For the last few years I’ve been using, what I call, none traditional methods to build a network. That means weblogging, podcasting, LinkedIn, emailing, commenting, instant messaging, wikis, and other online tools.

15 years ago, before attending a conference, you might connect with a few contacts to let them know you’re planning to attend. It might be hit-and-miss, because there was no way of knowing for sure if they also planned to go.

Today it’s different. You can successfully connect with strangers well before an event, starting conversations, arranging meetings, and even organizing to sit next to them on the inbound flight.

Here are a few techniques to enhance your conference networking experience:

These tips are currently applicable to ubergeeks, because we’re early adopters. However, it shouldn’t stop people from extending the use to other industries.

I added a banner to my blog today, 10,000 Miles to ETech, because I plan to post a lot to the blog over the next couple of weeks while on my trip to O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology conference, and a jaunt in San Francisco.

Seriously, it’s 10,000 miles. 2042 from Perth to Sydney, 7419 from Sydney to San Francisco, and 458 from San Francisco to San Diego. Add a touch for car trips to and from airports, and I’ll clock up 10,000.

I’m guessing that I’ll be one of the furthest travelled for the conference, perhaps the actual furthest.

So I aim to make full use of the trip. I’ll be posting photos to a Flickr set, and live blogging the ETech sessions. I also plan to podcast at least a couple of times while on traveling, for The Gadget Show and G’day World.

If you’ll be at the event, please send me an email and we’ll connect.

I’ve mentioned already in this weblog that I think it’s worthwhile using the Internet to network for business. I focused on weblogs, because it’s very simple to start, but it’s by no means the only way to build a network.

One reasons, among many, for socializing online, is it’s becoming more important to the latest generation entering the workforce. Soon, social networking online will be common place, and it will quickly migrate to business. In fact it’s already happening.

One amazing example of online socializing, is the popularity of MySpace.

Boing Boing pointed to a short, but informative paper by Danah Boyd, a PhD student at the School of Information (SIMS) at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies how youth develop a sense of individual and cultural identity in “public” online environments like LiveJournal, Xanga and MySpace. The paper, “Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace”, is a great read, and I’ve pulled out some interesting points.

Unlike adults, youth are not invested in email; their primary peer-to-peer communication occurs synchronously over IM. Their use of MySpace is complementing that practice.

Generation X and Baby Boomers are so enveloped in meeting face-to-face or picking up the phone, that we missing a whole new way to socially interact. Especially with Generation Y. Most organizations don’t know how to implement IM in the workplace because of security, or just plain lack of understanding. The office junior that just started work in your office is already using IM in work hours, even if you think they’re not.

For most teens, it is simply a part of everyday life - they are there because their friends are there and they are there to hang out with those friends.

It’s becoming so ubiquitous that teenagers are expected by their peers to be involved. If they’re not, they’re not keeping up socially. For something so common place, it’s obvious it’ll permeate the other parts of today’s culture.

In MySpace, comments are a form of cultural currency.

I love this statement, because it reminds me of Whuffie, a reputation-based currency in Cory Doctorow’s book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. However, comments are one of the most powerful forms of communication online–keep that in mind when you start a weblog.

For many teens, hanging out has moved online.

A normal activity, one most adults would relate to the real world, has moved to a virtual space online. There is less and less distinction between the barrier between the two “worlds.”

Why should business care? Here are a few quick reasons:

I’m not suggesting that companies should set up a my space account, or that a weblog used as brochureware is the answer, but that if you’re not considering how you use the Internet as a new medium to connect with your customers, then you’re being left behind.

There’s a blogosphere skirmish brewing online. Duncan Riley, of The Blog Herald, another Western Australian weblog, got on the wrong side of Robert Scoble today. He doesn’t agree with the idea of full text RSS feeds; it reduces his revenue from his weblog advertising.

I’m with Scoble on this, I unsubscribe from RSS feeds that are partial. I use an aggregator to save time, skimming through content quickly until I find something compelling. In some cases I use the headline and the body to determine if it’s something I’d like to read in detail. If that’s the case I’ll often visit the weblog in a browser, that way I can get a little more context (other posts, comments, etc.).

Providing a partial feed doesn’t give me all the information I need, so I unsubscribe. I realise some people rely on hits to generate advertising revenue, but like any business in an evolving industry, they adapt. After all, it’s not about the business, it’s about the customers! Lets not forget that.

Clay Cook at TechUncut is starting a regular meeting in Perth for people interested in Web 2.0. It’s a fine idea, and I wish I’d thought of it, but his wife Rachel is a tad too quick. She beat us all to the punch.

So, Clay’s plan is to call the event a Web 2.0 TechUncut Mashup (great marketing for his weblog), and hold the first one in Cottesloe (Western Australia) on March 6 at 8pm.

Unfortunately, I’ll be at O’Reilly’s ETech while the first meeting is on. However, I plan to attend the subsequent ones when ever time permits.

I’ve always thought that Perth is a hotbed for innovation. I figure it’s something to do with being isolated. So we should encourage as many people to be involved in the latest wave of Internetdom as possible. We all benefit from a rising tide as they say.

If you’re interested, check the post and contact Clay.

I’m starting to get frustrated with Guy Kawasaki. He is posting insightful stuff thick and fast, and this weblog is becoming a shrine to his entries. However, I had to mention his latest post, How to Suck Up to a Blogger, and suggest another bullet point.

He has some valid points, and I laughed at his list of email messages a marketer should send a blogger.

If you want to supplement citing and linking, you can send the blogger emails with these kinds of messages:

* “I love how your style sheets cascade.”
* “I set my RSS reader to refresh your blog every five minutes.” (contributed by Alex Krupp)
* “Not a day goes by that I don’t read your blog.”
* “Why don’t you publish your blog in a book?”
* “You could easily break up your daily entries into several parts because they have so much content.”
* “I’ve forwarded your blog to many of my friends.”
* “I ‘digg’ your blog almost every day.”
* “I don’t care how often my RSS reader gets your edited versions because your blog is so insightful.”

Adding to Guy’s process, I’d recommend a company get involved in the blogosphere’s conversation by starting their own blogs. It’d make it’s conversations more genuine, and bloggers appreciate that.

Yesterday, while reading Guy Kawasaki’s tips on creating a community, I stumbled across Robert Scoble’s comment that the most important part of building a community is hanging out with it.

I agree that it’s an important part of the process.

The intriguing part of the conversation in Scoble’s comments was that a few people suggested how difficult it was for most people to fly around the country, or the world, meeting people face-to-face. I can understand this reaction, especially for those not involved in online communities, but it’s not a major issue today.

In fact, I recommend that any person who wants to be involved in any community use the Internet to foster it. Face-to-face is fantastic, and nothing beats it, but you can use the Internet in some amazing ways to broaden the scope of networking and building communities.

This includes people in business who want to network with people in their industry. Traditional networking means attending events, schmoozing, collecting business cards, and arranging followup meetings. None-traditional networking means, creating a weblog, making comments, emailing, and using online resources to keep up interaction.

Here are my tips on being involved in a community by networking online, using a few online tools:

1. If you haven’t already, start a weblog. With effort, posting on a regular basis, it becomes your online personality; a place for people to refer when they want to know who you are, or what you’re up to.

2. Read weblogs that relate to your community. Discussing topics on your own weblog is fabulous, but you’re not really interacting with a community until you read others and move to step 3.

3. Comment on these weblogs, and post to your own to involve yourself in the discussion. That’s the real power of weblogs. Posting your own thoughts to a weblog is essentially a diary. When you comment and continue the dialogue the blogosphere really comes alive. Besides, linkbacks are important, and you’ve heightened people’s awareness of your existence.

4. Use email to broaden the discussion. Not everyone reads and comments on weblogs. So don’t be afraid to send an email. However, don’t be surprised when people don’t respond. Humans are inherently lazy. Read a few tips on using email effectively.

5. Use instant message to broaden the discussion, but use wisely. Instant message is great for real time discussions, but don’t over do it. Be aware of whom you’re speaking to, and how busy they may be. If you bug the hell out of them you’ll end up on their blacklist. Darren Rowse has some great tips for instant message etiquette.

6. Use Skype or other cheap telephony. It’s amazing the effect cheap phone calls have. I can ring the U.S. for 1 cent a minute–a price that means I don’t bat an eyelid to hour long phone conversations.

I’ve used these techniques for several years now, and have a great online network that I’m involved with. All this from my home study in Perth Australia. In almost every case, I’ve not met the people face-to-face.

There are so many ways to get involved online it’s not funny. How about Xbox Live, Flickr, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. It’s amazing the people you can meet, and the global network of people you can build, all without seeing them face-to-face.

I never thought I’d say this, but Eddie McGuire knows what he’s on about.

Eddie, having recently taken over as Chief Executive of the Nine Network, has his plate full given the rising number of entertainment choices we have today. However, he seems to have a clue, if his statements in today’s Australian are anything to go by.

“People my age have grown up with traditional television, but kids these days are into mobile services, watching television, texting and using the internet at the same time.

“They are now their own programmers, and the challenge is there to try to get that iPod generation to bring their ideas to us, so we can be their portal of choice. The trick is to be relevant to them again. That is not to say you’re going to jettison the generation before them, but there’s a mix there somewhere.

Now it’s time for Eddie to put plans in place to cater for today’s generation, not just the iPod Gen or Gen Y.

In my opinion, his first port of call is to tackle the issue of digital tv multicasting. I’ve been saying for a couple of years that the government needs to realise that without the ability to add extra content, on multiple channels, it’s never going to get off the ground. Thankfully this is exactly what a committee recommended recently.

His second strategy should focus on distributing content via other modes, like podcasts or iTunes.

My third suggestion would be to partner with a set top box manufacturer. Build a simple device that sits in people’s lounge rooms that aggregates multiple sources–digital broadcasts and Internet media–and you’ll begin to capture a community.

The risk for Eddie isn’t traditional anymore. The Nine Network will lose viewers to other devices, like the XBox 360 or the iPod. Before any of these guys realise it, Microsoft and Apple will have their own “television networks.” They’re both halfway there, one with a distribution model, and the other with a set top box.

Guy Kawasaki is a well repected venture capiltalist in Sillicon Valley. He wrote The Art of the Start : The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, which is a must read for anyone starting a new venture. So when he writes on his weblog, it’s well worth a read.

I chatted with him on The Gadget Show the other day, and noticed that his book, and indeed what he says on his blog, is truely second nature to him. He didn’t have to think long and hard about the questions I posed.

Today’s article is no different, and very applicable to my consultancy. So much so that I might use it as a reference now and then.

You see, online it’s common for new companies to focus on their community. After all, the Internet is a mass of communities. However, some traditional businesses haven’t grasped that yet. They continue to work with a vast corporate wall, shielding them from interaction with their customers.

It might seem like a silly notion, with customers being as smart as they are today, but take a look around and see how many organisations truely foster an open relationship with their customers by building a community.

If you’re unsure what I mean, then use Guy’s The Art of Creating a Community as a primer, and tack on Robert Scoble’s addition.

I’ve created a Geek Dinner event at Upcoming.org for March 11 in San Francisco.

I know a lot of people will be at SXSW, but I’m guessing plenty of people won’t be able to go. So if you’re interested add yourself to the list attending.