About The Chicagoland Web Identity Meetup

With all the networking I do I constantly run into people who are trying to initiate and maintain connections with others through professional systems. They are also trying to get enough time with each person they meet to be able to explain what they do, who they are, why they are the best person for the job and on and on.

The most important aspect of networking is learning how to do it without being offensive, inappropriate or overbearing and knowing when NOT to contact people as well as when to contact them.

I have heard good and bad stories about contact systems, reputation systems, review boards and other places where information is stored or displayed and realized that most of the people I talk to have no idea where to start looking for this information, how to control it or what to do if there is something they don't like or agree with.

This meetup is designed to cover a lot of these concerns, including online security and identity theft and how to protect yourself. It is geared mainly to small business owners, entrepreneurs and independent sales agents as they are most at risk as they tend to put more information online wherever and whenever they find something new.

We aim to teach you how to control the information, how to get the most benefit from it and what is new. There will be an opprotunity for networking at all the events and we will post guidelines to help you make great connections and understand networking etiquette to help you in other networking environments. We look forward to meeting you, helping you take control of your online identity and reputation and helping you grow your business.

Our goal is to rotate the meeting locations from Chicago to North Suburbs to West suburbs to South suburbs. If we get enough interest we will offer the meetings every week instead of every month so each location will have a meeting every month instead of every 4 months. If you know anyone concerned about their online identity, reputation or building long term relationships with the many services, invite them to attend.

We will be looking for locations in different areas to host these meetups at no charge for the room that can hold up to 50 people and provide refreshments that the participants can order (coffee, health drinks, snacks) so we can eliminate the fee. Please contact me if you would like to host monthly meeting at your location attended by business professionals from the chicagoland area.

One more thing, just to put you at ease... while I am the owner of a web based marketing tool, this meetup is not about me and I promise not to spend more than 2 minutes on my own introduction at each meeting unless you ask for more information! This will also not be a place where people will be trying to recruit you into their network marketing business. There are other meetups for those introductions. This is about networking with professionals and finding out how to do it effectively with the many tools available. We will be adding a guidelines page for this meetup before the first meeting.