Cynthia Typaldos Interview_ 03

Part 3: Social Entrepreneurship and Online Business Networking

SA: These days, you consider yourself a "social entrepreneur". What is that, exactly?

CT: Well, I'm a social entrepreneur only because I don't have funding for my next great startup! Since I am naturally inclined to be entrepreneurial I ended up doing something that is for the "social good". My particular project is a job board for out-of-work software and networking marketing and biz dev professionals. I've signed up 60 or so volunteers, about 30 or so who are active at any one time and together we run quite a successful job board with nearly 1,800 members.

SA: Sounds like there's not a lot of money in social entrepreneurship, but there's obviously some great ROI potential.

CT: There are quite a few people interested in this topic, and in particular using the web (and its ability to form groups) to go to a whole new level of charitable behavior.

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I believe there will be some very successful challenges to the existing large charitable organizations if they fail to adapt. My interest in this goes back to the first application we developed at RealCommunities, the mentoring app. Mentees could of course give feedback (to build a mentor's reputation) as a written comment (and a +/0/-) but they could also make a donation to a charity selected by the mentor. Donations could also be totaled up and become part of a mentor's reputation. The beauty of this system is that it created a whole new way for people to be charitable. You can do what you do best (e.g. accounting) rather than simply giving money, or volunteering to do a task at which you probably are either not very good or overqualified for.

SA: Virtual communities for both entrepreneurs, job seekers, and just general business networking have experienced tremendous growth lately - Ryze, Ecademy, even Monster.com now has a fairly active online community. But job postings have been on the internet as long as it's been around. Why the recent surge in community activity in this area, and what makes the Software Product Marketing eGroup different?

CT: I feel strongly that community/collaboration applications do not exist in a vacuum. There must be a context and overall purpose for the application, be it business networking, mentoring, product reviews, or project management. Therefore I find these stand-alone collaboration applications to be unsatisfying. They would be much more useful if they were a tool that a purposeful community could use, rather than trying to create a community out of a tool. That being said, the power of the Internet for collaboration is so compelling that people use these less-than-perfect tools and get great value from them. We've managed to build SPM eGroup off of free (or nearly free) web collaboration/voice conferencing tools including Yahoo Groups, which has a number of weaknesses. What's different about SPM eGroup from the commercial job boards is:

 

• We tap into each other's business networks ("strength of weak ties") to reach out to our target market.
• We are vertically focused and actually have relevant stats on our membership.

SA: So for entrepreneurs at various stages in the game, you'd recommend finding more focused communities to their specific needs vs. just "business networking" communities?

CT: Not necessarily. These focused communities are using the tools that exist, not ones that don't exist! But yes, the more focus the better.

SA: How does an entrepreneur participate in an online networking community and use it to his/her advantage without it smacking of advertising?

CT: This question is difficult to answer. Typically you don't participate in web communities to promote products, which is the only way it would smack of online advertising. You participate because you all have a common purpose and can achieve it better by collaborating. If all you are doing is pushing product then develop an email list and send out a mailing.

SA: So concentrate on giving, and in giving you will receive, or something like that?

CT: Concentrate on achieving whatever is your common purpose. Supposedly you are there because you are getting something of value. There is no reason to be shy about your product(s) or service(s) though. Here is an example. I am very much into California native plants and have become friends with one of the main suppliers of wildflower seeds. The CEO of this seed company and I met thru an online mailing list. When she signs her name, she does mention her website URL, but she never promotes anything specific. I have been to her workshops and suggested to her that she update her signature on a regular basis to name and link to the current workshop. She already has a fabulous reputation as an expert and a kind and generous provider of information to list members. We know she sells seeds, but who would know about the workshops unless they visited her website? And you wouldn't visit the website unless you wanted to buy seeds. Yet the list is the perfect market for her workshops. People underestimate how powerful an email signature can be, especially in online communities because the implementation of identity and reputation is so poorly developed at this point.

SA: So what's your current e-mail signature?

CT: Haha! It's a mini resume. Of course, it is on nearly every single piece of email I send (I have others for other purposes). My feeling about HTML e-mail is that if you aren't able to receive it, then you are so "last century" that it is unlikely we have anything in common. (See image at top right for just one of Cynthia's many e-mail signatures)