over that business card and had a link to Chris’s Virtual Business Card, which included links to websites for his day job and several other projects he’s involved in and passionate about, as well as all of the ways to contact him?

Well, you’d be impressed, of course, and you’d be certain to follow up with him, get to know him, and become part of his online social network. And in turn, he’d become part of yours.

Hat tip: JibberJobber.

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My wife and I got into an animated discussion (read: argument) yesterday morning about whether she should follow up with an acquaintance she hadn’t heard from in a few months.

My wife’s take: she shouldn’t. She argued that it was the acquaintance who had twice canceled plans at the last minute and had promised to call soon to reschedule. And if that was too difficult to do, well, then, maybe the meetup wasn’t worth pursuing in the first place.

My take: my wife should make the call anyway.

There are probably dozens of people in my personal, professional, and personal/professional networks that I’m overdue on following up and reconnecting with. I’ve been busy. They’ve been busy. I haven’t called or e-mailed. They haven’t called or e-mailed. But here’s the bottom line: I haven’t been in touch with people that are important to me. Does it really matter whose “turn” it is to initiate our next conversation?

All of us usually have the best of intentions when we say we’ll follow up, but the longer the wait, the harder reaching out again sometimes becomes. But as Connected Workers, you and I know that we need to take that initiative.

So here’s a challenge for you this week: take a look at your Outlook address book, your cellphone contacts, or your LinkedIn connections, and identify three people that you haven’t spoken with in at least three to six months. Make a pledge today to reach out to all of them in the next seven days and say you’ve been thinking about them. If you also happen to live in the same physical part of the world — a seemingly decreasing reality in this online social media age — propose catching up over a meal or drink, or at a family event. You could do that in the form of an e-mail, text message, or Jott, or you could really surprise them with a phone call. You — and they — will be glad you did.

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