Business Networking: How to Work the "Virtual" Room

By Susan RoAne, The Mingling Maven®

There are several methods of conversing on-line: chat rooms, forums, usenets and e-mail. While e-mail is the "least sexy" usage, according to Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg, it is the "most compelling, addictive and practical activity available on-line."

From Babies to Bubba's to Boomers to Bubbes...everybody's doin' it! 400 million e-mail boxes in the first quarter of 1999 proves that we are connecting in cyberspace in astronomical numbers. It leaves a lot of opportunity for errors.

Virtual communication has a history but was mostly used three and a half decades ago by the military government and academia. Now it is de rigeur. While some business owners don't seem to think it's a necessary tool, most businesses and companies in the year 2000 understand that customer service includes communication options.

While some days I feel like sending a fax or picking up the phone to hear the person's voice (these days that is mostly to leave a message), the option of writing an e-mail at 11:30 pm is great.

Whether it is to my best friend in Boston or my editor in New York, in the morning (when I am still asleep), and they log on, there I am...or, at least my message. Managing our actions and behaviors in the virtual room is as important as how we behave in the "real" rooms we visit.

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