Altimeter - Networking to Help Your Career Soar

Speaking at BayFuBai Event Sunday on Open Networking

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:45:00 +0000

I'm a member of a networking group called BayFuBai, composed mostly of Chinese and Chinese American professionals in the Silicon Valley area. I've been invited to speak at this Sunday afternoon's meeting.

The title of my talk is: "How being an open networker can help you in your career".

Here's a brief description of the talk:

What does it mean to be an open networker? What are some of its advantages and disadvantages? What is the theory of weak links and how will it help you in your career? If you decide to try out being an open networker, what are some concrete ways to do so? In this workshop, Josh will share some thoughts on why it may be advantageous to be an open networker. He will also provider specific suggestions on how to try out being an open networker for career advancement.

Here are the event details:

Date & Time: Sunday, 10/18/09, 3:30 PM PST

Location: Google Building 46 (Near Huff Ave and Charleston Ave in Mountain View)

If you're in the Bay Area and are interested in attending, please come by!

-Josh

Start Twittering!

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:30:00 +0000

I was inspired by Tim Chang's talk to create a Twitter account and start twittering. So, here's my Twitter account. Please follow me on Twitter!

If you don't have a Twitter account yet, I highly recommend it. You can read about so many things, including the latest news on what's going on in Iran.

-Josh

Stay connected with people you meet at conferences

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:13:00 +0000

A long time ago, I met Tim Chang at an Entertainment and Media conference. Tim is a venture capitalist at Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). My usual habit is to invite the folks that I meet to keep in touch by connecting on LinkedIn. Tim graciously accepted my invitation.

A few months ago, Tim pinged me to see if I was attending a conference that he was speaking at. Although I wasn't planning to attend the conference, I used that opportunity to invite Tim to speak to the Asian American Google Network (AAGN).

Tim spoke to AAGN members from all over the country last week, and it was a smashing success! Tim's basic message to the predominantly Asian American audience was that we should continue to network with people in Asia Pacific, and leverage our unique cultural backgrounds and experiences. Right now in China, there are a lot of opportunities for "returnees".

The main point of this post is to encourage you to stay connected with people you meet at conferences. They can be super helpful in the future for your career development or networking.

-Josh

Networking with fellow B-School students

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:52:00 +0000

It's been almost a year since I posted to this blog!! My excuse was the birth of our second child, Aidan. Well, that's not much of an excuse.

Today I met Michael Ross, who is a student at my alma mater, UCLA Anderson School of Management. Michael is a summer MBA intern with Google, in the group I was in previously, AdWords. Here is Michael's very impressive background on LinkedIn.

One of the first things Michael said was, "I saw your blog, but it's been a while since you posted something!"

OK, that motivated me to post something to this blog. Hopefully, I'll post to this blog a bit more frequently.

-Josh

TradeVibes, Great for Doing Company Research

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:06:00 +0000

I received the email below from Nancy Wu, Product Marketing Manager at TradeVibes to checkout / join their site on June 17th, which I did. The next day, I invited my team at Google and some of my other colleagues, because I think TradeVibes is great for doing company research, especially on private Internet companies. I also really like the feature where users can vote whether they are bullish or bearish on a company's future.

Today, I received an email from Nancy that I've won their Invite Giveaway contest, a Wii a Week! Here's their blog about the contest, and my winning the 2nd week's prize.

So, I encourage everyone to join TradeVibes (its' free) and then invite your friends. I think it's a great tool.

-Josh
___________

Nancy Wu has invited you to join TradeVibes

You should check out TradeVibes. It's a great site to learn about new startups and follow industry trends.

For Startup Enthusiasts: TradeVibes is a great way to discover cool new startups, read up on startup related news and discussions, share your opinions, and find out which startups are hot.

For Aspiring Entrepreneurs: TradeVibes is the place to follow industry trends, find startup ideas, and share and discuss your ideas and opinions.

For Entrepreneurs: TradeVibes is an excellent tool to promote your startup, research competitors, and find out what the community thinks about your company.

For Job Seekers: TradeVibes is a terrific way to find out more about prospective employers and the latest industry happenings.

For Investors: TradeVibes is a great way to hear about hot new startups, do in-depth research, and hear what the community is saying.

Have a great week,

~ Nancy

Dear Joshua Li,

You have been invited by Nancy Wu to participate in the TradeVibes beta.

TradeVibes is the first structured wiki for startup company information. As a member, you'll have access to detailed information about startups in our database. TradeVibes is also the best way to discover hot new startups and follow industry news and trends. TradeVibes members can also add companies to their watch lists and get notified when major events and news occur.

AAGN Speaker: Alina Cho

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:59:00 +0000

In addition to being the Founder and Chair of the Asian American Google Network (AAGN), I'm also the Co-Chair of the AAGN Speaker Series committee. Our first AAGN speaker is Alina Cho, a CNN correspondent. Khee Lee from the Google New York office is the organizer of this event.

Here are some event details:

When: Tuesday, June 24, 10 - 11 am PST (1 PM EST)
Where: Held in NY Tech Talk. Mountain View VC location is: MTV-CL5-1-Adal
Who: All AAGN members and Googlers.
Speaker: Alina Cho, a CNN correspondent will be speaking.

Here's Alina Cho's bio.

Contact Khee Lee (New York office) for more details.

Introducing the Asian American Google Network (AAGN)

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:52:00 +0000

In the Fall of 2007, I started the Asian American Google Network (AAGN) in order to better network with other Asian American professionals at Google. Recently, I wrote out our mission statement and updated this in my LinkedIn profile:

"Our main goals are to support Google employee retention and advancement, educate Googlers concerning Asian American culture and perform community outreach. We do this by enabling professional development, networking, mentorship, community service and knowledge sharing."

AAGN has committees in several offices in North America, as well as committees in these functional areas: Mentorship, Speaker Series, Educational / Cultural, Social Events, Community Service and Communications.

I invite all active Google employees to join AAGN. You can learn more about AAGN through this intranet wiki page: http://go/aagn

Checkout/join the AAGN networking groups on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Please feel free to invite other Google employees to join AAGN. Thanks!

-Josh Li
Chair, Asian American Google Network

Networking at Media Summit in NYC next week (3/12-13)?

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:17:00 +0000

Are you interested in networking at Media Summit in NYC next week?

I will be attending the Media Summit in New York City on 3/12 or 3/13. If you're interested in networking during one of the breaks (even if you're not attending the conference), then please let me know. I'll also be attending the "Content Discovery: Charting New Courses for Broadband Video Dinner" on 3/12.

Here's the event's website:

http://www.digitalhollywood.com/MediaSummit.html

Location: McGraw-Hill Building, 49th St. & 6th Ave., New York City

Breaks are:

1) 10:15 - 10:45 AM
2) 12 - 12:30 PM
3) 1:45 - 2:15 PM
4) 6 - 6:30 PM on Wednesday, 3/12

I look forward to seeing you at this event!

-Josh Li

Networking While On a Business Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:01:00 +0000

Wow, I can't believe it's almost been a year since my last post! Some of you may know that I've relocated from the New York / Connecticut area to Silicon Valley last April. I'm working at Google, where I'm the Head of the Entertainment & Media vertical for AdWords, within the Online Sales and Operations group.

Last week, I traveled down to Los Angeles to interview first year students at my alma mater, the UCLA Anderson School of Management for MBA internships at Google.

As Keith Ferrazzi recommends in his book, "Never Eat Alone", I took the advantage of the business trip to reconnect with many friends and acquaintances. Prior to my trip, I emailed many friends based in LA, to see if they wanted to meet up for dinner. Seven of us ended up having a good sushi dinner at Hide Sushi, on Sawtelle Blvd. It was a diverse group, consisting of my friends from Boston Chinese Evangelical Church, Harvard College, NAAAP and Avery Dennison. I had not seen most of these friends for many years.

I also met up with one of my mentors from UCLA Anderson, Bruce Rognlien for breakfast. Bruce was the leader of program within the Entrepreneur Association at UCLA Anderson called "TEC On-Campus", which is now "Vistage On-Campus". This was my absolutely favorite extra-curricular activity while in B-School. Bruce was a retired entrepreneur and former CEO of Associated Travel.

Every month, our whole TEC group (15 of us students plus Bruce) spent a Friday together. Bruce would make appointments for us to visit a prominent entrepreneur or business leader based in the LA area. The entrepreneur would speak to us in the morning very candidly about his or her career successes and failures, and then have lunch with us. In the afternoon, Bruce led us through various career development discussions, or gave us time on the agenda to pitch our ideas for building a start-up to our peers and receive honest feedback. During the quarter, Bruce also met with us one-to-one for personal career and life counseling. Needless to say, I've really looked forward to our monthly TEC meetings and treasured all of Bruce's advice. To this day, I've never found a networking group quite like it. So, it was great to catch up with Bruce at breakfast last week.

That's part of the reason I wanted to share this with everyone. Most of us will go on occasional business trips. It's very easy to literally "Eat Alone", or with colleagues that you see frequently. However, I would recommend following Keith Ferrazzi's advice and plan to reconnect with old friends and acquaintances (or even invite some new people to meet up).

Another recommendation is that if you're a successful entrepreneur, I would highly recommend joining Vistage, since the Vistage On-Campus groups are modeled after the normal Vistage groups.

Happy networking!

-Josh Li

By the way, I've run out of LinkedIn invites to connect, but am an open networker on LinkedIn. Feel free to invite me to connect to you on LinkedIn and I'll accept.

Great Advice from Keith Ferrazzi

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 03:47:00 +0000

Several years ago, a good friend of mine recommended to me Keith Ferrazzi’s book, “Never Eat Alone”. I read it and thought that contained a lot of really good career advice. I have also recommended his book in previous posts in this blog.

A couple of months ago, Keith Ferrazzi created a new career / life planning tool called “Life Coach Tool 1.0”, and sent out an email to some folks about it. I clicked on the link, watched the short video clip, and actually used the tool to plan out some of my major life’s goals, and how to achieve them. The tool also gave me good advice on how to overcome some potential obstacles.

After I used the tool, I learned that Keith Ferrazzi was running a competition. If I referred friends to use his free tool, the top 3 finishers will win a 1-hour coaching conversation with him. Thanks to everyone’s help, I was one of the top 3 finishers. The purpose of this blog is to summarize some of the great advice and suggestions that Keith gave me earlier today (my 1 hour coaching session with Keith).

Keith spent the first 15 minutes asking me about my background, and work and life experiences. He asked some good questions about various personal and work transitions I have made in my life. I mentioned that one of the major transitions I am about to make is that I will be relocating out to the Bay Area to take a management position with a leading technology company. Keith gave me some specific advice about how to be successful in my new company.

1) Re-read “Never Eat Alone”. Even though I read it many years ago, I agree that it’s time to re-read the book to get some good ideas about how to network successful with people at my new company.

2) Make a list of 20 people at my new company that I would like to get to know better. Some of these can be very senior executives, including the founders of the company.

3) For each of these people, evaluate my current relationship with them, from a scale of 0 to 5. 0 is someone I don’t know yet. 1 is someone who may be aware of me and vice versa. 2 is someone I have met. 3 is someone I have met a few times. 4 is a friend. 5 is a very good friend, and as Keith puts it, “is someone you can call at 3 o’clock in the morning”.

I mentioned that I tend to have a very large network through LinkedIn and Xing, but I have not had as much time as I would like to deepen those relationships. So I have a lot of people in my network I can classify as 1s, but not as many that I can classify as 4s or 5s. Keith suggested that to be truly successful, it’s vitally important to have a solid group of relationships that you can classify as 4s and 5s.

4) For each of the 20 people on the list, deepen the relationship every month. There are three types of interactions: Meetings, Events, and Pinging.

5) Meetings are getting together with someone 1-to-1 for breakfast, lunch or coffee. Events are group gatherings, such as if I invited a group of people over for dinner, or some other informal parties. Pinging is checking up with them once a month, via email or phone call. If the person won a prize or did something great, then send him or her an email congratulating them.

6) With every interaction, two of the goals are to gather more information about them and share information about yourself. The types of information to be exchanged are: business / work information, their cares and concerns, their personal lives, and what they are passionate about. For example, if you find out that one of the people on the list had a death in the family, and you can send your condolences.

7) Every quarter or six months, revise the list of 20 people and re-evaluate the strength of your relationship with them. Your goal is to keep deepening the average score of the relationships.

8) Since my long-term goal is to manage P&L at an established company, Keith suggested that many of the people in my list of 20 be senior executives at my new company who are managing P&L.

9) Senior executives may be willing to invest their time meeting with you if you demonstrate that you listen to their advice, act on it, and give back to others.

Keith mentioned that if I do what he suggested, then it’s a lot more likely that I will advance in my career ahead of just relying on my own hard work. He suggested that I really focus on networking with people at my new company for the next couple of years.

We also talked about work life balance, since I have a young daughter. Keith suggested that rather than seeing it as two separate spheres, a good approach is “blending”. For example, get to know other parents at my new company. Perhaps our kids can play together. Invite people over to your house for dinner. This way, you can spend time with your family and your colleagues. Don’t worry if your house is too small. People will just appreciate the fact that you’ve invited them.

10) Invest time and energy to develop your team and their leadership abilities so that they will also succeed in life. This is a good way to cultivate their loyalties to you, so that they will want to see you succeed as well. Keith even offered to sign autographed copies his book “Never Eat Alone” to my direct reports, so that they can improve their networking skills.

Another area of our discussion was about my Christian faith, and how I wanted to integrate that into my work / life balance. Keith gave me another example of “blending”, which is that I find other Christians at my new company, and see which churches they attend. Perhaps I can visit some of their churches when I get to the Bay Area. So, when I do visit a church, I can find out if any of the other members at that church work at my company. Basically, the idea of “blending” is to combine my personal interests and passions with some of my colleagues, which should help me to acclimate quickly into my new company.

Keith was very gracious with his time, and also offered to stay in touch, and follow up on my progress in taking his suggestions. He also offered to introduce me to a senior level executive at my new company once I start my new role. Overall, I found my one hour conversation with Keith to be very helpful, and filled with very concrete and actionable items. If you still haven’t read his book, “Never Eat Alone”, I would highly recommend it.

Regards,

-Josh Li

MBA Central Premium Group Newsletter, February 10th, 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 03:23:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since my last post. Here's my monthly newsletter on the MBA Central Premium Group I moderator on Xing. Please take a look;

If you find this group helpful, we encourage you to invite your friends.
http://www.xing.com/premiumgroup-6675.ec4b2e
_______________________

Welcome to those of you who have joined this group in 2007! As of today, we have 2522 members. This means that 501 new members joined this group since January 1st, the date I sent out the previous newsletter. Thanks everyone for the tremendous growth and for all of your contributions! Please continue to invite your friends to join this group.

Financial Times rankings of the global top 100 full time MBA programs

In case you have not seen this, the Financial Times came out with it’s rankings of the top 100 full time MBA programs in the world. Here is the URL:

http://rankings.ft.com/rankings/mba/rankings.html

Here are the top 20 programs for your viewing pleasure (school name, country, ranking):

University of Pennsylvania: Wharton U.S.A. 1
Columbia Business School U.S.A. 2
Stanford University GSB U.S.A. 3
Harvard Business School U.S.A. 3
London Business School U.K. 5
University of Chicago GSB U.S.A. 6
Insead France/ Singapore 7
New York University: Stern U.S.A. 8
Dartmouth College: Tuck U.S.A. 9
Yale School of Management U.S.A. 10
Ceibs China 11
Instituto de Empresa Spain 11
IMD Switzerland 13
MIT: Sloan U.S.A. 14
University of Cambridge: Judge U.K. 15
Iese Business School Spain 16
UCLA: Anderson U.S.A. 17
HEC Paris France 18
Northwestern University: Kellogg U.S.A. 19
University of Oxford: Saïd U.K. 19
University of Michigan: Ross U.S.A. 19

I’m happy to point out that my alma mater, UCLA Anderson School, came in at # 17.

Keith Ferrazzi’s Free Career / Life Goals Tool

One of the best books on how to network with people successfully is Keith Ferrazzi’s “Never Eat Alone”. I was introduced to Keith a while ago by a fellow UCLA MBA alumni, and I had an opportunity to have a quick conversation with Keith a couple of years ago. He recently launched a new website that offers a simple tool to help people reach their career / life goals. I did found it to be very helpful, so I would encourage all of you to try it:

http://www.keithferrazzi.com/s/?ref=1326

Here is the standard email invitation:

I just used a new tool on the website of Keith Ferrazzi, a bestselling author and expert on success and relationships.

It helped me write down
- 3 goals for my life
- 3 things I'm going to do in the next 60 days toward those goals
- 1 bad habit that's held me back in the past to focus on changing and
- 5 people to be my Dream Team of personal advisors to help me

I think it will be really helpful, so I thought you might want to try it, too.

And the best part is it doesn't cost anything.

Check it out at http://www.keithferrazzi.com/s/?ref=1326
_____________________

Looking for Co-Moderators for MBA Central Premium Group

As many of you may have been aware, I have not been that active as a moderator for the MBA Central Premium Group. I had the initial vision for creating this group and setting up the various forum topics, but I have not really “moderated” the forum discussion threads as most moderators would have. The main reason is that I have been very busy at work, and now am in the midst of looking for a new job.

So, I would like to find several co-moderators for this group. I was thinking of having at least three other moderators. One focused on the MBA programs in Europe, another focused on Asia Pacific, and the third for the rest of the world.

If you are interested in being a co-moderator, please send me an email to: joshli2@gmail.com, and tell me why you are interested, your MBA background and experiences, and what you would like to do as a moderator.

By the way, if you know of any companies looking for a VP of Operations or Professional Services, or a COO role at a small company, please let me know. Thanks!

Thanks everyone for being a part of the MBA Central Premium Group, and for your active participation and contribution to the group!

-Josh Li
joshli2@gmail.com
https://www.xing.com/profile/Joshua_Li
http://www.xing.com/premiumgroup-6675.ec4b2e/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuali
http://altimeter.blogspot.com/
_______________________

If you're a new member, I strongly encourage you to post a brief intro of yourself in the Group Member Introduction forum. (https://www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showforum&id=36025).

Also, if you did graduate from an MBA program, I would like to encourage you to put an entry in the MBA Alumni Database forum (https://www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showforum&id=41593), so that other members can contact you if they have any questions about applying to your school.

I highly encourage you all to link to each other. Please also invite me to link with you. My Xing profile is: https://www.xing.com/profile/Joshua_Li. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you network with someone you are trying to reach.

Happy New Year and Happy Networking in 2007!

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 03:40:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

Here is the email that I sent out to my contacts in my address book. I hope you find it useful. Happy New Year!
____________

I want to wish you and your family a Happy New Year!

Last year I was more organized, and sent out this email earlier. I sent out a copy of a very good networking article from HBR called “How to Build Your Network”. Here’s my blog entry to describe this:
http://altimeter.blogspot.com/2005/12/ping-your-network-with-useful-content.html.

This year, the piece of classic networking article I want to share with you is from Christian Mayaud’s blog, Sacred Cow Dung. Here’s the URL:
http://www.sacredcowdung.com/archives/2005/03/right_sizing_yo.html.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do in 2007 to help you network with someone you are trying to reach. In 2007, one of my goals is to write a book. If you know a good agent, please let me know. Thanks!

Take care and keep in touch!

-Josh Li
http://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuali
http://www.xing.com/premiumgroup-6675.ec4b2e/

MBA Central Premium Group on Xing

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 04:04:00 +0000

It's been a long time since my last post. As I mentioned in my previous post, I am the founder and moderator of the MBA Central premium group on Xing (which is the relaunch of openBC). If you are an MBA alum, or thinking about getting an MBA, or just want to network with MBA alums, I encourage you to join. Membership is free!

There are already over 1700 members from all over the world. The group has grown quickly from 0 members in July to over 1700 members today.

Here are some of the forums within the group:

MBA Jobs
The purpose of this forum is to post jobs that either require a MBA, or give preference to applicants with a MBA degree. In some cases, the job description does not mention the need for a MBA, but the position is a manager or higher level position that MBA grads would be interested in. When posting to this forum, please state the location of the job, if known. Thanks!

MBA Job Search
The purpose of this forum is to exchange advice / suggestions on how to improve your job search (active or passive). For actual job openings, see the postings in the MBA Jobs forum.

MBA Career Development
The purpose of this forum is to exchange advice / suggestions on how to improve your career development and advancement in your current job position.

MBA Alumni Networking
The purpose of this forum is to exchange advice on how to network with other MBA alums or other senior executives from around the world.

MBA Alumni Database
The purpose of this forum is for members to post their personal email or other contact information by their MBA school, so that other members may contact them if they have any questions about applying to that school.

MBA Admissions
The purpose of this forum is to exchange advice and suggestions on how to get into a top MBA program, or a MBA program tailored to a specific need or interest.

MBA Students Central
The purpose of this forum is to exchange advice and suggestions for current students at a MBA program. The advice could be about what types of courses to take, which extra-curricular activities to join, how to find a summer job or internship, and how to find a job after graduation.

General Networking
The purpose of this forum is to facilitate general networking between members in this group. Since openBC is global, this forum hopes to encourage networking between executives in from all different parts of the world.

Group Member Introduction
The purpose of this forum is to facilitate a sense of community within the MBA Central group. Each member of the MBA Central group is encouraged to write a brief introduction about his or her background, and what you are interesting to share with or learn from others in this group.

Newsletters archive
Archive of mailings sent by group moderators to members.
______

I will be adding a new forum to encourage the group's members to read and link to each other's blogs.

I highly encourage you to network with the over 1700 members in the MBA Central premium group!

-Josh Li

Invitation to Two Great Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 02:10:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

It’s been a long time since my last post. I hope you are doing well.

In addition to Plaxo and LinkedIn (two great tools), I would like to invite you to join another two very good tools.

openBC’s MBA Central group: I am the founder and moderator of this group. We have over 1200 members from all around the world. You should definitely join this if you have an MBA, are thinking about getting an MBA, or want to network with or recruit someone with an MBA. To join, go to: http://www.openbc.com/premiumgroup-6675.ec4b2e

Blue Chip Expert: This tool is for folks who are actively looking to hire or recruit candidates, or in search of a position. You also have an opportunity to earn money when people in your network hire a candidate that you referred. To join, go to: http://www.bluechipexpert.com/invite?code=llxml

It’s been a while since I posted to my blog, but if you are interested in improving your networking, here’s a link to my blog: http://www.altimeter.blogspot.com/

Take care and keep in touch!

-Josh

Network With Other Senior Executives

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 02:26:00 +0000

Last week I sent out an email via Plaxo to the 4000+ people in my address book, with my new work contact information, and requested that they send me their updated info as well. I then received an invitation from John Felter to check out an executives' networking group that he runs. John is a VP with Willis, one of the largest insurance brokers in the country. I attended the networking event tonight, and was very impressed by the calibre of the people there. I think that I will make it a point to attend regularly.

Here's a bit of what John wrote about the group:

Concept: The purpose of our group is to fellowship, exchange ideas, identify potential business opportunities, and educate ourselves about different industries.

Structure (limited structure):

1. Meet twice a month
2. Invitation only
3. B2B only
4. Quality business people
5. Limit the overlap of professions

The format was that everyone went around and introduced himself or herself very briefly. After everyone in the room finished (about 18 people), then we went around a second time. Each person then discussed his or her background or company's products and services in more detail. Also, each person can tell the others what kinds of professionals (by industry, type of role, or even specific companies) that they are looking to networking with. This kind of reminds me of the 1-page networking plan that I had developed and used.

So, if you are in New York and would like to find out more about this group, let me know and I can connect you with John. If you're not in New York, I recommend that you find something similar, or perhaps even better, you can start a networking group for executives!

-Joshua Li

Network With Anderson Alums - Dean Olian Reception

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 02:12:00 +0000

A couple of night ago, I had the pleasure of attending the New York reception for the new Dean of the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, Dean Judy Olian. It was held at the Bloomberg building on Lexington Ave, a really great venue.

There were a very large number of alums there, as well as many admitted students. I was very impressed by the high caliber of the admitted students. The graduated from impressive schools, and are in fairly significant positions. I really enjoyed my conversation with them.

Dean Olian greeted the alums and welcomed all the admitted students. She noted that Anderson was just ranked in the top 10 business schools by U.S. News & World Report, as well as in the top 10 in several specific disciplines. She mentioned that the Anderson faculty was also quite renowned and top ranked. Even though UCLA had just lost in the NCAA Championship game the night before, she joked at being #2 in the nation wasn't all that bad.

Dean Olian asked all the admitted students to raise their hands. Then she asked all those students who had decided to attend Anderson to put their hands down. She asked the alums to look around and note the folks with their hands still raised and go speak with them about Anderson, which is what I did.

As I spoke with the admitted students, several of them asked me what differentiates Anderson from another top 10 school that they are considering. I told them that they will get a solid education at any of the top 10 schools, but what sets Anderson apart is the great culture, awesome location, and the warmth and helpfulness of their future classmates and alums. Some of the great extracurricular activities that I really enjoyed were the TEC On-Campus, sponsored by the Entrepreneur Association, and the Silicon Valley Days On The Job, organized by the High Tech Business Association (of which I was a past President and organizer). I really had very fond memories of my days at Anderson.

I also spoke to Linda Baldwin, the Director of Admissions. The credit for Anderson admitting such high quality students belongs to Linda and her team. I know Linda personally, so if you are interested in going to B-School and thinking about applying to Anderson in the future, let me know and I will send Linda a quick note.

If you are one of the admitted students and have not yet decided to attend, feel free to email me at any time. I can tell you more about my wonderful experiences at Anderson and why you should attend.

-Joshua Li

Network With Colleagues

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 01:34:00 +0000

It's been a long, long time since my last post. I took some vacation before I started a new job, and I've been quite busy since. Before I left my previous job at nMatrix (now a part of EPIQ Systems), I sent an email through LinkedIn to each colleague that I worked with to thank them for all of their help, and asked that they keep in touch with me through LinkedIn. Many of them did sign up and connect with me. Having them connected to me will help us to keep in touch, because I can always search for them on LinkedIn and see their current email address and location.

After I started my new role as VP of Customer Management at RichFx, a B2B E-Commerce company that is a leader in online visual merchandising solutions, I imported the company's employee directory into my LinkedIn address book. Right away, I can see all of the RichFx employees that are also already on LinkedIn. I send all of these folks an email saying what a pleasure it was to meet them and that I looked forward to working with them in the future, and invited them to connect to me.

As I get to know my colleagues and direct reports at RichFx better, (those who are not already on LinkedIn), I will invite them to join and connect.

So, whether you are starting a new job, leaving your current job, or have been in your job for a while, I would recommend networking with your colleagues from your current and past employers. LinkedIn has a feature to tell you very quickly who are the other people at your company who are already on LinkedIn.

-Joshua Li

Harvard Asian American Alumni Reunion Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 04:21:00 +0000

I went up to Boston this weekend for the first ever Harvard Asian American Alumni Reunion Dinner, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Asian American Association. It was extremely well organized. Kudos to everyone who played a part in organizing this wonderful event. I ran into many classmates that I haven't seen in a while, as well as met new interesting alums in diverse professions.

Fred Ho, a renowned composer, writer, and producer, was the guest speaker. Fred, class of 1979, was instrumental in the founding of AAA in 1976, to help galvanize Asian American students to get Harvard to recognize Asian Americans as a minority student group. Fred is currently the CEO of Big Red Media, Inc.

On the way to the Dudley Union, I ran into my friends Jeff Yang, Bill Yao, and Nelson Wang. Jeff was the founder of Harvard's first Asian American magazine, East Wind, and after he graduated, founded A Magazine. Jeff now writes on Asian American culture for SF Gate, and is a Consumer Strategist on Asian & Asian American Markets for Iconoculture.com. Bill is the CIO for a hedge fund, and Nelson is a Senior Editor at Time Inc. Another former AAA Co-President, John Kim, is now an EVP of Rakuten USA, a large Japanese media company, and CEO of Linkshare.

I was also very impressed with the current student leaders at Harvard that I chatted with. Jeff, Bill, Nelson and I were roaming the upper floors of the Dudley Union when we ran into Sarah Paiji. Sarah was a former AAA Co-President, and one of the main organizers of the reunion. She told us that she wanted to create an Asian American Alumni database and reunion since freshman year. Well, she managed to act on her vision. During my years at Harvard (1988 to 1992), several of us AAA officers also wanted to do the same thing, but we never got it done. So here's to Sarah and her colleagues for executing on the vision!

Towards the end of the evening, I spoke with Yi Chen, another main organizer of the event. She's only a first year student! I think it is great that young people take the initiative and volunteer to lead the planning of events. At this point, I also want to give a plug to my high school, Hunter College High School in New York City, since Yi attended Hunter briefly. Earlier in the evening, I also spoke to Sewell Chan, a reporter for the NY Times, who also attended Hunter and Harvard. We noted that there was another Hunter / Harvard alum, Jennifer 8 Lee, who is a reporter for the NY Times. I met another recent alum, Joy Lin, who is an editor at CBS News.

I think it's great that more and more Asian Americans are going into journalism, and are in a position to influence the media, educate the public, reduce stereotypes, and hopefully reduce racism in this country.

Network With Recruiters – UCLA Anderson Career Panel

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 03:34:00 +0000

As I sit on the train going home, here are some of the words of wisdom from the UCLA Anderson NY "Career Panel & Workshop" I just attended. The speakers were:

• Susan Dearing - Associate Director, of the EMBA and Alumni Career Services
• Ted Gregory – Partner at Heidrick & Struggles, with a strong focus on the financial services industry
• John Karrel – Managing Director of Glocap's Marketing & Advertising practice
• Peter Lasusa – Partner at Management Leadership Resources, a boutique search firm

Susan started the session by describing all the various online tools for Anderson alumni in the areas of career search and networking. You can access these tools here. Two of the new tools available to alumni are CareerSearch and WetFeet.

The three recruiters briefly described each of their backgrounds, such as how they got into the executive search business, and what areas they specialize in. Then they opened up for questions and answers.

Some of the main points of the evening were that we should seek to cultivate strong relationship with a handful of executive recruiters that you can really trust. Let the recruiters that you have worked with know about significant new developments in your career. It is much better to have a personal relationship with a recruiter than just sending in your resume, or posting your resume at a search firm's website.

Several of the questions were about how to make a career transition. One of the recruiters said that they try to send the client at least three resumes of candidates that meet all of the client's search criteria exactly. After that, he may find a candidate who is "out of the box" for that role and suggest this candidate to the client. One recruiter did say that many clients may say that they want candidates who may be "out of the box" for that role, but they end up wanting people who fit the search criteria.

In the area of financial services, the hot areas for search are fixed income, securitization, such as mortgage backed securities. An area that is getting cooler is equity research. For the marketing & advertising industry, the area that is getting hot is Web 2.0 related companies. In terms of international opportunities, what is really hot is China. Companies are trying to create many financial institutions in China that mirror those in the US, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

A few questions were about how to network with or develop relations with recruiters when you are in a small industry and you don't want your current boss or company to know. Or, you are happy in your current position, but want to cultivate a relationship with recruiters so that when you are thinking of making a move, they have you in mind. The answers are basically that you have to network with recruiters that you trust, and we can start with the recruiters that we met
tonight.

In terms of compensation, retained executive recruiters typically make one-third of the search position's first year base salary. Recruiters will typically ask for the prospective candidate's salary range, usually towards the end of a long conversation after getting to know the candidate. It is in their best interest in finding candidates who are willing to leave their current positions for a new one, so they want to make sure that the salary range will meet both the client and the candidate's needs. Also, if a candidate's current salary range is lower, they try to understand whether it's just that certain companies have lower salary ranges, or what is the specific
reason for the candidate's lower salary range.

They try to help some candidates with career development, but their first and foremost loyalty is to their clients, who are paying the bills. They are more likely to offer more career advice to candidates that they are deep in the process with, instead of candidates that they are speaking with for the first time.

Overall, this event was very informative and interesting. In addition to meeting the three recruiters, I also had a chance to catch up with some friends and meet new fellow UCLA Anderson alums. If your alma mater ever organizes these types of events, I highly recommend that you check them out.

-Joshua Li

Network With Harvard Alums

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 04:16:00 +0000

During my college years, I was a Co-President of the Harvard Radcliffe Asian American Association. I had a great time and learned much from older alums and my fellow officers. We organized many social, political and cultural activities. I was also an executive in the East Coast Asian American Student Union. It was awesome to travel to different college campuses every month for meetings with other student leaders.

I will be going back up to Boston on March 11th, 2006, for the first ever Harvard Radcliffe Asian American Alumni Reunion dinner and dance. I'm honored that the current officers of the organization asked me to be one of the honorary hosting committee members. I look forward to reconnecting with some old friends, as well as meeting others on the honorary committee who graduated more recently.

If you have any friends who attended Harvard and may be interested in the reunion, please forward them information about this great networking event.

My general recommendation for networking is to get involved with your alumni networks. Not only the alumni events sponsored by your alma maters, but perhaps you were a student leader at one of the many clubs or organizations. Get back in touch with the current student leadership. You may offer to speak on a panel or give a workshop on a topic that you are passionate about or or a subject matter expert in. Several years after I graduated from Harvard, while I was still living in the Boston area and working at Accenture, I gave a workshop to the students at the Asian American Association on "How to Give Effective Presentations".

Not only was this good practice for me to apply what I learned from a training session from Accenture, but it helped me to start building my credibility as a public speaker. A couple of years later, I gave a similar workshop at a National Association of Asian American Professional's annual conference in Los Angeles.

-Joshua Li

Download a Free Copy of Virtual Handshake

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 03:46:00 +0000

Today's post will be short and simple. Download a free PDF version of the book, "Virtual Handshake" by David Teten and Scott Allen. You can get more info at their website. You just need to fill out a few online forms.

This book contains some very good advice about online and offline networking, and a review of various online networking applications. It definitely worth taking a look!

-Joshua Li

Network On A Cruise?

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 03:28:00 +0000

At Legal Tech NY, I had the pleasure of meeting with Mark Rayner, the owner of Richmond Events. In association with American Lawyer Media Events, Mark's company organizes executive networking events on cruise ships.

So, for example, Richmond Events will rent out a cruise ship for 3 days. It goes only a few miles off the coast of New York City. On board there are three separate networking conferences for different industries. The one that I'm looking into is the Corporate Counsel Forum. Basically, about 100 General Counsel or Associate Counsel (our key target buyers) from US corporations will be on board. Vendors, such as my company, will pay a hefty sum to set up dedicated meetings with the general counsels. In addition to the set meetings, there are also meal time networking and other social networking events.

Please email me if you have any experience with this type of executive level networking events, or experience with other conferences organized by Richmond Events. I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

-Joshua Li

Network With Members of the Press

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 03:05:00 +0000

As I mentioned in my previous posts, I have been very busy with the planning for Legal Tech NY. It was a great conference. I met a large number of people, and reconnected with other folks I had not seen in a while. Our booth had a fairly constant throng of people throughout the conference.

One of the best networking events was organized by the company that put on Legal Tech, American Lawyer Media. On the second day, they invited vendors to have breakfast with the editors of the various ALM publications.

I met William Pollack, the President and CEO of ALM and Kevin Vermeulen, the VP and Group Publisher of the ALM Publications. I also met with the editors of the specific ALM publications that our clients read: Law Technology News, Corporate Counsel magazine, and e-Discovery Newsletter. I learned what each of the editors are looking for in terms of story ideas and press releases. Overall, it was a very productive breakfast networking event.

So, if you are ever at a trade show or conference, try to network with the conference organizers and/or editors of the journals in your industry. As you probably have heard many times, it is important to establish relationships with members of the press in your industry, because good press coverage is worth far more than advertising!

Plan Your Own Networking Events

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 04:26:00 +0000

I can't believe it's been a week since my last post. This week has gone by incredibly fast. I did have two breakfast networking meetings with members of the Legal Resource Group, a networking organization for professionals selling to law firms. I also attended a Harvard Club of Fairfield County networking event.

One very good book on networking and how to succeed through networking is the book Never Eat Lunch Alone, by Keith Ferrazzi. One of the good pieces of advice in the book (among many), is that when you attend trade shows, you should plan some intimate gatherings for some select clients and potential clients.

Well, as I mentioned in my last post, I am planning my company's presence at LegalTech NY. We are hosting a small private dinner for some of our top existing clients and select potential clients at an upscale restaurant on the opening night of the conference.

So, my suggestions are to read Never Eat Lunch Alone, and to take Keith's advice and host your own exclusive networking events at tradeshows.

Attend Industry Conferences

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Li) — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 02:48:00 +0000

This has a fairly busy week, so I didn't get a chance to write as much as I would have liked. One of the things I have been busy with is the planning of my company's presence at LegalTech NY. For those of you in the legal services industry, you probably go every year. If you're not in this industry, you probably never heard of it.

My suggestion on networking is that you attend as many industry conferences as you can. They are a great place to network, especially with the workshop speakers and other participants. These days, many industry conferences offer free registration for the exhibit hall, the keynote speaker sessions, and a few workshop. That's how it is with LegalTech. I encourage you to search for interesting conferences in your industry to attend.

If you will be in the New York area from 1/30 to 2/1, come and check out Legal Tech. You can register to see the exhibits and attend the keynote sessions for free. Use 123456 in the priority / mailing code field. Come and visit me. I'll be in booth # 227.