Here we are at the start of 2016 with big ideas, new plans and a gas tank full of energy. It’s the best time of year (and perhaps the only time) that we reflect on bad habits and focus on developing healthy ones.

There’s something refreshing about a new year. It provides a level of clarity that we desperately seek come November, December. In a world of notifications, deadlines and double-sided to-do lists, clarity is rarely part of our lives.

This is becoming a huge problem for nearly every single professional. As news, social media, emails and meetings continue to devour hours of our time each day, we desperately need a filtered view into our busy lives and constantly growing networks.

The Beginning of a Long Fight for Network Clarity

We’ve already witnessed major overhauls in the experience of our most loved apps and services. As our feeds continue to be filled with meaningless updates and noise from people we may or may not care about - new tabs have surfaced.

If you’ve recently updated your Facebook and/or LinkedIn app, it comes at no surprise that you’re seeing the new “My Network” and “Me” tabs:

The new “My Network” tab on the LinkedIn app attempts to answer the question -“what’s happening in my network today and who do I need to reach out to?” It’s a fairly static mix of recently published posts to LinkedIn Pulse, birthdays and job changes from people in your network.

The new Facebook “Me” tab takes a different approach which I still don’t completely understand. The attempt to provide an overview of key updates from your network falls short here. The new “Group” section does provide a nice snapshot of updates from each of your groups, however below that it’s basically a quick settings menu.

Twitter also joined the fight for network clarity with the release of “Moments” back in October of 2015. As described on their official launch post, “Moments, the best of what’s happening on Twitter in an instant.”

I have yet to experience the new Twitter “Moments” tab, however I know it aims to be your one stop shop for the biggest stories happening right now, across the world. Given the fact that most breaking news hits Twitter in near real-time, this was an obvious play for the big blue bird.

Any active Twitter user would agree that their “Home” feed is completely useless if you’re following more than 100 people. It’s surprising that Twitter hasn’t attempted to solve the “firehose” state of the main feed as of yet. “Lists” was released back in 2009 as a promising feature to organize your network, although not much has changed since then.

Modern Networking & More Magical Moments

There’s a massive thirst among professionals to keep up to date with what’s happening in our networks without spending hours scrolling through feeds and scanning news sites. This thirst varies from content around industry news, personal interests and events to the latest updates about people who matter most in our world.

Everyone wants to be more successful, but in a world overload with information, this is no easy task. I believe 2016 will be the year that all of this changes with modern networking leading the way.

Modern networking encompasses all of the areas a professional must focus on in order to grow the right relationships and ultimately achieve their goals. When successful, modern networking encourages more “Magical Moments” such as finding a new job or closing an unexpected deal.

I believe LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are all focused on helping you create more magical moments by providing you with relevant news and updates from your world. It’s great to see these behemoths innovate and I’m looking forward to the next wave of updates in 2016.

Bringing the Business World Closer Together

The team here at Nudge has been working to help solve this incredibly challenging problem from the very beginning. However, we’re NOT trying to be another social network, we’re focused on connecting the tools you already love to create more opportunities.

2015 was an exciting year as we continued to gain incredibly valuable feedback from professionals of all backgrounds. Regardless of one’s professional background, it’s becoming clearer that there are fundamental areas within modern networking that can help anyone be more successful.

If you’re interested in joining our journey to help solve some of the biggest challenges in the professional world, we invite you to join Nudge. We value every single piece of feedback and are always available to discuss the challenges and opportunities of networking.

Cheers to a successful 2016 and Let me know if there’s anyway I can help you this year!

What networking apps, tools or services have you had success with in 2015?