Over the last couple weeks I have had the luxury of being able to travel and go to various conventions such as Affiliate Summit and Pubcon all major online advertising conventions. The main purpose of going these conventions is to (A) Learn Something New (B) Network and or which rarely happens or which rarely happens (C) Develop long lasting Friendships that have nothing to do with business. I know this is a very cut a dry terminology toward going to conventions but for the most part its true.

With saying that, there are usually one or two people at these conventions who are possible clients or intellectually savvy individuals who you want to connect with and the challenge is always how do I connect with them in a transparent way? In other words how do I connect with them without giving off the impression that I want to either milk them for information or just milk them for their business?

I have come up with the Common Enemy Theory toward building relationships that has nonetheless worked perfectly as I go to these random conventions. It’s a very simple concept to understand. Whenever I connect to somebody new as a matter of building a solid foundation for a relationship I always try to find one thing that I agree upon with my opposite and usually when you both fundamentally dislike someone or think somebody is full of shit you connect on such a deep level that a sense of trust is born. I call this the “Common Enemy Theory of Human Relations” whenever you are with someone and you are having trouble stirring drama in the conversation find one person or one aspect of the day that you both despise and build upon that topic and that will develop instant rapport.

“LinkedIn strengthens and extends your existing network of trusted contacts. LinkedIn is a networking tool that helps you discover inside connections”

Personally I don’t think people really understand the far-reaching power of Linkedin whereas pertaining to extending and getting the most out of just the random people you come in contact with in this world I also think the psychological genius behind the site should be pointed out. In the world of social networks, I think it is the goal of social networks like Facebook, Myspace to in a way emulate a person’s real life experience inside their social network environment. So in essence the way you interact in the real non-internet world should directly parallel your experience in these various social networking communities.

Taking this into account, the reason Linkedin is so brilliant is that there is a direct correlation behind every aspect of socializing on Linkedin to a person’s everyday common social life. For instance, on Linkedin if you don’t know somebody and you aren’t connected to them through your network you have a couple options if you want to connect with this individual. You could blindly add to them to your network and hope they accept and or you could pay a little bit of money for the ability to send a message to them. Read the rest of this entry »