As we gear up for our July 30 BizBooks conversation with Jill Lublin (submit a question now!), we came across a recent column by Ms. Lublin's fellow networking expert, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Though Dr. Misner acknowledges the advantages networking groups can bring, he also stresses that such structural opportunities will only get an entrepreneur so far: to get strong, lasting referrals, you must be pro-active, even aggressive about building contacts.

He writes:

Despite the built-in structure and focus on referrals, a strong-contact group member can fail to generate referrals for other members or to receive referrals for himself. Networking skills are the No. 1 requirement; the setting only makes it easier to use these skills. Simply being a member of a strong-contact group does not entitle you to expect or receive referrals. Nor does being a member of a casual-contact group limit the number of referrals you can generate or receive, if you have the skills and use them.

Dr. Misner lists several things the "master networker" does:
-Carries the contact information of her fellow networkers around with her.
-Wants to help others succeed.
-Is vigilant about spying others who need a service she can provide.

Read the whole thing, as they say. And don't forget to tune in Wednesday at 3 P.M. (Eastern) to see what Ms. Lublin has to say about networking.

...may have been the sound of the federal minimum wage whooshing upwards. As of last Thursday, it was $6.55/hour, up from $5.85, though not as high as it will go next year, to $7.25, the AP reports.

On the one hand, one would not expect this to have a major impact on typical entrepreneurs, many of whom live in one of the 23 states--plus the un-state District of Columbia--who represent the majority of the workforce and whose minimum wages are higher than this. (The state of Washington's, at $8.07, is the highest, although in San Francisco it is $9.36 an hour.) It will also, obviously, not affect the many small business owners who have no types of employees who might be paid minimum wage, or who pay all of their employees above minimum wage for other reasons.

And it's also worth noting, as the AP does, both that in adjusted dollars this new standard is still historically low, as well as that with the economy as it is--and especially with energy prices as they are--the wage rise is probably not going to make much of a difference as far as consumer spending is concerned.

That said, to some extent we all operate in the same job market, and so it seems logical to expect the increased wage floor to exert upward pressure to some degree on wages everywhere.

Does the federal minimum wage apply to your state? If not, what is your applicable minimum wage? Wikipedia, as usual, has the answer.

According to the New York Times, the Chinese government has reported that there are now more Internet users in China than in the U.S., and therefore any other country. 253 million of 'em, to be roughly precise. As that statistic sinks in, and as world attention turns toward China as the Olympics approach, it's worth asking yourself: is your small business--and especially its Website--friendly on a global scale?

To be sure, numerous caveats come with the above announcement:
-It comes courtesy of the Chinese government, which is few people's idea of a paragon of openness or trustworthiness.
-Percentage-wise, not only has China not surpassed the U.S., its roughly 20% figure doesn't even come close to the nearly 70% of the U.S., Japanese, or South Korean residents who are on the Net.
-China's economy, too, isn't close to those of several powers.
-Oh yeah: it's halfway around the world.

But still. You don't need to be a multinational corporation to want to receive business from multiple nations: something worth keeping in mind as Beijing plays host to the Summer Games, and as China's population continues to go online.

It's nothing personal; but, according to a new survey, the odds are that you could be doing a better job soliciting, digesting, and responding to employee feedback. Opinion Research Corp. has found that barely half of corporations carry out regular employee surveys at all, and that of those that do, another barely half actually take action based on the results.

Such surveys are extremely useful for gaining the perspective of the only other people with as intimate knowledge of your company as yourself, of course. However, they are also quite helpful simply to improve employee morale, the report said. Fully 84% of those employees at companies who did make changes in response to employee surveys felt that those changes personally affected them in a positive way.

Do you have any employee survey success stories? Leave them in the comments, or email them to bizboxonslate@gmail.com.

Microsoft has a new promotion for its much-maligned Vista operating system that could serve as an inspiration--or is it a cautionary tale?--for companies that are looking to tackle poor perceptions of their brands head-on.

Vista's problems are famous...or rather, infamous. Its press is so bad that cNet even advised Microsoft to ditch it altogether: "The road ahead looks dangerous for Vista and Microsoft must realize that. With Mac OS X hot on its tail, Vista is simply not capable of competing at an OS level with some of the best software around. If Microsoft continues down this path, it will be Vista that will bring the software giant to its knees--not Bill Gates' departure," the site wrote last year.

The ad campaign is called The Mojave Experiment. Basically, they have taken a bunch of Vista-haters (they should not have been difficult to find) and introduced them to Microsoft's latest OS, dubbed "Mojave," and asked them to give it a whirl. You probably see where this is going: Mojave doesn't exist, but rather is Vista; when the users tell their interviewer that they love Mojave, the interviewer pulls back the curtain. Conclusion: don't believe the bad press. Try Vista, and you'll like it.

It's bizarre to see a company--especially one with such a (justifiably) high opinion of itself as Microsoft--so explicitly acknowledge the major problems of one of its own brands. It's certainly refreshing. But is there a hazard to it as well? There is no denying that Microsoft is paying for people to hear other people badmouth Vista, even if the badmouthing is "proven" to be misguided.

The Mojave Experiment might be fake in terms of testing the "new" OS, but it is a very real experiment in a different sense: when a company--whether it's Microsoft or your own company--has a branding issue, is it best to ditch the brand or to try to convert people over to its side? We should all stay tuned to find out.

In a recent conversation at Bloggingheads.tv, Mark Schmitt, the editor of the liberal political and policy monthly The American Prospect, makes the case for increased public health coverage of the type Sen. Barack Obama has proposed from the perspective of the struggling but well-meaning small business owner. Check it out:

Is he right? Or are entrepreneurs better off under the current system? Do weigh in, and if you know of a good articulation of the opposing view, email it to bizboxonslate@gmail.com.

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