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Uloop is hiring a sales & marketing manager:

Uloop is looking for bright, energetic sales/marketing managers to join our team. Manage approximately 20 Campus representatives at 10 universities; Analyze data from each school and adjust on-campus marketing efforts; Create campus-specific marketing campaigns; Visit campuses multiple times during the semester/quarter

New companies on my radar:

• KnowledgeBid A new start-up by Rob Webb recently launched a new product/site, Analysts Edge. It provides user generated news for the financial community. It’s a well done site that was launched on a very quick turn-around. Rob has a good blog too.
• Cardways is an interesting start-up that allows you to send old-fashioned paper greeting cards to your friend directly from their website, fully personalized, and include a gift card from the retailer and cash amount of your choice. I’m not sure how long they’ve been around but I just learned about them and that they are here in Chicago.
• Network Blackbox has created a network-attached automated backup device.
• I recently developed a Facebook app, Grow-a-Gift, with a couple other people. Currently it’s one of the fastest growing apps on Facebook. Over 150,000 users have installed it in the last 10 days! If there are any other Facebook developers out there send me an email, I’d love to hear about your experience.

A month ago I met someone at an event. We had a few minute conversation and just recently I received an e-mail from them asking for a recommendation to a friend of mine who has a job opening, because “employment is based on who you know” and she thought getting this recommendation would help her.

I don’t mean to single this person out, but I’ve run into this attitude a few too many times and I think it’s worth saying a couple words on it. On the surface, “Who you know” does seem to make a big difference in getting jobs, starting businesses, etc. And there is good reason for it. The world overwhelms you with options: hiring people, choosing vendors, picking a movie to see–there are tons of choice for each of these things and getting recommendations from people that you trust is a great filtering process. If a friend of yours that you trust has already done the thinking and evaluating, you can benefit from the result of their effort. It’s just division of labor applied to intellectual activity.

But the idea of trying to “collect” contacts, of “building your network,” and other such activities is misguided. Its reversing cause and effect. People are willing to refer you because you offered them some value in the past and they were impressed with your ability. You can’t just ask for people to refer you, you have to do something to make you worth referring. Just like you can’t ask for admiration, you have to do something that makes you worthy of being admired. People who wish for an effect have to enact the requisite cause.

My favorite instance of this realization: You have to pursue greatness not success. Achieve greatness and success will follow. Take that attitude in everything you do and you’ll never have to worry about “building your network” ever again.