With all the furore at the moment over Facebook, Scoble and Plaxo, OpenSocial, data-portability, etc. it was refreshing to get an email from Nick at NDK Group asking to hook up and do some old-fashioned linking between our sites.
Turns out he popped his name into Google and a post I wrote a few months back came up. I then checked out his LinkedIn profile, and we hooked up there also. Nick is probably the most inspirational, and informative speaker I’ve heard on building rapport, understanding the person you’re with, and moving to common agreement; but then his is a qualified hypnotist! Although focused on sales in the presentation/events I attended, I’m pretty sure that any negotiation process would benefit from his approach.
For all the wonderousness of the automagical technology, rapport ultimately depends on human connections. And business depends on rapport (with perhaps the exception of commodities trading).
Roll on next Monday when I’m up in London building some more human connections (and hopefully some rapport) with the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute folks. Akhtar Badshah (Senior Director, Global Community Affairs, Microsoft) is talking about sustainability and the next generation of creative technology tools.
Any questions I should put to him?