Working alone can have its advantages. For example, Casual Friday is every day when you work out of your own home! Also, you never have to wear headphones when you are in the zone and you want to crank up your favorite guilty pleasure band! But there are many downsides as well, among the worst is loneliness.
Not only can working alone cause you to go a bit stir crazy, but it can also lead to a loss of productivity, increased distractions, and eventually you can lose your creative edge.
One of the benefits of working in a team is the ability to collaborate, to share tools, ideas and the ability to bounce those ideas off a collection of individuals who will all have great and varied opinions.
So how do get valuable and necessary feedback when you’re flying solo? Below are a few ideas for neworking yourself and your business!
Meetup
Meetup is the world’s largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 9,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.
Believe it or not, Twitter can be a great tool for finding like minded professionals and creating a rapport with them on the topics your profession finds most interesting. Not only can you stay up to date on industry news and information, but you can connect with industry heavy weights, and share thoughts and content. Twitter hashes, when used properly can be a invaluable tool for finding others already discussing the topics you’re most interested in, or you can create your own.
Linkedin is the place to be for business professionals looking to expand their network! Linkin allows you to find professionals in your area, as well as nationwide and to to share content with them in real time. You can also reconnect with past associates, colleagues, and classmates to see what they’re up to professionally and reinforce existing connections. Linkin has thousands of business pages and professional organizations that meet on their site to share relevant news and info, post job listings and more!