LinkedIn is very good for browsing relationships and hooking into your contacts' networks. It re-connected me with high-level execs I hadn't talked to for some time, who then helped me close various deals.

Along with planes, running water, electricity, and motorized transportation, the internet is now a fundamental fact of modern life.

Neither privacy nor publicity is dead, but technology will continue to make a mess of both.

Business culture operates differently in different cities around the world. But I don't think it's possible to design one system that incorporates all social norms for networking. Human beings are just too diverse.

Building new connections is a critical part of building a new economy. The American education system, as flawed as it is, is great for the creative class because of the way it mixes up networks.

Social networks are like grease - in some cases, gasoline - for our personal business networking machines. If you aren't plugged in, you will be out-done by better-connected, hyper-networked colleagues and competitors.

For higher-level execs with greater public visibility, social networks need to become as good at filtering as they are at connecting.