I keep getting stumped with questions that I cannot answer, and it frustrates me. I am a guy, and, as many women can attest to, guys are better at solving problems than they are at listening.

My fiancé, Jennifer, had some questions about how we should handle certain situations in our life. Being the guy that I am, I immediately tried to find the right answer. When I answered with a positive spin, she would play devil’s advocate and give me all the reasons why the negative answer was more plausible, and vice versa. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

This conversation was not going as well as I would have liked, so I went to my fall-back plan: the Internet and the world of social networking. I suggested to Jennifer that she consider posing these questions to a greater audience, and maybe we would gain some wisdom that we could not come up with on our own.

Jennifer is pretty innovative and open to new ideas, so she immediately went online to Yahoo! Answers and started tapping into the network. Within 30 minutes of asking her first round of questions, she had 16 answers. Twenty-five percent of the answers were very helpful, 50 percent were neutral and twenty-five percent were not helpful. After reviewing the answers to the first question, she realized that she needed to refine her question in order to dig deeper into the wisdom of this online community. The answers she received helped us come up with a mutually agreeable plan of action, and they ultimately saved us hundreds of dollars in counseling fees!

Of course, Yahoo! Answers isn’t an infallible source of infinite wisdom. But, as legendary American football coach Vince Lombardi said, a group effort usually leads to better, and more well-rounded, results.

The beauty of social networking is that the tools are right at our fingertips. We just need to be aware of them and their potential applications and be willing to experiment with them to create outstanding results.

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A Note From Shelby Scarbrough, EO Global Board President

The EO Global team is boldly stepping into the future to help us leverage our network of peers through a continually developing array of in-house solutions. The team is also facilitating our participation in the public social networks. Our power potential to tap into both our own network and the Internet offerings (see below) is profound.

It is a significant benefit to us that EO offers clear and unfettered access to all these options. We just have to remember our Non-Solicitation Policy. When we venture outside of our bubble – onto the web and the EO-connected groups outside EOnetwork – it is impractical to patrol solicitation. However, it is our trust in, and respect for, this unique tenet that binds us and makes us the powerhouse organization that we are. I find it fascinating how many members stay true to the concept even when not required to do so.

As someone who leverages her network every day, I heartily promote the value of these less personal options, but in my business and as a protocol person, I contest that nothing ultimately replaces the bond developed in human-to-human interface.

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Join EO's Online Social Networks
Keep up with the latest EO news and swap useful information with other members through these social networks:

• EOGroups. From EO Wine Lovers to EO Singles to EO Book Club, find your own unique niche with EOGroups. Click here to explore, and if you’re feeling really adventurous, you can even create your own EOGroup!

Please note: The following are links to official EO Groups on the Web.

• LinkedIn. This popular social networking site was founded by Reid Hoffman, who spoke at our Global Leadership Conference (GLC) in May 2007. Click here to join the EO LinkedIn Group.
• Facebook. Surely you've heard of Facebook by now, but if not, check it out and join EO's Facebook group. It already has 225 EO members and is steadily growing.
• Plaxo Online. Get the only online address book and calendar that syncs with Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, Apple, AOL and your mobile phone. EO also has a Plaxo Group. Click here to join.
• MySpace. EO also has its own MySpace page. Okay, so EO isn't exactly a 20-year-old male whose Zodiac sign is Libra, but EO is 20 years old! (We had to get on MySpace somehow.)