Kiwi Scrum

April 2009, Newsletter

Hello Everyone,

Kiwi Scrum has 833 members. You can recommend this group with confidence, and you can also recommend LinkedIn to all your business associates. Far too few New Zealand business leaders are represented here.

The February LinkedIn hint:

You can join up to 50 LinkedIn Groups. Common group membership allows you to send a message to people you are not connected with, and allows you to easily invite them to connect to you.

If you are already in 50 groups, cast-off a few which have failed to grow, or which no longer seem interesting. Give yourself a little space to add a new group of two occasionally.

The Useful Common:

The Internet is still full of gloomy economic news. This is a time when real innovation is both needed and can be achieved. You don't need to convince anyone that there's a problem. Now is an excellent time to form a group and focus on something that needs to get done. For really new ideas, groups of two or three are best. For ideas that are less groundbreaking a bigger group might have advantages. There are some useful Innovation Links here.

Engage with other people and Groups:

Use LinkedIn to find out who else is interested in the thing that interests you. Ask a Question. The best questions always get lots of replies, so consider the question carefully. You can direct the question to up to 200 people in your network. (If you need a strong hint as to why a network of over 1000 people is useful, that's it.) Allow other people to answer too.

With questions, the people who "turn up" may surprise you. Both with regards to who they are, and what they have to say.

Invitations

Social activities and business activities don't mix very well. At a dance two weeks ago I spoke to three people all in business, who should be members of LinkedIn and Kiwi Scrum. I told them what to do, and wrote down the URL's for them. None of them are here. It's when a second, third and fourth person says "Join LinkedIn" that the penny drops. Do your friends a favour, invite them here.

Volunteers

I've mentioned the Canterbury Issues forum before. This active group is doing a great service for Canterbury. No other NZ area has anything like it. All it takes is 2 or 3 active volunteers. The Steering Committee of Canterbury Issues meets just four times a year. Kiwi Scrum member, Dan Randow, Owner of Online Groups, has done all the hard work for you, he's the NZ authority for this work. all you need to do is follow the formula. E-Democracy Org. is the central body worldwide.

The Value of Democracy

In Canterbury we've been discussing water rights and community gardens, community resilience, city safety, the city at night, Earth Day in Christchurch, the sale and supply of liquor, democracy in Canterbury, the CCC organic waste system, historic places and many other important topics. Auckland needs a Public Issues Forum. It was needed years ago. Who's going to do something about it?

Regards
John