A Letter from USA customer

    There is a lot of pressure and expectation to expand digital social networks in today’sworkplace. Millions of us check out co-workers on LinkedIn and Facebook and search for work-related updates and information on Twitter and YouTube. We add contacts we’ve not personally met to our networks and share links,content, and professional milestones. This booming digital arena certainly hasits benefits: it’s quick, convenient, and universally accessible.
Still, despite the explosive growth of networking on social media web sites, they cannotreplace face-to-face interactions in building professional relationships.Personal interactions offer a host of real unique advantages that no gizmo, nomatter how snappy, can replace.

    I was thinkingabout this idea recently after returning from a business trip to China, where Ispent a great deal of time meeting with a colleague from the early days of my company, who is now a trusted business partner. I met Jane about a decade ago when she was working with a Shanghai-based POP/Display supplier. I asked them to bid on various projects and Jane was my contact person.

    The relationshipwith the company was good, but often, the bids I got back were not competitive and Jane knew this. We discussed it and I encouraged her to go out on her own.Six months later, she announced she was striking out on her own. Her interpersonal skills, solid work-ethic, and wealth of industry knowledge sether apart and I began to see her as an increasingly important contact. While she worked hard to get her company off the ground, she would hustle to find vendors, solutions and ideas for a variety of joint projects. I started callingher "the fixer."