I sent out 205 hand-personalized yearly updates in my initial set of holiday greetings. I’ve received 60 replies so far, for a response rate of almost 30% – much better than surveys and e-mail marketing campaigns. Most included people’s highlights of 2008 and goals for 2009, which I’ve added to my address book. I’ve cleared my inbox (hooray!) and now I’m thinking of e-mailing everyone on LinkedIn.

I’ve updated my address book from my LinkedIn contacts, which has somehow grown to 643 people. Of these 643 people, 135 were already in the first list of people I’d e-mailed. I’m slowly working my way through the 508 people remaining. I had so much fun reading and responding to people’s updates, and I’m looking forward to getting to know people in my extended network a little bit more! I’m still going to hand-personalize things as much as possible, because it’s fun looking up people’s updates and pleasantly surprising (most of) them with that human touch.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in with encouragement, reviews, and goals. Definitely worth doing again!