Light Cue 23

Networking and social media are the buzzwords of the day. It seems like even people with full time jobs as someone else’s employee are jumping on the bandwagon. It’s a marketing bubble, the hysteria has reached the masses and soon the bubble will burst.

Why will the bubble burst?

Because no one likes a marketer. No one enjoys having their dinner interrupted by someone calling to chat about the newest deal they can get on a credit card they don’t need. And if you don’t enjoy a phone call, why would you enjoy reading about someone’s newest venture when all you really want to do is catch up on the latest baby pictures your cousin just posted? You don’t. It’s that simple. No one does. Well, perhaps the marketers themselves but even many of the social media avant garde have called it enough. Twitter autobots are being mass unfollowed after being purged by the service itself. Because even the marketers don’t like the marketers. Soon all twitter will be is a series of robots marketing the latest book to each other on how to gain more twitter followers.

But I digress.

What I wanted to talk about here was networking. This is one of those words that used to make me cringe whenever I heard it because I had seen so many bad examples. I never “got it” and always thought there was some trick which I kept missing. I would hear people say “so and so is a good networker” or “you have to be good at networking to make it.” I always thought it was some specific set of tasks and actions that one had to do. All around me I saw example after example of “networkers” who literally turned my stomach. From the man who couldn’t be bothered to look at you if you were not “someone,” to the young woman who would quite literally turn away from you mid-sentence when someone more important came along, I found these “networkers” sickening.

And they were. They were playing the game. And the game works for some people. These people may well make far more money than I do. Obviously to the “important people” a lot of this behavior goes unnoticed as they receive only the funny, seemingly gracious, behavior. But I do believe it has an impact. The radical inauthenticity in this kind of behavior will eventually catch up with the people engaging in it. What good is money if you suddenly wake up at the age of 65 and realize your entire life has been a hollow lie? A deathbed conversion won’t do much to make up for a life ill spent.

So, while this particular brand of networking might fail in the short term and certainly fails in the long term, why does everyone recommend networking? Because the successful ones don’t “Network.” Successful networking is not about saying the right thing. It is not about telling people about the right projects you are working on. It is not even about talking to the right people.

Networking is about Authenticity. Networking is about utilizing one’s network to get work. The efficacy of that ability lies directly in the strength of the individual connections within the network. These individual connections are nothing more, nor less, than simple human relationships. Being false and inauthentic might gain you points with other false and inauthentic people, so if what you want is a group of friends, none of whom are real or expressing their true thoughts, feelings, and opinions, than you should continue networking in a forced and inauthentic manner. If what you want out of life is a robust group of friends and colleagues with whom you share strong personal connections, you should strive for authenticity.

The goal in life is not a goal at all. Life is about the journey, about living. There is no pinnacle of success. Human growth and self-development can always continue. We can always improve ourselves.

Along with authentic action, or right action as some refer to it, our next best tools are humor and good will. This is not, in any way, a matter of forced smiles. This is about being light and playful. Humor means not letting the work become so heavy that there is nothing beyond the weight of it. And humor goes far. It teaches others that we are not merely work machines, but real human beings with a rich emotional life. In the world of social networking, on-line or off, that real humanity is what sells, not some prescribed notion of being business-like.

So too does good will go far. If one is only around networking events, parties, facebook and so forth in order to sell, you quickly become a tele-marketer, that person that no one likes. If, however, you are not only asking for the occasional gig, or promoting your work, but more often providing value, helping people with problems and otherwise putting yourself out there as a source of use and value, the work will come to you. We are not playing “the game,” we are interacting with our fellow human beings.

For all the newsletters, facebook mentions, portfolio updates, blog posts and so on that I send out, every project I have ever worked on, with one notable exception came through a friend of mine who I was not mining for work. The people I help out, who I am friendly and authentic towards, are the ones that hire me or recommend me to someone new. Everything about networking that sickened me never got me work. Everything about spending time with interesting people, being authentic, funny and inquisitive, has not only brought me work, but brought me repeated work as well as new clients and collaborators.

The lessons of networking are like the lesson at the end of War Games, “The only way to win is not to play.” We need to throw out the rules and guidelines, if not the whole game, and simply be our authentic selves. Through authentic right action our network will provide us with the opportunities that we desire.