Best new tool for networking Google Alerts

Best new tool for networking Google Alerts In the ongoing development of me as a brazen careerist, my weak point has been networking. I know its my weak point because I meet a lot of powerful people who could do a lot for me and instead of leveraging the relationship, I end up losing touch with them. Where I fail is that I dont know how to maintain regular contact once I have established a base relationship. There is an art form to the act of the just checking in to see what youre up to email that is lost on me. I try to pay close attention when I get one from someone else. Heres what Ive noticed: That I always appreciate the email, no matter how long its been since I heard from the person. So probably other people would appreciate an email from me. But still, I put off sending these emails because I fear I have nothing to say that the person cares about. If I were giving advice to myself Id say, Just a short, simple email. Nothing huge. To remind the person you are thinking about them and also to tell them what youve been up to. But I always feel like I need some sort of excuse to email. If I were a guy, Id send an email about sports, like, Rah rah my team beat yours. Rah rah. Or, I thought of you sitting in my court-side seats. My instinct, as a woman, Im sorry to say, is to send stuff about kids. Like, Congratulations on your sons first birthday. I remember seeing the photo last year and he was so cute. But the kid emails have not gone over that well in the world, and, right or wrong, I never get the kid emails from men, so I stopped sending them to men. I had this idea to buy into a service that scans newspapers every day for names of people I know. Then I could say, I saw your name in the paper. Congratulations on blah blah blah, I would look like Im really on top of the industry news, and that Im concerned about the person. But the services were all really expensive. And, lets face it, if I were a millionaire, my networking could be, Hi. How are you? Id love to chat with you again. Do you want to fly on my jet to my island next week? But recently I noticed that Google has a new service, in Beta right now, called Google Alerts. This is how the company web site describe the service: Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. It seemed too good to be true, but I tried it. I set up an alert for a former boss of mine who was really supportive of me, and then about a year after I left his company I stopped contacting him because I couldnt think of anything to say. (Insane, really. A complete violation of any networking rulebook. And just writing about it here makes me realize how absurd it is that I cant figure out how to write a just saying hi email. After all, Im a writer!) I thought Id redeem myself by contacting him next time his name is in the press. But after a few days of hearing nothing from Google, I realized I didnt even know if the service worked. So I set up a Google alert for my sister-in-law, who just landed a job big enough that shes popping up in newspapers all over the country almost every day lately. And sure enough, her name landed in my email box today: The Google alerts worked. My sister-in-law didnt know she was in a Seattle newspaper today until I told her. Tonight, I created Google alerts for twenty of the people I most wish I would be good at staying in touch with. I feel like Im on the cusp of making amazing headway in the networking department. God bless