In the ' 6 0 s , Jordan was an active civil rights lawyer in Atlanta. Later, he became a field secretary for the NAACP, fighting for school integration and registering black Georgians to vote. In

1 9 6 4 , Jordan left the NAACP to head the Southern Regional Council's Voter Education Project (VEP). His role was to find volunteers w h o could organize voter drives, and to raise money for the project. Raising money compelled Jordan to travel throughout the South, pitching wealthy foundations on w h y they should grant money to the VEP. It was this position that allowed Jordan to gain respect as a man w h o could fight for the cause from within the establishment. His Rolodex began to expand as he forged connections with both the heads of foundations and the VEP supervisors in Washington, D.C.

Jordan first ingratiated himself to the Fortune 5 0 0 community w h e n , in 1 9 6 6 , he was invited to President Johnson's White House conference on civil rights, which was attended by hundreds of CEOs. For the remainder of the '60s and ' 7 0 s , he traveled as a plugged-in member of both corporate and civil rights circles. His involvement in one circle made him all the more valuable to the other. Favors done and friends made in one circle could be leveraged to do favors and make friends in the other.

Jordan's full-time jobs allowed him to keep one foot in each w o r l d . In 1 9 7 0 , he became executive director of the United Negro College Fund. In 1 9 7 2 , he became president of the National Urban League, a pro-business civil rights organization—a job he held for ten years. Both posts allowed Jordan to gracefully expand his personal network, to the point where, in 1 9 8 2 , Akin Gump paid him quite a hefty price for his services. "Vernon did not come c h e a p , " said Strauss. "But I told him: 'We'll carry you for a few years until you figure out what it's all about here, then you will carry us for a long time after that.'"

Jordan's career is a wonderful example of the opportunity that comes from bringing different people together from different worlds and different organizations to do good things. When Jordan became a public figure during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, he was challenged on his claim that it was normal for him to help a virtual stranger like Monica Lewinsky find a job. His network once again came to his aid. Washington attorney Leslie Thornton detailed in the Wall Street Journal how Jordan had gone out of his way to help her and others. She revealed what many young black and white professionals had long known privately: Jordan had been opening doors for people of all colors and creeds for decades.

20. Pinging—All the Time

If 80 percent of success is, as Woody Allen once said, just showing up, then 80 percent of building and maintaining relationships is just staying in touch.

I call it "pinging." It's a quick, casual greeting, and it can be done in any number of creative ways. Once you develop your own style, you'll find it easier to stay in touch with more people than you ever dreamed of in less time than you ever imagined.

Yes, there's grunt work involved. Pinging takes effort. That's the tough part. You have to keep pinging and pinging and pinging and never stop. You have to feed the fire of your network or it will wither or die.

How many times have you asked yourself, "What's his face . . . Ya know, that guy . . . " Or "I know her, I just can't remember her name . . ." We all face that situation all too often, to my mind. Every time I hear those statements uttered, I sense a network or community of contacts withering.

These days we're overwhelmed with so much information that our minds can prioritize only the most recent data. What does it take to break through the white noise of information overload? Becoming front and center in someone's mental Rolodex is contingent on one invaluable little concept: repetition.

• People you're contacting to create a new relationship need to see or hear your name in at least three modes of communication—by, say, an e-mail, a phone call, and a face-to-face encounter—before there is substantive recognition.

• Once you have gained some early recognition, you need to nurture a developing relationship with a phone call or e-mail at least once a month.

• If you want to transform a contact into a friend, you need a minimum of two face-to-face meetings out of the office.

• Maintaining a secondary relationship requires two to three pings a year.

Using the above rules of thumb should give you an idea of what it'll take to keep your own network humming. I make hundreds of phone calls a day. Most of them are simply quick hellos that I leave on a friend's voice mail. I also send e-mail constantly. Using a BlackBerry, I've found I can do the majority of my pinging while in trains, planes, and automobiles. I remember—or at least my PDA remembers—personal events like birthdays and anniversaries, and I make a special point of reaching out to people during these times.

When it comes to relationship maintenance, you have to be on your game 24/7, 365 days a year.

There's no doubt you have to bring a certain vigor to this part of the system. But hey, this is just my way of doing things. You'll figure out your own way. The governing principle here is repetition; find a way to ensure that you'll contact people regularly without putting too much strain on your schedule.

One way I've found to make maintaining my network of contacts, colleagues, and friends easier is to create a rating system for the network that corresponds to how often I reach out. First, I divide my network into five general categories: Under "Personal," I include my good friends and social acquaintances. Because I'm generally in contact with these people organically, I don't include them on a contact list. The relationship is established, and when we talk, it's as if we'd been in touch every day. "Customers" and "Prospects" are self-explanatory. "Important Business Associates" is reserved for people I'm actively involved with professionally. I'm either doing business with them currently or hoping to do business with them. This is the mission-critical category. Under "Aspirational Contacts," I list people I'd like to get to know, or I've met briefly (which is anyone from your boss's boss to a worthy celebrity) and would like to establish a better relationship with.

After reading the chapter on taking names, you've probably already begun to segment and categorize your network in a way that works for you—there is no standard method here. Create a segmentation that works for you and your objectives. This is a good habit and one that deserves repeating. All successful people are planners. They think on paper. Failing to plan, as they say, is planning to fail. And a plan is a list of activities and names.

The next step is to print out your master list of contacts that contains all the people in your network under the categories you've placed them in. The question now is How often do you contact each person on the list? I use a pretty simple system, but there's no reason you can't improve upon it. I'll go down my master list and add the numbers 1, 2, or 3 next to each name.

A " 1 " gets contacted at least each month. This means I'm actively involved with the person, whether it's a friend or a new business associate. With new relationships, a " 1 " generally means I have yet to solidify the relationship with at least three different forms of communication. Each time I reach out to a person, I like to include a very short note next to their name telling me the last time I contacted them and how. If last month I sent an e-mail saying hello to a potential customer rated " 1 , " this month I'll give a call. Also, contacts designated " 1 " I add to my cell phone's speed dial. (How I love thee, speed dial, let me count the ways! It allows me quick reference and an easy way to get in touch fast.) If I have a free moment in a cab, I'll just go down the speed dial and make several calls to keep in touch with people I've not spoken to recently.