Heidi Roizen/ Building a Network Essay

In my opinion Heidi Roizen’s network is one of her greatest assets. â€Å"While other people use networks to build their business, Heidi’s business is networking. She’s very effective and uses her network to add real value.†, Randy Komisar commented on the article. Her networking skills are extremely efficient. She is really good at blending her professional with her personal networking. She always grabs the nucleus people of a network and then keeps in touch with all the people in that network. And another strength that makes Roizen’s networking successful is that she understands and pays more attention on the win-win relationship which is a core factor that differentiated her skills from others. Her style includes an unpretentious, down- to-earth, and positive personality which played an important role for her success. Additionally, as mentioned on the article by Royal Farros â€Å"Heidi is a pro at turning a brief conversation into one of substance, by contributing one or two unique ideas in a short period of time. That helps make the conversation memorable.† The downside of Roisen’s networking is that they are thousands of people that know her and in some cases people may feel they have a relationship with her, and therefore request her time for meetings. There are also some weaknesses in her networking. Her networking lacks more diversity. According to the article, she always invites the people to her party that have known half of any other people attend the party. That could potentially lead to a result that she can meet less people at one time, she could miss some important talents and opportunities. Also her networking really focuses on companies and people mostly bases in the Silicon Valley. In order to build her networking, Roizen has taken several steps. She begun building relationship with members of the press and she also attended several industry conferences and events. Later on she also decided to join the board of the Software Publishers Association (SPA). The article also mentioned that she gets motivation to get to know good-quality and talented people and be friends with then. She also knows that she is placing a bet by investing so much time in these people, but many of her bets paid off for her in the past. Additionally, she acknowledges that is easier to meet people when they are not famous, and off course it would be easier for her when they become famous because she would already have a relationship with them. And she spends a long-term effort on performance and consistency during and after each interaction to maintain a better and long living network. I think Heide should diversify more her network and try to create strong connections with leaders from other industries a besides technology and venture capital. Also because of the breath and depth of her network, she will constantly have people reaching out for her, so in my opinion she will have to be more selective of her time and people who she will interact with, and most important she will have to say no to some people. Additionally, she should probably balance more her life and reduce the number of industry events or gatherings hosted by her, which according to the article she already initiated this process. I would like to reinforce my arguments in this paragraph with something that Roizen mentioned in a news article, â€Å"At the close of my life, I’d like to look back and know that I got — and delivered — good value out of living. I’d like to know that I took advantage of the opportunities that I was blessed with for myself and my family. I want to know that I created good balance in my life, enjoyed it, lived well and enhanced the lives of others in the process.†