The Connect Effect: Building Strong Personal, Professional, and Virtual Networks

Networking is not mere socializing--it is a vital personal and professional development skill. An effective network can make you more knowledgeable, help you address critical issues, accelerate your career, and even improve your health and well-being. It's just too important to be left to chance. With "The Connect Effect" you can take a conscious, systematic approach to networking. To begin with, Author Michael Dulworth helps you evaluate how network-savvy you are. Dulworth then identifies three distinct kinds of networks: personal, professional, and virtual, exploring their specific characteristics and offering strategies, tools, and resources for building up and making the best use of each one. Stories from Dulworth's over twenty years of experience running networks, as well as interviews with top executives, researchers, and thought leaders, provide insights and advice about how networks function in the real world.

Employment consultant Dulworth instructs how to take a conscious, systematic approach to networking in order to improve personal and professional development skills. After a brief introduction explaining the importance and benefits of networking, he presents a quiz for the reader to determine networking quotient. He then identifies three kinds of networks--personal, professional, and virtual--and examines each for their specific characteristics, further offering strategies, tools, and resources for increasing and making the best use of each network. Two resource-oriented appendices include information on forming a person board for decision-making, and online networking sites. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)