Networking with Skype

There is nothing quite like a story that is hot off the grill. That would be this one and I think a lot of people can relate to the problem – your cell phone goes out on an important out of state business trip. What do you do?

At Integrated Alliances we do business networking events and communications are the key to having everyone be happy about the outcome. A lack of communication can sink an event very quickly and can do so in front of lots of eyeballs. What happens when:

• Guests arrive and there is nobody there to greet them?
• When the entrance is actually on the West side and not on the East?
• When you need to bring up your parking stub to get it validated?
• When you need to fit in 2 more tables for last minute exhibitors?
• When a little more communications would be helpful or even necessary?

So, last week, on a recent business trip to Phoenix, AZ, my trusty Treo PDA phone went on the blink. This just can’t happen when you are putting on a big event. It just can’t happen. Well, it did happen and we wiggled our way through it in a way that you might find interesting and helpful.

Picture the scene:

• We are launching LinkedIn Live! networking events in Phoenix, 5:30pm.
• I am in town especially for this event as the guest emcee.
• 100+ of the Phoenix LinkedIn top brass are attending the event.
• This a first time event there and we have the usual prep for check-in, badges, food, etc.
• The office calls are coming in from back in Colorado.
• And 5pm isn’t far away and we are ON THE ROAD.

I have a fairly recent laptop and, whether by fortune or by sheer accident, it has a great little feature I didn’t know I had and certainly didn’t know I needed – a built-in microphone. It turns out that lots of laptops have this tiny feature that seems so large right now.

I had been experimenting with this program called Skype for a couple of months. It lets you do voice calls, video calls and Instant Messaging over the Internet – PC-to-PC or PC-to-phone.

I had been doing evening Skype voice calls with the #1 LinkedIn user in Australia, Stan Relihan, for a couple of weeks. He introduced me to it for business use. Stan is interviewing the top 10 people on LinkedIn for his podcast series. I made the list somehow. Click here for the LinkedIn Events Podcast.

I had also been regularly using a Sprint Broadband card in my laptop for Internet service while traveling. This is the one that slides in the side of the laptop like in those cool TV commercials! It has saved our bottoms many times at our networking events when the venue’s WiFi service is less than adequate for reliability or speed. I especially love that $4 a month replacement insurance - SWEET. This time it got me an upgrade from a 700P to a spiffy new 755P with GPS!

So, from the passenger seat at 65 mph, this Skype-Sprint combination let us keep in touch with our key contacts, trading both e-mails and voice mails with those we couldn’t reach. We even did a (1-way) video call as we raced around from place to place. If this laptop only had the built-in camera as well!

I will look into this a little deeper with you all as I can see we each may have uses for this technology in our master on-line networking activities.

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About the Author

Mike O’Neil is a technology strategist and an entrepreneur. He founded Integrated Alliances, a business-to-business networking organization with over 7,500 associates involved, 4 years ago. IA holds monthly networking events and teaches LinkedIn Workshops and Webinars and is now expanding its operations worldwide. Mike can be reached at moneil@thenationalnetworker.com.

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