Imagine this; you have seen a networking event that piques your interest. Perhaps it was the event topic that drew you in, the venue that you are familiar with, or someone who has invited you along. You sign up for the event, feeling both curious and excited for what’s in store. Maybe this event will lead you to your dream job, the client you’ve dreamed of working with, or the mentor you need to steer you in the right direction. You arrive feeling nervous but hopeful. As the evening unfolds, your expectations aren’t met. There is no friendly face to greet you, the room is too big, the conversations feel forced, or you’ve found yourself at an event purely designed to meet someone else’s agenda. You feel deflated, disheartened, or perhaps even a little bit used.

Does this experience sound familiar? Has an event like this left its mark on you? If the answer is yes, you’re not alone.

For many people networking is a dirty word, one to shy away from, inciting fear and anxiety. In my experience I see three types of people. Type 1 is a person who loves networking. They mostly do it well but sometimes, due to their social or career culture, people in this category can spend more time alienating others. Type 2 are those who run a mile from anything to do with the word, be it due to past experience, neurodiversity, anxiety, or lack of understanding. Type 3 sits somewhere between these two, myself included.

The book Social Chemistry by Marissa King backs this up. It highlights a study of professionals that categorised people’s views on networking into 35% devoted players, 46% selective players, and 19% as sceptics (at best). That’s only one-third of people showing a strong commitment to what I consider an essential human practice. Even in professional circles where networking is considered vital to career survival, an odd sense of unease still exists.

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What’s your relationship with the word networking? Do you love it or loathe it?

Personally, I have a weird relationship with the word “networking.” I appreciate the importance of networking but loathe what it has come to represent. Even when naming this new project, which I have been working on for the past 6 months, I didn’t want to use the word in the title because of the behaviours people associate with it. But using it is precisely the point. We need a radical reframing of what we’ve come to know as ‘networking’. I want to reframe networking in a more positive way.

Before we can re-imagine it, I believe we need to ask ourselves: why do we network? It's an activity many people participate in either by choice or necessity. So what are the systems at play that drive our desire, or at least pressure, to network? The pressure can be real or imagined. What I mean by imagined is this - when graduating or starting a business, the standard advice is ‘you must go to networking events.’ It's considered essential to meet peers, prospective clients or suppliers, and potential employers when building a business or career. The obvious system that drives this thought is capitalism. Financial growth, capital gain and the generation of wealth and clients are important for business viability, no matter what your thoughts are on capitalism. But what’s also at play behind this pressure is individualism.

Individualism is defined as a social theory advocating the independent action of the individual. We see this in some modern networking environments where it is sometimes each individual for themselves. Going deeper, rugged individualism is defined as “The belief that all individuals, or nearly all individuals, can succeed on their own and that government help for people should be minimal.” I question though whether this is really at play - perhaps it's why we show up, but not why networking inherently often works. Isn’t our success in life, business and our careers dependent on others? Isn’t this dependence actually why networking can work? Where we receive input from other people, and that leads to the outcome we were looking for? So perhaps individualism leads to the pressure to network but is not necessarily the reason for a successful outcome.

But our draw to network is not just about systems— it's also about values. What are the underlying values that influence our behaviour when it comes to networking? A recent conversation with Tara McMullin and a quick values exercise (using these ValuesJam cards) led me to this theory. Whilst there is a range of values behind why we network, I believe these can very loosely be grouped into four groups.

1. Security - financial gain, business growth, efficiency: networking is one of the fastest and most proven ways to generate new business.
2. Relationships - those seeking belonging. Business can be a lonely space, especially with the rise of freelancing and solopreneurship. If you’re in business, then meeting new people can build a sense of belonging with other business owners faster than joining or participating in other clubs or interest activities.
3. Legacy- those seeking to share wisdom and build a legacy to some degree. These people have a sense of responsibility with their career or specialist experience and wish to positively impact others through conversations and informal mentoring.
4. Learning - people looking to learn and seek out collaborative activities, receive mentoring and tap into the knowledge of those with experience.

We associate networking largely with 1, but I believe 3 and 4 are a bigger part of why we network, much more than we realise. Perhaps if we considered more of these values among the goals of those who are participating, we could start to reshape the experience of networking. What are your thoughts on this? I will be doing some more research on this subject and have started a short survey to enable people to offer their own opinions on why we network.

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Community building vs networking

On many social media profiles, I've seen people proclaim to be a ‘community builder.’ It invokes warmer feelings of associated activities such as collaboration, compassion, and belonging compared with the colder feelings of the word ‘networking.’ Personal branding has a lot to answer for this, and there appears to be much more affinity towards the skill of community building vs the skill of networking. But doesn’t quality community building involve a lot of networking, and doesn’t networking done well lead to community building? Are there different values at play where we associate ourselves with one or the other? (This is an example of the questions that keep me awake at night.)

For me, this disconnect presents a problem. While community building is inherently a part of our survival, it is inconvenient and messy, and it is a big shift away from the convenience we build into our technology and daily lives. On the other hand, networking is sold to us as convenient and something that can be automated. But despite being harder than what we are led to believe, network building is necessary work. The effects of social capital have a range of benefits not just for our relationships but also for our physical and mental health and the strength of the communities in which we spend time. No single one of us can face the human challenges we face alone.

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Reimagining Networking

I am embarking on this brave new project through the lens of where we find ourselves as a species in 2024. We have a climate in a state of collapse, many ongoing conflicts globally, increasingly angry discourse online, and where almost every aspect of our life as we know it is threatened by AI. None of this makes me comfortable. But if there is something I know, it's that humans are resourceful, especially when it comes to building ties, networks, and communities. But we need a better understanding of network building and a commitment to embrace the awkwardness.

This is the crux of why I want to begin weaving a new approach to networking. How we build networks and our understanding of doing so must fundamentally change. Social media has much to answer for this, but the stories we tell ourselves about online network building also need to be radically reassessed.

The internet is awash with people trying to sell you the secret formula to connect with others. Take, for example, LinkedIn, a playground I am familiar with. An online space where I built a global #linkedinlocal host community, felt a deep sense of connection, and where I have run my business for the past 7 years. It's become plagued with cold and impersonal approaches. It's awash with services and browser plugins to help you automate connection requests and DMs, promising leads and a huge saving of your time to help you get back to working on your business. This behaviour is heavily influenced by the male-dominated bro culture of Silicon Valley (more on that in a future essay). The motivation behind this behaviour is purely individualistic, solely focused on generating leads. There is no desire for reciprocity or a relationship.

When I receive these types of messages, I mostly choose to delete them, but I sigh each time. Sometimes, I ask what specifically about my profile prompted them to reach out—a question that has yet to receive a meaningful response. Why do people believe automated messaging is helpful for their careers and businesses? Sure, I’ve no doubt there are some short-term wins, but in the long run, how many people will feel seen and heard and actually want to build a relationship with a robot?

Relationships are hard, and human interaction is hard. We aren’t machines. 2023 brought me to another stop sign. After the hype of the last 12 months, AI is already vastly writing much of what we read and see on the internet. Many of the images that now appear online have been AI-generated or enhanced. I’m not entirely anti-AI, and I admit the growing list of tools can improve our lives to some extent. But when it comes to relationship building, I can’t aspire to interactions and content that lack the human element. I often wonder, what happens when the internet is flooded with 80-90% AI content? I came to social media for a simple reason: it connected me to other humans. When the human element ceases to exist in our online worlds, I know I will divert my attention elsewhere.

Almost everything about the online world of networking feels extractive. But setting fire to our social media platforms isn’t a resolution for this. In her book How To Do Nothing, Jenny O'Dell highlights that many people don’t have the choice to delete their social media profiles and get on with their lives. Social media helps many people meet the needs of our modern world, be it work, seeking help, finding a sense of belonging, or entertainment. We do, however, need to be mindful of the time we spend there. We believed that social media would connect us with the world, but what we didn’t sign up for was literally anyone in the world having the ability to message us.

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So why me?

Who am I to be the one to question our practices and approach to networking? I am by no means an expert on how to network. I find it mostly awkward and rarely get it right. Despite being a LinkedIn™ trainer for almost 14 years now (7 years in the recruitment industry, 7 years in B2B), I often question my own ability to network, especially in the current online social landscape.

But what I do know is that in 2017, when I put up a post on LinkedIn asking if my local connections would like to meet in person, there was a flurry of interest. Not just locally but from all over the world. If you don’t know the story, the recap is that this happy little hashtag #linkedinlocal sparked a global movement that spread to over 1000 cities in 96 countries in less than two years. What I witnessed at the time was a group of people socialised towards online networking who had an insatiable desire to meet human beings again, offline and in a pitch-free environment away from the shiny polished LinkedIn profiles. This was pre-pandemic, and this growing human need played out on newsfeeds and in cities and towns across the globe.

Then, in 2020, we all went Zoom crazy. We dusted off our webcams, dressed smartly from the waist up, and smiled awkwardly into our webcams. But there were only so many hours we could stare down the barrel before zoning out. In the following 1-2 years (for many, it was more), we partially lost the ability to have chance encounters, meandering conversations, and embrace the playfulness of human interaction. Witnessing the demand prior to 2020, I can only begin to imagine how the demand for real offline connection has been festering since then and what the long-term hangover effects will be. The appetite for real human connection existed long before the pandemic, and its long-term effects are real and emotional. But online connection is still necessary and can be just as meaningful.

No one is immune from feelings of loneliness. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), one in four older people experience social isolation, and the rates are broadly similar in all regions. They highlight that “high rates of social isolation and loneliness worldwide have serious consequences for health and well-being.” We have some big shifts to make, and modern network building won’t solve this. It will only isolate people further. Mental health is something very close to my heart, having studied psychology and being the host of the podcast Managing Minds about mental health in the workplace.

In 2023 I also studied Sustainability for Marketing through the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability for Leadership. My key takeaway from this course was that we do not have all the answers, which is a new and fresh idea for most marketers. Rather than selling a formula, its approach was to inspire new thinking and stories on sustainability. Marketing is a big part of how we got into overconsumption and many of our sustainability challenges, so marketing really needs to play a role in getting us out of this mess. This is partly what I plan to do with this new project - offer fresh thinking and perspectives to the predicament we as humans find ourselves in.

There is also something else to consider here; none of the language of modern networking acknowledges or is even designed for neurodiversity. The internet and social media do aid community building for those who feel unable to seek it in person, but given how we perceive and talk about networking, I can’t imagine many neurodiverse individuals thinking fondly of anything involved in what we perceive as networking.

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An invitation

This newsletter is for people who don’t necessarily like what networking has come to represent or their experience with it. It is for those who want to unpack the social systems and constructs in place in networking environments.

I want to go deep into what’s behind social movements like #linkedinlocal and many more, how this underlying desire for human connection is boiling and how we can harness it as a collective to bring about change. I’ve always had a deep interest in this area (perhaps bordering on an obsession to understand deep human connection better).

The ideas I will explore come from observation, experience, feedback and some outlier thinking - such as sustainability, permaculture principles, non-coercive marketing, community engagement strategies, indigenous thinking, neurodiverse support structures, and psychology. I want to explore the intersection of these and see how they can reimagine practices that build connection and belonging.

I am not going to provide people with scripts on what to say, DM sales strategies, or a formula for collecting online connections. Some of these things are partly responsible for where we find ourselves. Instead, I will explore and outline the foundations for what we need to consider for future network building. It's about shifting away from scale to embracing awkwardness, developing empathy and understanding the importance of discourse. There will likely be some deep inner work on my part - and perhaps for us all, some unlearning to do.

I hope this new manifesto's emerging foundations will form a mosaic of ideas for readers. Its elements will come from different communities, generations, cultures, neurodiversity, and industries (those who use online networks and those who don’t). I am seeking to integrate new and perhaps some old ideas into this upcoming project. It's about rewriting the stories we tell ourselves, understanding the systems that got us to where we are, and how we might untangle some of the mess. These won’t just be my ideas, but others too, and as a reader, I’d love to hear your thoughts here (or just hit reply anytime).

So that’s really the crux of what this launch is all about. As we face an increasingly unknown and unsustainable future, I truly believe that we will need one another and that human relationships with a sense of belonging are critical to our survival. The importance of local communities is central to this. So is positive storytelling and the narrative we tell ourselves.

You can subscribe below for future essays (and thanks for making it this far).

🌟 Networking: A New Manifesto 🌟

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