Day 212–Transition–Networking Part III

Image via Wikipedia

It’s a conspiracy of sorts.  I started the idea for this series of post on Networking; got into the middle of it and then got lost.   I had a plan, but I’ve been hesitating on moving forward.  Mainly, my plan bored me, so I’ve been waiting for something better to come along.
Sometimes networking sounds like a conspiracy of sorts.  Sometimes it seems so contrived and dishonest.   We all have seen those people that are overly self promoting; people the come on so strong you want to run and hide from them.   Now looking for work it seems that everyone is saying that I need to become this person.  That I need to be putting myself out there.  I think I have been guilty of this at certain times in my life, times that I look back on as a lesson in how not to be.
I’m a bit strange in that I like to  be in front of groups; I like facilitating groups.   This is more strange because I a somewhat introverted person.   Introversion doesn’t mean that I don’t like to be with people.  A great definition given to me a few years looks as introversion/extroversion from the perspective of energy:  an extrovert is a person that gains energy by being with more people and feels depleted when isolated and an introvert is a person who gains energy with fewer people around and expends energy when with larger groups.  Introversion and extroversion are the two ends of a continuum;  each of is unique in where we fall on the scale.  This changes depending on particular situations and can also go through major shifts through out your life.
As an example of particular situations making a difference, I become much more introverted in situations in which I’m unfamiliar.  Attending an Networking Event , at a place I have never been, filled with people that I don’t know is a recipe for me becoming a uncomfortable wall flower.   While if I was attending a family or a work pot luck you would find me in the thick of the party  talking to many people and catching up on the latest in their world and updating them on mine.  Both of these are examples of networking.  We all do networking, and I think for the most part many of have an edge where the networking becomes uncomfortable or unnatural for us.
Part of my hesitation in moving forward with this series was in being able to understand and articulate this discomfort. 
Another part that has been holding me up is in having a concept of the whole.  As a systems thinker,  I need to see the whole before I can understand the parts.  This is synthesis, it is the reverse of analysis.  In analysis you take something apart and examine each pieces in order to gain understanding.  In order to understand the whole I need some sort of definition which defines the scope of what networking is.  I ‘m sure it includes the new tools like LinkedIn and Facebook but these aren’t all of it. It must include these things called business mixers that have become popular of late.   What else should be included?
A friend sent me a note this week and it crystallized a few of the ideas that I was struggling with:

you've blogged a couple times about "networking". that word and that concept just bugs me. strikes me wrong.

you live on the west coast. in a bigger city. possibly other reasons to believe in that sort of thing.
i understand the concept, and admittedly I've gotten at least 3 jobs thru "networking". the others, on my experience, training and availability.
told a group of guys recently that I'm nobody's fishing buddy; nobody's golfing buddy. i fish, but rarely. the only golf I've done is miniature.
if you offer me free tickets to go to a ballgame with you like a friend did last summer, I'll probably beg off. if you need help loading a crate in the trailblazer, moving an air compressor up the stairs, framing a garage, painting or roofing a house, your chances are better that i can find time for that.
i have a very good friend who has hundreds of "buddies" from this club, that club, the boy scouts, the university, work, etc., but i get the feeling he has very few real friends.
you've seen the "a good friend will help you move, but a really good friend will help you move a body..." slogan; i may have told you when my brother went to jail, i asked 3 friends to help me clean up his house. he's a hoarder, and it was a mess. figured out later there were a few other guys i could have called too.

Here he touches on the heart of the matter in many different ways.  We all have our own definitions for networking that we carry around.  We may have a positive or a negative relationship with our own definition.  Most of the people that I have met have more a negative relationship with networking, especially when it involves doing more uncomfortable things in order to find a job.   Part of this discomfort is because it involves doing things that are new and different. 
I want to throw out a definition for networking, not so you can replace that definition that you currently use, but rather so that we can have a point of reference for where I am coming from. So my starting definition, which may change and get redefined as I read and write on the subject, goes like this:

The activities involved with accomplishing things through people and relating to others.  This includes building your social network, using tools like internet social networking tools, building communities, and maintaining your network.

That is a one hell of a big subject, and I’m not going to try to cover this in this series of blog post, but it is important that this be the lens through which to view what I do cover.  The human race is a race that has excelled because of its ability to network and work together.  Another term, one that is not quite as negative is community for me the two terms networking and community are very close. 
You already network with the people at work, at your church, with your friends, and with your family.  Nothing that I will write will take away from the networks already in place.  Part of the pain from being laid off from Boeing was I lost access to much of the network that I had built up over 22 years of working there—the many friends and acquaintances that I have made over the years.   And part of my scramble has been to build the connections with others that either I had let atrophy or hadn’t ever spent the time to strengthened and the areas where I needed to build new contacts to support the job search.
My hope is that through this exploration, I will build upon my ability to network in order to find a new position and that I will be able to take this learning and enrich my ability to network in all areas of my life.  Two years ago when I start looking at this area of social networking, I was thinking that this is an area where disruptive technologies are making mass changes and to survive I would need to learn it well.  With the job search this has been driven home even more, I have already learned that this is an area that I took too much for granted, and that I need to be consciously aware and deliberately spending time on this from now on both personally and professionally.  
It might be that through this exploration, we may find some tools that will allow us to change some of the ways in which we interact with others.  We may be able to broaden the ways in which we interact.  And we may be able to use the internet to connect with people that are align with specific interests that we don’t share with the people currently in our networks.    Networking, as it is being used currently is uncomfortable, because it means doing things differently than before.  It means that our behaviors might have to change somewhat, and behavior change is always uncomfortable.  It is not that it is replacing what we did before.  Rather it is adding new tools and ideas into the mix. 
I grew up with the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, and the areas in the book that I was not practicing were uncomfortable also.  This book also pointed out beneficial behaviors that I was not doing.  It also asked me to think about things that I had taken for granted.  And it also included some ideas that I never accepted because they felt too uncomfortable and it just wasn’t me.
I started looking into this area (social networking and community building)  in my work at Boeing.  I think I was fortunate to sink myself into this subject matter.  I see younger people naturally accepting the changes that are happening in technology and integrating it into their daily process.  And I see many older people hesitant to even dip their toes into the water, though I also see rapid change taking place here also—seeing many people seeing some of the advantages that Facebook provides in connecting with family over vast distances and even across town.
Embedded in the above excerpted comments is his definition of how he networks: through lending hand to people in need.  I hope if nothing else, we can start looking at how we network.  What are the unique ways that we have evolved in our own lives to connect with others.   Learning where our discomfort starts, because that might be our learning edge.  Understanding this alone would be very powerful.
I’m not sure where the quote came from, and I don’t really even have the quote itself (maybe someone can send me the reference), but it goes something life this: 

The only way into Heaven is by holding onto the elbow of someone you helped.

This is the ultimate networking statement and goes a long way to conveying principles of networking.

Here are a couple videos that I thought are also pretty good in covering this subject.  The first one goes into a definition much life the one I offered in “What is Networking.”  And the second looks at that negative side of networking in “How to avoid being a networking jerk.”
Past these two videos are links to other blogs entries and some other articles on Networking.

Keith Ferrazzi–What is networking

How to avoid being a network jerk

Related articles

• Day 192 – Transition – Networking Part I (other-dribblings)
  
• Day 195 – Transition – Networking Part II (other-dribblings)
  
• Day 168 - Transition - Third ProLango class (other-dribblings)
  
• Day 170 - Transition- ProLango Resources (other-dribblings)
  
• Day 153 - Good Courses to Take (other-dribblings)
  
• Day 136 - Transition - Life by a thousand pats on the back (other-dribblings)
  
• Day 89 - transition - Back in the groove (other-dribblings)

• How to Be the Most Magnetically Attractive Person in the Room (successful-blog.com)
  
• Introvert Power (psychologytoday.com)
  
• Is Our Definition of "Happiness" Extrovert-centric? (psychologytoday.com)
  
• Being introverted during the holidays. (condalmo.wordpress.com)
  
• LinkedIn Power Tips for Growing Your Network: Lewis Howes Interview (fastcompany.com)
  
• An Introvert's Guide to Standing Out at Conferences (prbreakfastclub.com)
  
• Social Networking Guide for Beginners (about.com)
  
• Quick Study Guide to Social Networking (michaelhyatt.com)