Networking, as Frank Julie said, is about building and maintaining relationships. Yet, one generally associates the act of networking with the process of accessing resources – financial mainly, but also human resources, infrastructure and power – a key resource we tend to forget. This means that, generally speaking, networking is considered a means to an end. So, when one thinks about networking, one thinks about how one can work the system or work the company or work the person in order to get what one wants.

Yet, in my experience, the best networkers are people who love people, who have a passion for what they are doing and they really enjoy helping other people. They are also the people who see what you do not see in yourself – and they mirror this to you making you feel special. They are memorable people with whom you have memorable experiences. Networking for them is about building concentric circles of relationships. They have their close friends and family – and here they have deep relationships. They also have casual meaningful relationships – a practice most of us find cumbersome. They have a spider-web of people they know that they connect through various forms of their nodes, but they also maintain these different types of relationships.

However, people have different types of personalities, which contribute to the kind of relationships and consequently, the kinds of networks one develops. The book, The Tipping Point talks about three types of people who have the potential to bring about social change through their networking capability and practice. What is interesting about this organizing framework of three types of people is that it talks about three different strategies that people naturally employ. There is the connector – these are people who know people, who know people who know people who can help you. Everyone knows a connector; they have an endless list of people at the tips of their fingers and they connect people to people all the time, naturally. These are the people who you can phone about something and inevitably, they can connect you. They are also the people who can spread the word if they like something or if they think ‘the something’ has the potential to grow into something new and different. By doing this, they actually start a trend.

I spoke about Sindy and Noel, who are connectors. Sindy is young, in her 20’s and Noel is more experienced and in his 40’s. They are both very good connectors. However, Sindy has all her connections in her head and she connects mainly socially (Face book, the arts, her family, and their friends) though she integrates these connections into her work. Noel is more organized – he has a database of people, contacts and he categorises them so that he knows how to use them.

How many of us speak to strangers and form a connection? How many of us ‘make friends’ on the plane, in the supermarket? How many of us find out intimate details about people quickly, so that we can use this information to make them feel special? How many of us see the good in the person immediately? How many of us keep an up-to-date database of people whom we know and use it to help others?

Then there are the mavens – the knowledge bearers – who gather, explore and have information about things that fascinate them. They give you history, movements, advantages, disadvantages, places to go and they help you make sound decisions. Wilmot James is a person who is knowledgable about his subject, and when he talks he incites one to take up his cause. He is also a connector – he links ups his subject area internationally – so the Darwin200 series, which he will launch in 2009, is part of a whole international movement and because you know me, you now know about the series.

Finally, there are the sale people – they are people who can sell you ice in winter, the ones that can persuade you to take a course of action – for your own good. My brother-in-law Craig is such a person – he researches a topic deeply, gets to understand it and when he does, he can sell you that product in a way that makes you wonder how you lived without it. He creates a compelling argument.

What is clear about these people is that they love people, they love helping people and when they give a message, it has the stickiness factor. You remember their passion when they told you the story and you remember the message and you will, in all probability, follow their cause or course of advice.

When one thinks about networking, one should conjure the image of a net, as Rudy (who is Rudy) said, a web that catches something for a purpose. One should also think of the form of a net – connections of threads held together by nodes of strength. Power is concentrated at the nodes, the power of connection. So when you speak to a connector, you’re actually speaking to all their connections that are concentrated to that node. Thinking in this way helps one break down barriers because if you want to speak to x, you may have to speak to y and z to connect (or broker the meeting, or sell the idea or introduce a concept) you to x.

What I’ve learnt is that good connectors don’t - intentionally - go out for the money, they go out for the people and in the process they get a whole lot of resources. They think about how they are going to frame their story and when they speak to you, there is an interesting and memorable story that you can latch onto, remember and spread.

So when one is thinking about a project, one may have to send out proposals formally, but there are also a host of resources within the first sphere of influence that one can utilize. There are people around us who are connectors and if they like the idea they are bound to champion it beyond recall.

Networking symbolically expressed in form of art

After the workshop, I went to my first dog-training workshop. We got a dog for protection, but soon realized that having a dog is like having another person. We also learnt that if we do not have the skills to make him a protector, he could become aggressive (as ours did) and then become a problem rather than a possible solution to our safety. So I decided to go to dog training classes because I am not an animal person, certainly not a dog person, and I was becoming afraid of this growing dog. I went to Pinelands Primary (the blue school, as it is commonly known in that area) for my classes and what an experience I had. The entire stretch of fields was taken over by what looked like hundreds of people, trainers, trainees (me and the others), supporters (families who accompany the kids who come to puppy training) and so on. All these trainers, the tuckshop and shop people, the helpers work voluntarily because they love dogs. They run this programme every single Saturday except for the period over Christmas and New Year. You can call them anytime about a dog problem. This is a whole new network of people that I have met, who run an organized voluntary programme, and keep the school safe for the entire Saturday. They do it, they tell me, because they love dogs, they want dogs to be safe and they want animals to be treated fairly and properly (like animals and not people).

So for me networking is really a culture, a way of life, of doing whatever it takes to help other people and ourselves. It’s an organized process of gathering information about people and using it to help others. What these people teach us in dog classes are things we have learnt, but we have not taken the time to organize our knowledge and organize people around a common passion. They have also organized a culture of the way they do things and when we step into that zone, we are expected to behave in a particular way. Even though this example is a loose network of people, they are meaningful casual relationships. And from this point, I suspect that my world will open up into new avenues and offer new opportunities for resources. So, I have to be open to engaging with these new people in order to make new connections.

Not all of us are naturally connectors, or mavens or sales people. Some of the skills we can learn, but we can also make sure that we have such people in our teams. However, there are things we can do. We can create a database. We can pop an e-mail promoting someone or a project. We can make a connection for someone we don’t know. We can make people feel special. We can create memorable experiences.

The most fascinating lesson for me has been about connecting relationships and networking to projects. This angle has shown me that the project team (as Noel pointed out) is not only the people allocated with tasks and deadline; the project team should include your network of people you know – both well and casually. I have also learnt that projects are essentially about building and maintaining good relationships, which rests on good communication. One has to figure out ways of communicating to people in ways that reflect the relationship they have with the project. At the same time, one has to just communicate personal stuff as well – birthday wishes, congratulations, awards, recognition events – things that make people feel special and that motivates them to do everything it takes to make things work out well.
By Beverly Barry