Apart from any planetary reference, Webster's Dictionary defines "Orbit" as "your sphere of influence and resources." What could be more useful and valuable than that as it applies to your relationships? This sphere, though, doesn't occur simply because we wish it so, or from new "friends" from Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn whom we have never met but are now "connected." Rather, it is created between people who each have, in one way or the other, both tangibly and intangibly, contributed mutual value to their relationship.

Additionally, there is a wonderful derivative of this dynamic. Essentially, it is that the value of trust, once established, that exists in a relationship opens up access to each other's appropriate connections, from which exponential opportunity to replicate value resides. It is social networking at its finest, independent of technology and agnostic where it is applied. Why is it, when someone that you truly value and trust leaves their place of employment and now provides their services elsewhere, you follow them rather than staying with their original employer? Because it is, and always will be, about quality personal relationships. The more relationships that I can create, develop, maintain, and manage, the better. But it is the perceived and/or derived value from me that enables my access to their orbits.

Social networking, with or without technology, may assist in the creation of social acquaintances, but they are a far cry from becoming an orbit of resource and influence or customer relationship value. An introduction to someone does not produce a trusted relationship, but can initiate the potential for it to become one. This is not the moment to focus on what you would like to obtain from a relationship, but rather what you can provide to the other person that will further their needs and interests. It is, in technology terms, the "data collection" phase, crucial to the ultimate outcome of what the relationship might become. Multiply this by the sheer amount of people with whom you are engaged, and you just might begin to realize the need for software called Relationship Management. A Relationship or Contact Manager is a tool you can use to easily collect, maintain, and refer to information in on-demand situations -- giving you instant access to precise details for a multitude of people, and demonstrating your attention to them. We all like it when people focus on us, but with relationship management, your first order of business is to focus on them. The more information you retain about them, the quicker the focus will come back to you.

None of this matters, though, without first having an attitude of importance about other people, and actually taking time to inquire, record, and maintain things that you learn from them. When they see that you have, you stand apart from others, and therefore have constructed the edifice of opportunity that then expands and deepens your orbits, your spheres of resource and influence.

Take care, Mike