If you have been in business for any length of time you have tried to build your personal network and attended many events to meet people and connect. I was given the book, “The N Factor” at a recent small business entrepreneurship conference and began reading it with the expectation that it would be a generic networking book.

The book is described on Amazon as “The N Factor has been written to show career-minded people and entrepreneurs that networking is something necessary that adds true value to running your career or business, and is imperative for one’s success. The N Factor gives numerous anecdotes from the careers of the authors, Adrie Reinders and co-author Marion Freijsen, as well as suggestions and tips on how to start building and maintaining a network consciously and proactively. The use of modern technology is covered in one extensive chapter since the authors see this as a critical extension of more traditional ways of networking and one that will be used in the future. The book contains a number of chapters on how networking is done differently across the globe. The authors have spoken on networking in countries as diverse as China, United States, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands and a number of others. The N Factor teaches you how networking will continue changing as technology advances and time constraints keep us under pressure.”

It is written by Adrie Reinders and Marion Freijsen who write on the site E.Factor and which Marion is a co-founder of in the Netherlands. Both wrote the book exploring the myth of the little-understood phenomenon of networking, and break it down to a science. Chetan Dube on the OST web site write in his review “Step by step, The N Factor leads its readers through the key ingredients of networking. It is an ordered walk-through of all the key ingredients one should include in a business development protocol for effective networking. Whether it deals with events, seminars, peer-to-peer networking, individual meetings, inheritance of peer relationship capital, or even “chance” meetings, The N Factor tells its readers how to optimize the relationship currency acquired in these situations. For instance, it provides a practical approach to uni- and bidirectional communications, both synchronous and asynchronous, making it easy for readers to start incorporating these suggestions into their networking activities.”

The writers look at networking on more of a global scale than just a local one. They talk about great places to network such as airports, flights, professional clubs, even health clubs, where “random” meetings may happen. They present solid advice on engaging in the “random” meeting – from the introduction, to the fodder for conversation including business and world events, political changes, market activity, M&As of interest, and global market dynamics – effectively presenting a recipe for building your relationship capital during what would otherwise be downtime. By the end of the book, The N Factor really seals the deal on how networking is something that should be part of your business DNA and something that contributes greatly to achieving your personal and professional goals.

This is was a nice quick read and you can find more about the N Factor book at Amazon and order a few for your business colleagues.

Are you trying to find a great resource for a project or manage far flung contractors? If you are and haven’t heard of oDesk, then you need to check that site out and come back here because there is a tool that oDesk released that makes life very easy for you. According to Techcruch, “oDesk has been around for a while, offering a “marketplace for talent” that makes it easy to hire workers remotely. The company currently has over 340,000 providers, with 12,200+ jobs that are open. oDesk has also launched an API Center to encourage developers to create custom workspaces around oDesk tools. The API allows for users to log-in from outside of oDesk’s applications, the ability to search oDesk’s provider data and profiles, and lets users retrieve snapshots of worker activities.”

In today’s mobile application development wave, companies are building apps for everything giving many away so that it can extend its business

model and oDesk is doing just that. It took its API and created the oDesk iPhone Application that allows users to manage their online workteams in real-time, with greater control and flexibility, from anywhere in the world.

The oDesk iPhone App is available for free in the Apple App Store, and allows registered oDesk users to view their team rooms and work diaries.Accessible from the iPhone and iPod Touch (when connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi), and designed for both buyers and providers, the oDesk iPhone App gives users literal visibility of their online workteam no matter where they are.

The oDesk iPhone App allows users to:

* See all providers in their team rooms, grouped by current work status — Working Now, Worked in the Last 24 Hours, Other

* View each team member’s latest work memo, local time, 24-hour work sparkline, and latest snapshot

* Check complete work diaries including memos, full-size snapshots, activity indicator, billing status, timestamp, and active window for any date

This is pretty effective especially with far-flung virtual teams so you can focus on productivity and not hover over people going into micro-management mode.