Relationship Economics by David Nour

David Nour is an award-winning entrepreneur that has developed a form of relationship analysis called Relationship Economics (link takes you to his website).  The basic idea is that a person's social and professional network has tremendous value and people should invest time in maintaining and growing their own high quality network.  But so that you can hear the idea more eloquently, here is what his website says:

What is the value of a relationship?  Your personal and professional success depends on the quality of your relationships with others. Yet most of us don't spend enough time building, nurturing and quantifying the key relationships we need to achieve success. That's where RelationshipEconomics® comes into play.

RelationshipEconomics isn't about networking. It's about learning how to invest in people for an extraordinary return. It's about understanding Relationship Currency®, accumulating Reputation Capital® and building Professional Net Worth®. It's about learning the art and science of relationships to get things done in a systematic, disciplined manner.

Shortly, David Nour will release his book entitled Relationship Currency: The Quantifiable Value of Lasting Business Relationships.  As a person who has seen David Nour speak in public, I am looking forward to reading this book to get his insights in greater detail - especially as a quantitative person.  But of course his work applies to all professionals and all people in relationships of any sort for that matter.

By the way, one thing David Nour recommends is using one of the online social networking sites to help maintain and build your network.  Of those he has touted, LinkedIn really stands out as probably the best choice.  It is fully web-enabled, user-friendly, non-annoying and free for a base account.  The site just launched last year and already has more than 7 million members.  Seth Godin shows that LinkedIn was the 17th most popular Web2.0 site as of August 30, 2006, and was the site in the top 50 that had moved up the most places relative to 6 months ago.  In fact, 6 months ago LinkedIn was the 11,161st most popular site overall on the internet and has moved up to the 135th most popular site overall at the end of August.

Now back to David Nour...

What impresses me most about David Nour is that he came to the US from Iran 25 years ago not knowing a word of English and since then has established himself as an expert on how to network and do business in the US.  He speaks with no accent and is clearly a smart man.  I highly recommend signing up for his book alerts so that you know when it becomes available.