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Long before there was a LinkedIn, FaceBook, You Should Meet, WorkitMom,
or the Downtown Women's Club people attended face to face events often in the hopes that they could meet potential business associates.
There was the exchange of business cards and usually the follow up phone call. Sometimes it opened a door, sometimes it felt like a waste of time , sometimes real friendships emerged,and sometimes it resulted in getting on a mailing list you wish you were never on.
Networking, when done correctly can be a beautiful thing. But,( this is a BIG BUT)when the rules are not followed, eyebrows are raised, emails deleted and blog postsare written.
Prior to becoming a blogger in 2004, I freelanced for the business section of the Chicago Tribune. One of the last pieces that I wrote was on networking,and how for some businesses it had become a more important strategy than advertising or direct marketing.
If there were an award for attending the most networking events in one year, Pat Ewert would definitely be a contender.
In 2002, when Ewert was in charge of business development for Tandem Professional Employer Solutions, she attended more than 300 networking events--and credits those efforts for increasing the company's sales by more than 50 percent.
"A typical week included breakfast events, a few lunch events, and then one or two events every evening," explained Ewert, who acknowledged that the idea of attending so many events would seem draining to most people.
Ewert said it energizes her while she concurrently builds brand awareness and generates business leads.
Ewert is one example of how networking has become an aggressive, sophisticated, strategic way to build business--competing with, and in some businesses replacing, more traditional methods of cold- calling, advertising and direct marketing.
In 2004, the thought that I might attend 300 networking events in one year seemed about as unlikely as winning the lottery. Fast Forward to 2007 and 300 networking touchpoints isn't unusual--even for me,a relative recluse.
It certainly doesn't feel extreme. How many comments do you leave on blogs each week? How often do you add to a discussion in FaceBook or LinkedIn?
While it may not feel extreme to make hundreds of networking connections in a year, the aggressiveness of some to use networking events or online communities to build their business is making several bloggers uncomfortable.
From Tish Grier, at the Constant Observer,
Rude! Rude! Rude!: today I received yet *another* email from another BlogHer alumna offering me her business blogging consulting services! I continue to be horrified by the over-zealous marketing in which some fellow BlogHers are engaging. Had this woman read my blog, she'd seen the link to the Business West article where I was interviewed about business blogging.
In May, Jory Des Jardins wrote an extensive post about LinkedIn Ettiquette called Avoid Bad e-Networking: The Unofficial Laws of Linked-In
...there is also a discomfort that I have with the tool. It encroaches on a fundamental belief I have about networking--I've always believed that a contact is only legitimate when there's been a proactive introduction and acceptance of the contact information. Let me clarify: A "proactive" introduction is an organic introduction. A typical proactive networking situation (besides meeting someone in-person and exchanging information) would be chatting with someone who is inspired by your cause and offers to introduce you to a contact. A less-proactive, but still acceptable, form of introduction would be reaching out to your network for introductions to people that your contacts believe would be interested in connecting. Then the onus is on your network to speak up and offer contacts, or not. If they offer contacts they do so by choice. Linked-In is permission-based--my contacts cannot get access to my other contacts without my permission. But when a contact askes me to connect them with another contact of mine, I'm sometimes uncomfortable. My reputation IS my contacts, and so is my judgement in sharing them. I believe in the democratizing effect of social media and its ability to connect people of like minds (and like needs). But within six degrees of separation are many sub-degrees of nuance, intuitive determinations of appropriateness that Linked-In cannot mechanize.
Marnie Webb ,who blogs at ext 337, has also written about the dilemma of what to do with all those business cards she brings home from conferences.
And sometimes I get the it-was-great-meeting-you emails. I think, How good this person is. A short note to remind me of our talk.
