networking

As I continue building my personal productivity practice, one of the biggest shifts in my thinking is around networking [1]. I've moved from the common "palm down" perspective [2] to the "palm up" variety, in which I work to learn what people care about, and think about afterwards how I can be of service, i.e., how I can help them. I'm reminded of this idea, from my self help formulary:

Life = The people you meet + What you create together

What's hit me recently is that I needed to make changes in the way I interact with people in order to better help them. The question is, how do we create an environment that fosters this kind of giving?

Here's a straightforward process that's helped me:

(Note: I wrote this article for a programming venue a while back, but I didn't end up publishing it. As I've been flat out these last few weeks preparing for summer workshops, I thought I'd share it with you. Regular blogging resumes after I get back from my NASA seminar next week. P.S. I had fun checking out the Constellation Program - what geek can resist new spaceships?)

Last week I wrote about my initial foray into LinkedIn's new Answers feature, and shared some of mine. Below I've included the answers I got to my (so far only) question How did you get clients when you started your consulting practice? Before that, let's briefly consider Answers' strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths?

• Opportunity to share knowledge and help others,
• Exposure to possible peers (increase connections) and clients,
• Increased repute

Weaknesses?

• Many answerers are writing pretty blatantly to self-promote,
• Ditto for questioners,

As I've written elsewhere [1], networking has proven to be a crucial new focus (and set of skills) as I develop my personal productivity practice. One issue that often comes up when starting out is that of finding something to give to the folks you'd like to connect with. As Keith Ferrazzi says in Never Eat Alone:

"I learned that real networking was about finding ways to make other people more successful. It was about working hard to give more than you get."

However, I sometimes felt that, as someone new to the field, I didn't have much to offer.

I've been very busy these last few weeks with one-on-one coaching and preparing for some workshops I'm putting on, so the posting's been delayed.

But out of the (relative) blue, some great timing! My email interview with Josh Hinds is up at his Business Networking Advice blog. The article is Interview with Matthew Cornell of Matt's Idea Blog, and I was quite delighted to be invited. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks very much, Josh!

At the start of the year, I decided to try an experiment (see A geek "gets" networking: The strange magic of connecting with others): I was going to grow my personal network by three people per week for a year, a goal that seemed both audacious and possible, given a bit of stretching (which Alvin says is The Most Important Thing to Do).

In the last ten weeks I've connected with about 50 new people, which actually exceeds my goal of three per week (30 at this point). Even this early in the experiment, I've had a number of lessons and questions come up, which follow. However, the short story is 1) it's fun, 2) it's work, 3) it's personally challenging and rewarding, and 4) I don't know where it's going!

Effort

I've previously mentioned that I'm training myself to be a personal productivity consultant, having become seriously inspired after applying David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology to my life [2]. As an autodidact [3] (because there's no M.S. in Personal Productivity), I'm having to define the field of study for myself. Surprisingly, in addition to the expected subjects (time management, motivation, creativity, etc), my inquiry has expanded quickly to include broader topics like work/career, wealth/money, and personal growth and development. (Thanks again to Steve Pavlina for the great starter list.) And the queen of them all? Networking.

In her post Find yourself a good mentor, Pamela Stewart suggests finding a mentor in your field of interest, someone who has a thriving, successful business. She goes on to say:

See if they are willing to spend some time with you so that you can find out what it really takes to grow a successful business. [...] For the most part, people love to talk about themselves, so don't be shy to ask someone you admire for a bit of their time. Hopefully you can return the favor when you become successful and famous!

Since I'm training myself to be a personal productivity coach, I appreciated her advice.

Because I'm investigating the field of productivity consulting, I've been working on expanding my people network (both regionally and on-line), and I've been learning the joys and challenges of doing so. By nature I'm more of a maven than a connector (the terms are from Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, summarized here), but I do love being with people who are intelligent, fun, and considerate.