Friday, May 10, 2013

Networking like hell

684 Facebook friends, 480 links on LinkedIn, colleagues, ex-colleagues, business relations, sport buddies, classmates from primary-, high school and University, travel companions, festival friends, …, etc, etc. How to keep up with everybody's lives? Pffoehhh 

A possible definition of networking is to establish and maintain contacts who can help you in your job, your career and your personal life. In Dutch Networking can be explained as 'Just working', which sometimes is very true. When you are lucky some connections overlap: friendship started at primary school, you went together to high school and even to same uni or you go to the gym with a colleague. But in other cases you met somebody in a specific setting, but lost regular contact due to change of situation. Like with ex-colleagues. being in different environment it is difficult to stay in touch, although there was a great vibe when seeing each other on a daily basis. What to do? Forcing yourself (and the other) to keep up, put a hold on it?

Some people advice to choose with whom to stay in touch and shorten your list of T.M.V.I.C.'s (To Me Very Important Connection). Otherwise it will drive you crazy. I do support the last part. For me staying in touch with everybody can be a pitfall; I can feel guilty when I haven't responded to emails or phone calls at all or even not on a short notice, when I forgot about a birthday…  Thanks to the world wide web, you can track and trace people, Facebook and LinkedIn give updates on peoples lives and steps. 

Trust in people's positive intention and I don't think you have to choose nor you have to feel guilty. No matter where and when was the last time you had contact, you always can get in touch (again). In the end you will see that networking is closer to heaven than to hell with all the energy it can give you!