The importance of networking should be in the forefront of your mind in today’s market. People who networked effectively in the pre-recession economy are finding themselves spending less time unemployed than their non-networking counterparts in the current business climate. Entrepreneurs and former employees that attended networking events and focused on growing their Rolodex are reaping the rewards of referrals and opportunities.

Networking doesn’t have to be as nebulous as it sounds and the importance of creating a networking game-plan for yourself is paramount. Hopefully, the following tips will give you a head start at your next important networking event.

1. Get your personalized 11-sec elevator pitch ready. Anticipate popular or likely questions that will be asked at a networking event. You should a mini sales pitch already prepared about you and your company without sounding too pretentious.

2. Listen more than you speak. How many times at a networking event have you forgotten a person’s name on the initial introduction. You were probably worried about what you were going to say next than really listening to the introduction or what the person had to say. In addition, if you actually listen to the person you can quickly determine if he/she is a worthwhile contact or if you should continue networking the room.

3. Get your ice breakers ready.Easing the tension and the inevitable awkwardness will go a long way to the effectiveness of an introduction. Save the cheesy jokes, but have a sense a humor and a strong handle on current events of than weather. Keeping a comfort level in the conversation will make you memorable.

4. Referrals. The whole point in networking is to get the word out about your products and services. Networking successfully will build useful contacts that will turn into referrals for your business. Don’t be afraid to set definitive goals for yourself before an event. Promise yourself you will obtain at least five referrals from an event. Before you now it you’ll have new business and paid for the price of admission to the networking event.

5. Follow-up. also known as bridging. I have personally agonized over finding a workflow between what transpires at networking events, conferences and etc… and the follow up after the event. Good CRM software as well as good old fashion follow up phone calls and emails will turn an introduction into a vendor or customer.

6. Networking online and off. Don’t forget the power of Facebook and Linkedin for keeping in touch with your existing Rolodex as well as expanding new connections.

At least we have the option for now to promote yourself or business with a filter.

Google Wave Download is almost here. Why should you care about Google Wave? Google Wave is a new communication and collaboration tool on the web, coming out later this year.

So the question is what is a wave? According to Google it’s the following:

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

The significance behind Google wave beside the fact it is an html 5 app built with a google web toolkit is the 3 core technologies:

1. Real-time collaboration also known as operational transformation (see video below)

2. Natural language tools like a bot called spelly

3. Extending Google Wave with Google APIs.

I have used BaseCamp for several collaboration projects for both real estate and web development and I think Basecamp is an amazing piece of code. However, Google Wave show’s the power of what can be done in the browser that is not ruby on rails but so much more. The extensibility of Google wave will allow startups to blossom around this communication ecosystem. I will even be bold enough to say this will finally give spammy email a run for its’ money.

If the Google juice doesn’t taste as good for you as it did for me take a look at the video below:

Whether you are looking for the ideal desktop collaboration software or trying to find online storage solutions, this list will have you up in running effectively on a “no to low budget”. Enjoy the list and please add your favorite apps by posting your scores in comments.

Twitscoop remains a supercool tool for watching realtime buzz trends in the Twitter community. Many sites are focusing on capturing twitter realtime buzz, (like the earthquake today). However, Twitscoop has a live-action tag cloud that moves in realtime. You can actually watch as a word is trending, pretty wild stuff with amazing implications of where twitter aggregation is going.

The biggest difference (besides being free) between Jing, Camtasia Studio and Snagit is straight from Jings website.

While there’s truth in describing Jing as a SnagIt or Camtasia Studio “lite,” the key difference is about workflow. Jing is designed to be fast-visual communication shared with others in a variety of locations. Capture. Annotate. Share.

Jing Project was #100 on PCworlds top products of 2008 list. It appears TechSmith is behind Jing (also developers of Camtasia & SnagIt) and will allow 2GB of storage for free or you can use other storage mechanisms. What I cannot figure out for the life of me is why TechSmith is offering almost a competing free product with the other two offerings. Ultimately it may lead to more sales, but for the rest of us it means a quality free screen capture project that allows us to share beyond belief.

Lively came about during Google’s famous “20 percent time,” where engineers devote 1/5th of their time to their own ideas and projects. But, it’s safe to say that this project may turn into much more. Tying an avatar to your Google account that can be used anywhere there is a Lively room is a unique idea that takes advantage of Google’s huge user base

The 3D social network will tie into the data portability concept like, Open social, Friend Connect, Myspace and Facebook data all being a part of the 3D world. The monetization potential for Google to have premium rooms, sponsored clothing & accessories for avatars will be outstanding. Imagine logging into lively with highend sponsored Nike Gear on and every user who clicks on you to interact you receive Adsense. I quickly created an avatar in about 5 minutes and joined a room called coffeeHouse while experimenting with Lively, I’m the good look’in guy in the blue in the front.

You can also create your own room rather quickly by using my new favorite program I use reguarl for real estate development called Sketchup. Below is an embedded iframe for the “coffee house” room. This very easily good have been a “business center” room I created for liked minded entrepreneurs that read Startup Addict Musings.

Lively is further evidence social networks are migrating to the 3D space. It is the next evolutionary step from the current “profile” model in today’s social networks. I can only imagine what revenue streams will come from this and what Google’s built in userbase will do to Second Life.