Open Random and Supportive

As social media grows in popularity – sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed etc, are all growing exponentially. Why is this?
Well there could be many reasons, and there are many experts sharing their views on it. I simply see this as the more adventurous and networking oriented people doing just that – networking first off with their friends and colleagues, to share news and keep in touch (for me Facebook started with my son taking time out to travel and share his experiences there. I registered to follow him and stay in touch daily) and then once engaged realising that there are bigger opportunities with this medium.
My first networking experience was actually Linkedin a few years ago – I was invited to connect with someone and joined and put together a brief profile (have it all updated now I know better), more recently I have really embraced social networking and have multiple presence on line including Ecademy. I joined just over 18 months ago and have (through some assistance) managed to gain some great contacts. One piece of advice I took was to decide what I wanted from networking and how I was to approach it. The advice was to be an OPEN RANDOM and SUPPORTIVE networker rather than CLOSED SELECTIVE and CONTROLLING. The former promotes a completely open approach to networking along with a high degree of randomness (as the name suggests). Some folk choose to only network with people that they have already met and know – I prefer to connect randomly and then learn more about them, how I can assist them, and the overwhelming evidence I have seen suggests that this is the most productive long term.
In the final analysis everything in life is like a wheelbarrow – it will do nothing unless you pick it up and push it.