Blog Off Guest Post – Tris Hussey

Jennifer (Jennifer4 to us in b5) won a little quiz in the Business Channel chat in the wee hours of the morning so as her prize, I said I’d write a post for her.

Now, asking Jennifer for a topic she said “networking” and being a) tired (up all night for the Blog Off) and b) in a cheeky mood I retorted with “wires or humans”.  Jennifer said “humans”, but then I thought, wait … there’s a connection here (click for the music to go with the pun).

In the computer networking world, when you want to connect several computers together, and have some intelligence in how traffic among them and to/from the Internet is managed you use a router.

So a router connects the computer helps them communicate together, but … it does it intelligently.  For example, in two computers need to access the Internet at the same time, the router makes sure that one doesn’t take more than its share of the available bandwidth.  Routers also have firewalls to protect the computers and other nice features.  So how does this relate to human networking?

Be the router.  Connect people.  Help them share information.  Balance people’s needs for help so everyone gets what they need, but not to the exclusion of everyone else.

Protect your friends from bad stuff on the outside.

Be that router.  Help everyone, and yourself, connect, communicate and get what they need.

Tris Hussey is the Training Manager at b5media and writes MapleLeaf 2.0 and Manscaping 101 on the network and his personal blog A View from the Isle (when he remembers).

This post is part of the b5media Business Channel Great Blog Off!  Find out more about the Blog Off here.

The Business Channel is supporting Accion International for the Great Blog Off. You can make a donation directly to Accion (http://www.accion.org/b5media).  Donations are tax deductible.