How often do you make a conscious effort to network “on purpose” ? Not just the casual “hey how are doing” but more of the “Hi my name is Patrick Allmond. What do you do? This is what I do. Let’s stay in touch. Is there anything I can help you with? (Note – if you do this don’t say your name is Patrick Allmond. That would just be awkward).

You really should start doing this if you want to help yourself and help other people. It is one of those things that seems so obvious – yet so many people miss the boat on this one. I know that I have asked at least five good friends recently “What do you want to do in life… What do you really want to do?”. That is the whole point of networking after all isn’t it?

Update: Now that we have a forum area please feel free to explore this topic deeper the StopDoingNothing Forums

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And speaking of real world networking I finally got to hear the lovely voice of a cool lady in Claremore, Oklahoma today. Nicole Nascenzi called me for a phone interview about Twitter and the interruptions that Social Media can cause you in life. On a humorous note – she got my response for the interview while checking Twitter while stopped at a red light. Double humor for the fact that I called her back and we conducted the interview over the phone while I was driving home from a client appointment. She is the Public Relations Coordinator for Rogers State University in Claremore, Oklahoma. If you want to be smarter and hear from someone on the front lines of Social Media education you can follow her on Twitter

I was having a conversation with some pretty smart people on twitter this afternoon when the topic of learning from mistakes came up. The three of us heartily agreed on two things:

1 – We should all be pretty smart from the number of mistakes we have made
2 – The absolute best way to learn is from mistakes and really huge screw ups

I made the leap of faith to break out on my own from IBM Global Services about 11 years ago. As great a company as it was I was very bored. And when I get bored I get into trouble. I wanted to do something else outside of general tech support with the exact same people for the next 20 years of my life. IBM offered all kinds of moving options, but the quality of life in Oklahoma City is great. We were in the middle of raising a brilliant daughter and I did not want to screw that up by up and moving her across the country.

So here I sit 11 years later looking back on that first week of November in 1998 when I jumped in the deep end of the pool. I made a huge number of mistakes – starting from the first time I hit the road. I’ve got all of these mistakes floating around in the cells of my brain. And I get calls and meetings every week from people wanting to pick my brain about these mistakes. But it occurred to me that these would be really good to share with people that are considering breaking out on their own, or who have also made the leap of faith.

So my question to you, my friend, is would you be interested in a free hour of my time every week (via Ustream, etc) of picking my brain (and the brains of others who have tripped over themselves like me) ? I’d schedule something about 10 or 11 (CT) every Friday morning. People could join via chat, and I’d find a way for people to dial in via phone. Any topic is up for grabs. I’d also bring in guests since I have not made all of the mistakes in the world… yet !

Please let me know via comments below if this is something you would be interested in. If you know of other people that might also enjoy please share this so I can get their comments also.