22,000 people is a big network to maintain. Do you need this many people in your network?
TL;DR I grew my LinkedIn network to 22K contacts. You *might* grow yours to advance your career.
“You want to have as large a LinkedIn network as possible,” he said.
At the time, I didn’t understand.
What was this investor was telling me?
I’d been on the professional social network for a few years. I’d cultivated a decent group of contacts.
“A large network,” he explained, “makes it easier to get introduced to people who can make a difference for your business. Or career.”
I could agree with his logic. It made sense at the time.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“Work on it every day.”
I asked a few more questions and learned he had grown his network to just over 3,000 contacts.
He repeated:
“A large network will give you greater access.”
My competitive fire was sparked.
I was determined to grow a larger network.
I became a LinkedIn Open Networker (a L.I.O.N.) and spent one year sending out invitations and helping others grow their own networks.
It took about 15 minutes a day.
The result?
By the end of the first year, my network had grown to 7,500.
By the end of the second year, it was more than 10,000.
At the beginning, I wasn’t selective at all about inviting people in my network.
I started with the people known to have the largest networks, moved my way through the LIONs in my industry, and accepted everyone who asked to join my network.
Today, my network is nearly 22,000.
Do You Need A Large Network?
Before I give you a few tips to grow your network, let me ask Do you really need that big of a network?
Netflix just started airing Altered Carbon. It’s a rad take Richard K. Morgan’s 2002 cyberpunk novel. One of my favorite genres, cyberpunk typically explores how the street repurposes tech, life in cyberspace and off-planet.
Last fall, I reread William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy – Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive. (Neuromancer, BTW, is credited with “launching” the cyberpunk genre, though purists will cite British New Wave authors and Philip K. Dick as originators.)
I was searching for biotech references. And man, did I find them, from the neurotoxin sacs that are surgically implanted in Neuromancer main character Case’s body, to a Mitsubishi-Genentech merger (that never happened), and hackers trying to bring back by-then extinct horses.
In many ways, Gibson already riding the biotech wave years before synthetic biology was re-defined. Gibson includes less biotech in later novels but he is always readable. His writing enjoyable and thought-provoking and he remains one of my favorite authors, plus his Twitter stream is a blast to follow.
I enjoy re-reading books, re-watching movies. I like figuring out how the authors or film makers put the story together. What hints did they place at the beginning of the story, and resolve at the end?
I’ve read plenty of books on writing screenplays, plotting, and character development.
, which is Shawn Coyne’s master work on story analysis.
Right now, I’m reading Larry Brooks Story Engineering. Only half way through but I’d recommend it.
Pedro Paramo is the one book I’ve given away the most.
Mexican Juan Rulfo’s thin, 1955 novel launched magical realism. It’s a story about a son looking for his father, and a father longing for his son. The book drips death on every single page.
The novel is a fragmented, post-modern masterpiece that is highly relevant today.
Paramo influenced Nobel-prize winner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude. It’s said Marquez had memorized long passages of the book. I can’t recommend it enough.
Over the holidays, I unsubscribed from dozens of newsletters. I was very critical in thinking through whether a newsletter belonged in my email box. Was it helping me stay informed? Was it inspiring? Or, was it wasting (virtual) space? Here are a few of the newsletters I subscribe to stay up to date on biotech, pharma and synthetic biology news.
New York City and my microcosm in Brooklyn was depressed after the 2016 election. (For God’s sake, there was a planned victory party – at the intersection of President and Clinton streets just a few blocks from I live.)
The sense of the unknown and dread filled the air. I mean you could, you really could, feel it. And I don’t say that lightly.
I counseled friends to focus on ONE issue. I suggested focusing on what you could control. I knew trying to make sense of everything would be overwhelming. That’s proved true.
I promised myself I’d focus on science and education. I emailed and called my senators and representatives when a science or education issue came up.
As the year progressed, my focus became local. I started participating in fights against charter schools. I started calling representatives, at the local and state level on sad state of the New York City subways. This was me being bold.
As we enter 2018, I’d like to do a better job helping those who are less fortunate. Especially, those who don’t understand or speak the language, nor how the system works. As a communicator, that is one of my most important jobs.
Karl’s Life Personal
2017 was a weird year.
One morning in April, I woke up seeing double. I went to the emergency room and spent a day and night undergoing a battery of tests.
I thought I had a brain tumor. I thought I had suffered a stroke. Luckily, those diagnoses were ruled out quickly.
36-hours into my visit, the neurologist arrived and said, “I’m getting you out of here. It seems like you have myaesthenia gravis.”
I wore an eye patch for nearly two months and learned that in New York City, no one looks at you twice with an eye patch. I also learned a lot of people have suffered worse – from migraine’s to Bell’s Palsy, cancer and strokes.
Uneven eyes is a symptom of myaesthenia gravis. And man do I look crazy.
It took another month to get the final diagnosis: Myaesthenia gravis, an autoimmune disease.
An excellent neuro-opthalmologist treated me with steroids. After two months, my vision was back to normal.
In retrospect, it feels like it was stress induced (though my doctor wouldn’t agree). I hadn’t been taking care of myself. I was doubting my business. I was overwhelmed by a book I was writing. Two of boys were making major transitions. I thought I was ready. Maybe I wasn’t.
I’m better now and appreciate the importance of good health.
Once the illness ordeal ended, late in June, both Alejandro and Felix graduated. Alejandro graduated from Bard High School Early College. He had been accepted to Cornell and would be going in the fall. Felix graduated from fifth grade and joined his brother, Tomás, at the excellent Math and Science Exploratory (middle) school.
My parents traveled from California, attended the graduations, then we drove to Boston. There, we joined my sister, and her two kids. We boarded the Maasdaam and took a week long cruise along the east coast down the St. Lawrence River to Montreal.
Dinner Time on the Maasdaam
I had never cruised before but it turned out to be a lot of fun. The best thing was the mornings: I’d get up and take a table at one of the restaurants, write in my journal and drink coffee as the ship woke up. Eventually, my father would join me to read the paper. Then little by little our family would arrive.
The only downside was the food. It was excellent but I learned that I had little self-control and by the end of the fifth day, I had chronic heartburn. I’m sure that was due to the over eating.
Karl’s Life messagingLAB
messagingLAB started the year with a two big projects that abruptly came to an end in March. I wasn’t prepared and had to scramble.
Those projects were interesting, pushed me to use digital marketing skills that I hadn’t used in years, as well as coming up with creative marketing solutions for my clients.
Later in the year, two projects required me to draw upon public relations skills that I also hadn’t used in years. One of those projects resulted in some pretty spectacular media placements.
I lost one piece of business because the project ended (we’re still friendly and looking for ways to work together); one piece ended because they ran out of money (we had a great relationship); and one piece of business I lost because the add-on was deemed very expensive.
I lost three proposals because messagingLAB was too expensive. I didn’t like that but took those losses as lessons to work harder to explain the value in hiring me.
I also celebrated five years of working with one client. That was a significant milestone and says a lot about the relationship we have.
I took a bold financial risk# in the middle of the year that didn’t pay off and ended the year at a loss. I’ve been in the hole before and it’s no fun, so I’m taking aggressive steps to move on. (#No, it wasn’t Bitcoin, though I believe an online currency is an inevitability.)
I decided to examine messagingLAB’s offerings. I added media relations and am making it a policy to start all projects with a roadmapping session. I’m also creating a training company to help people understand the opportunities presented by biotechnology.
What’s Your Bio Strategy?
In November, John Cumbers and I published What’s Your Bio Strategy? We interviewed 25 trailblazing academics, entrepeneurs and thought leaders.
It was an incredible experience. And it helped cement me as an author and authority.
I started my career writing music reviews. My first published (and paid!) articles were interviews. I’ve written dozens over the years. The group interviewed for WYBS were among the best.
John invited me to moderate a session at SynBioBeta on Strategy. A month later, I gave a keynote at Biofabricate.
You need a bio strategy.
I’ll admit that in both cases, I was very nervous – it’s been many years since I took the stage – so I practiced. And practiced. And practiced. For SynBioBeta, I spoke to all the people on the panel before we got on stage.
For Biofabricate, I rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. That way, when I got on stage, the presentation was automatic.
Both were well received.
In December, I taught a bio strategy class to a non-technical audience. They enjoyed it. I also appeared on the FutureTech podcast.
So, I plan to do speaking and teaching in 2018.
The Dragon Burns
When the boys were very young, I would wake up with them, help them go back to sleep. Usually, I couldn’t fall back asleep. So, I picked up the bad habit of surfing infomercials.
Why?
Because infomercials among the most sophisticated marketing stories you can study.
At the time, Alejandro had already started to read chapter books. And like most boys in second, third, fourth grade, he read a lot of books about dragons.
Tomás would continue this and to this day, at age 13, he reads fantasy novels over other genres.
(He also plays Magic the Gathering, which includes a whole story line (Tarkhir) about dragon lords and how all the dragons are extinct. But one guy goes back in time to makes peace among the clans and revive the dragons.)
One night, I had this idea that it would be great to order a dragon from an infomercial.
The idea stuck and I ended up working the idea into a screenplay with a friend. We worked on it for more than a year.
We got busy and dropped the project. But the story never left me. It’s been brewing for five years. During that time, I’ve gotten a lot smarter about what we can create with biology.
I started writing the novel in September and joined a writers group. I workshopped the first 30 pages and got a positive response.
I’m going to continue the book and will tap into my community to get the science right.
It feels like a big book. It’s about applying creativity in new ways.
And now that I’m a bit more than half way through the draft I’m wondering where I’m going to go with it. I’ve written novels and screenplays in the past and wrote them for the enjoyment of it.
That’s how the book feels right now. So, I’m just enjoying the process.
I have no idea what 2018 will hold but I’m excited to define my three words, focus on growing messagingLAB, enjoying the writing, and my family.
2017 started with a sense of dread. 2018 looks to be very exciting.
Here’s a link to my Pinterest board of media consumed during 2017.
It’s always fun to go back and review what I read, listened to and watched.
In many ways, it was a year for cyberpunk because I was anticipating Blade Runner 2049 and I wanted to reread Snowcrash. But overall, I didn’t read as much as I usually do because I was working on What’s Your Bio Strategy?
Rereading William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy was definitely a highlight. I realized how much those books influenced my own writing and how I approach telling biotech company stories.
William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy is credited with launching cyberpunk
Annalee Newitz’ Autonomous might not be cyberpunk but was my favorite book of the year. I’ll write about it later.
Watching-wise, I really enjoyed seeing It Follows again – that’s a brilliant horror movie.
The last season of Black Mirror was as disturbing as previous seasons though there was one uplifting episodes that even had a happy ending.
I enjoyed the second season of Stranger Things (though will admit I loved the first better), and A Series of Unfortunate Events was brilliant.
I did enjoy Blade Runner 2049 but found it long. It’s hard to write a sequel to a great movie, but I appreciated the nods to synthetic biology: especially around the creation of the replicants.
My all-time favorite movie of the year was Dope. I watched it more than a couple of times to figure out what director Rick Famuyiwa was doing. It was super smart. I can’t recommend it enough.
I recently appeared on a podcast talking about messagingLAB, the work we do to translate science for specific audiences, my book What’s Your Bio Strategy?, and how life sciences companies are using the blockchain.
