Networking the New-Fashioned Way
Flip on your TV. You’ve got over 300 channels at your disposal. Whether there’s anything worth watching is a matter of debate. If the TV doesn’t do it for you, you have your desktop, laptop and cell phone charged and ready for action. The fun is just beginning, because you can bet that whatever your mood or your need, there’s an app just waiting for you. That’s life in the twenty-first century.
When it comes to solving an old-fashioned problem like expanding your network of valuable contacts, why should you let all this perfectly good, new-fashioned technology go to waste? You shouldn’t. After all, isn’t the point of new technology to make our lives easier? There are many who believe that with social media, blogs and twitter you can build an army of dedicated followers without ever getting off the couch.
It’s not always that simple though. Generally speaking, relationships formed in person tend to be stronger. The problem is that you don’t always have the ability to meet everyone you want face-to-face. It’s a little difficult to sit down for lunch when you’re in New York and the person you want to meet with calls San Francisco home. That’s where modern technology comes into its own.
A great use of this technology is teleconferencing. You can get most of the benefits of direct face-to-face contact. You can see and respond to the other person in real time. You can read body language and visual cues just like a real conversation, all without having to book a cross-country flight. There are quite a few powerful apps to make this technology work for you, including well known favorites like Cisco’s WebEx, Microsoft’s Skype and newer entries to the market like Join.me or Zoom.
You can use technology to set up personal meetings. For example, many well-known bloggers will advertise the fact that they’re going to attend a certain festival or conference, allowing their followers the chance to interact with them in person.
Virtual meetings are another area where technology meets good old-fashioned elbow rubbing. In the old days, many industries only had one conference a year, usually in a distant city. It meant that if you wanted to attend, you’d have to be prepared to travel and heaven help you if you didn’t book everything in advance. These days many of those conferences have been replaced by virtual meetings. You can meet and interact with your peers, ask questions, form relationships and share your own knowledge, all from the comfort of your living room. Travel agencies may not appreciate the new technology, but you’re sure to.
The most important thing when trying to network in the 21st century is to always remember that you’re still dealing with people. The old rules still apply in many cases. You’ll still want to be respectful of the person you’re talking to. You’ll still want to follow up with them and thank them for taking the time to talk to you. New technology doesn’t truly replace old-fashioned networking. It just enhances your ability to get it done.