With the growing popularity of virtual networking, we all get more and more invitations, requests and updates which sometimes, we don't care much about. I've seen this new phenomenon referred as SNAM (another knock-off from the word SPAM).

We all get some and I'm one of the grateful ones in most cases, but in some, please stop. There are some that shall remain nameless in my LinkedIn network who send updated profiles too often, we don't need to know that you changed a comma in your professional history. Therefore you give a bad name to such networks.

Expect more and more invitations to show up in your inbox because new systems show up all the time. The good news is once you're in a system, these invitations should stop showing up in your inbox. One thing that these sites should do, and some already do this, is an opt-out within the invite. There is one system which I don't need to join (I'm already spoken for!), so I clicked on the "stop sending me invitations" link and poof they stopped.

To help out managing these requests, here are a few survival tips:

• Get your virtual networks to send you send you updates once in a time period. Systems like LinkedIn recognize that we all get way too much email and are putting measures to let us adjust to the level we prefer.
• Email client rules: make a folder and automatically transfer email to it with a rule, based on sender and/or subject line. This way your inbox won't get cluttered and you can get to your networking emails when it's convenient for you.
• If you keep getting mail from the same folks in an abusive fashion, please report them. Most systems have a way to track and handle overzealous emailing folks. Like anything else on this planet, some folks will abuse it if they can.

At the end of the day, if you're on these networks, it means you probably want to get emails. Should you wish to no longer receive them, the alternative is to quit using these systems and create junk user rules for all networking systems.

I'm happy to get these requests to join, and I pass down requests and such. It's the nature of the game and virtual networking success will come through these channels.

Jean Pascal Hebert, President, Socius Technologies.

He has been involved with security vendors for the past 8 years in sales, marketing, relationship management roles. Having worked at Symantec and Sybari Software, consulted for LastSpam.com and Vircom, he has developed expertise which enables vendors to maximize their potential through strategic relationships.

His new project, www.computer-secure.com, will assist beginners with their home PC security needs.