dangerouslyawesome

One of the biggest lessons in networking is having a firm handshake. Not one that crushes your partner’s hand, but one that shows, “I’m confident and I care”.

Figuring out how a social utility could embody that kind of interaction has been one of the goals since I joined Anthillz as a consultant back in July.

We’ve gone through a number of iterations, both with the functionality and the marketing of Anthillz. I’m really happy with the latest iteration, as it feels closest to what I’ve been describing to people for a while in terms of potential.

The problem we identified is that most of the “online social networking” being done in business is weak handshakes. Even LinkedIn, while it has testimonials, puts the focus on building huge numbers of connections (hence the 500+ badge). We’re not going to take down LinkedIn, but we certainly can help focus its users on what’s really important.

Large networks are a fun competition, but anyone can enter and win. Strong networks have a higher barriar to entry. Think about it. How many of the hundreds of connections on your LinkedIn network can you really recommend? Not many. And that’s the problem we’re looking to start solving.

The new Anthillz adds a barrier to entry for networking, much like “real social networking”. You know. The offline kind that most of the business force sucks at.

Real social networking takes work, and much more than a business card exchange to be effective in the long term. Just because you gave me your card doesn’t mean I think you’re the best person for the job. In Anthillz, adding someone to your “trusted colleague” network has a barrier to entry: you have to write something about that person. And in order for the connection to be completed, they need to write something back. The system does what it can to enforce a balanced social economy. Over time, it’d be nice to pull back the reins, but I think we need to break some bad social networking habits first.

Take a look at my profile if you’re looking for an example.

Sure, people can write bullshit reviews, but that’s where we can learn from lessons of other review-powered systems and apply them here to make the good stuff bubble to the top. I’m SUPER pumped to see how that begins to evolve as more people start filling the site with testimonials for their trusted colleagues.

I’m excited to see the new Anthillz live for a number of reasons. One, I think this is the strongest the product has been in the life cycle that I’ve been around for, and I believe that the team has done a tremendous job working together towards this goal.

Second, this is a great example of how social networks don’t have to generate a ton of noise in order to appear effective. In fact, the contrary is more true in my opinion.

Finally, there’s been a great deal of discussion about openness and portability in the roadmap for future versions of Anthillz’s technology. We’ve already got XFN (rel=me and rel=colleague) baked in, and as such, are participating in the Google social graph API. Future additions will hopefully include things like hCard and hReview. OpenID? I’d love to, but we’ve already given our audience a barriar to entry in this version by design, and I don’t think they need another one quite yet. I’m confident that in time, understanding and ubiquity of OpenID concepts will get to a point where it makes sense for us to support it. Hopefully sooner than later.

I’m really interested to see how the newest version of the system begins to take hold, and how people use it. People’s actual use will be the driving factor in next iterations, so help the product grow by using it and sharing your thoughts.

About 3 weeks ago I announced my departure from Round3 and that I’d be pursuing new work as an independent consultant. The main reason for that announcement was my decision to put focus on continuing to grow IndyHall with Geoff while finding other projects and teams to consult with regarding their user communities, as well as social business practices.

I’m really, really stoked to announce that I’ve teamed up with Anthillz.com, a Philadelphia startup founded by Blake Jennelle. Blake is also the founder of Philly Startup Leaders, and we have become friends over the last year through the similarities that our organizations’ (PSL and IndyHall) goals share.

Anthillz is building out tools to help freelancers and independents manage their reputations by organizing client and peer feedback and helping generate measurable statistics that can help in freelancer searches, as well.

Where do I fit? Well, besides my obvious interest in the value of freelancers and doing things that make it easier to be an independent, Blake and his team realized there was value on community marketing as well as using member feedback to drive their product design process. I’m being brought in to help advise and lead that process, all along the way helping be a liaison for the community and the management team. I’m there for the community, and there for the team, when they need things and will help facilitate interactions between them.

My favorite part? Read this part of the position description that Blake and I drafted together:

When there’s a tension between his roles of representing the company and advocating on behalf of the community, the advocate should take the side of the community.  Any company has the natural tendency to give extra weight to its own interests, and the Community Advocate is an essential counterweight.

Blake wrote, this not me, but it’s attitudes like this that makes me have hope for company leadership in general. Blake and his entire team are as excited about this new partnership as I am.

I look forward to being able to share our findings as we continue to develop Anthillz as a product and a community, and encourage you to check it out and feed back as well!

I’ve got a couple of other similar projects and partnerships in the work, and am excited to share them with you as they unfold. Stay tuned, everybody!