My Muse of Networking collageIf the image that comes to your mind at the word “networking” is a salesperson on commission going from table to table handing out business cards, forget it. Networking is also stopping to actually converse with an acquaintance you run into in the grocery store rather than a quick wave and holler. Networking is having coffee with someone you don’t usually sit down with instead of your regular buddies. Networking is passing along a useful web site (or blog, like this one!) to your newly retired uncle.
My old hardbound Webster’s defines networking as “the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups or institutions.” When my mother was still alive, she spent her last few years at a nursing home. I would often visit her at lunch time, and as I wended my way to her table, I would stop to say “hello” to other residents at other tables, and ask those I knew about their kids or their health or compliment them on an afghan. Another family member was behind me one day, and when she caught up to me, she laughingly said, “wow, you are really good at working a room.” I hadn’t ever thought of greeting people at the nursing home as “working a room,” but she was right. That was what I was doing. And I’m good at it.
You can network formally at a function like a Rotary lunch or conference. You can do it informally at the water cooler (bubbler, fountain, whichever) or in an exchange of emails. I use all types of networking. My skills at it have brought me jobs including teaching and consulting, as well as a publisher who asked me to write a book (Lucent Books, The 1920s, published in 1999 as part of their history series A Cultural History of the United States). That’s how I find service providers like my dentist, chiropractor, and hair stylist. That’s how I get ideas, and how I make friends. Writers in particular, since we can spend a lot of time alone bonding with our computer, can benefit from networking. Think of it as using the spoken word instead of the written word.
My old hardbound Webster’s defines networking as “the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups or institutions.” When my mother was still alive, she spent her last few years at a nursing home. I would often visit her at lunch time, and as I wended my way to her table, I would stop to say “hello” to other residents at other tables, and ask those I knew about their kids or their health or compliment them on an afghan. Another family member was behind me one day, and when she caught up to me, she laughingly said, “wow, you are really good at working a room.” I hadn’t ever thought of greeting people at the nursing home as “working a room,” but she was right. That was what I was doing. And I’m good at it.
You can network formally at a function like a Rotary lunch or conference. You can do it informally at the water cooler (bubbler, fountain, whichever) or in an exchange of emails. I use all types of networking. My skills at it have brought me jobs including teaching and consulting, as well as a publisher who asked me to write a book (Lucent Books, The 1920s, published in 1999 as part of their history series A Cultural History of the United States). That’s how I find service providers like my dentist, chiropractor, and hair stylist. That’s how I get ideas, and how I make friends. Writers in particular, since we can spend a lot of time alone bonding with our computer, can benefit from networking. Think of it as using the spoken word instead of the written word.
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