This networking game is a funny business. You spend ages away from your desk meeting people for breakfast, coffee, lunch or dinner. Sometimes you think it is a complete waste of time and it is. Then occasionally you get a break and something big happens because you've met the right person and you can join forces and do something that would be impossible for both of you on your own. Most of the time however you question whether it is time well spent. That said, when occasionally Legal-Island does an event which doesn't meet our own very high standards it's usually because we haven't done the networking earlier to supply it with the best resources possible.
Tonight I'm out networking at some dinner or other at Stormont. I'll no doubt see many of the same faces I see when I go to the IOD dinner or the Chamber of Commerce NI lunch and have much the same conversations too. Some of my best networking recently has been in an environment in which you can't speak that much at all and certainly don't have to dress up for : Antrim Pool. For example, this morning in the lane on my right was a guy who owns a company that has recently pitched for some work from Legal-Island. On my left was the HR director of a large employer who often comes to our events.
A friend told me that some of the best networking he ever did was at the meetings of the Antrim Fox Hunt fraternity. I wonder if, a bit like with golf, this ex hunt saboteur could apply for non playing membership?
Maybe they'd smell a rat ......or should that be the aniseed rag in my trouser pockets?
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