Other people feed the greed. They give discounts, break the rules, slip you free handouts to curry favor. But that role is also hard to maintain—eventually their false generosity eats into someone else’s profits. Feeding the greed isn’t a good way to differentiate, anyway; a lot of people are already struggling to occupy that space.

Those of us who end up with the best-stocked net have a most valuable commodity. When we are fully and totally networked, we are powerful. Alone, even with all the wisdom in the world, we are powerless: castaways adrift in an impersonal ocean. Without a network, knowledge is nearly useless.

We live in an age where information is more important than seniority. In Silicon Valley, where I work, you get paid for what you know, not how long you’ve been around or where you went to college. That’s good for some, bad for others. Like it or not, it’s happening all across the country, in job after job.

Lovecats who hug and kiss without adding value are just like Big Joe—a waste of everyone’s time.

You’re becoming a theory-slinging, expert-quoting, knowledge-throwing lovecat, and that’s what makes you stand out from the pack, and that’s why others keep calling on you.

Be specific. Too many times we just jot down, “She works for So-and-So.” That’s not enough. I’ll write, “Jane Doe was sitting next to me on a flight to Chicago while I was reading about brand leadership and she asked me why I was making so many notes. We started a conversation on personal atrophy and it turns out she’s a human resources manager.

The more you read, the more you know, and the more knowledge you have to pass along.

Spend 80 percent of your time on books, and 20 percent on articles and newspapers.

When you represent knowledge, opportunity, selflessness, and intimacy, you are not just a service provider or a product. You are fun, you are interesting, you are valuable; you take people places they have never been before, you show them books they have never heard of, you introduce them to people they never dreamed they would meet—in short, you