sacha chua :: living an awesome life

The informal conversations you have in conference corridors in between sessions can help you learn a lot more and connect with more people than the planned sessions do. Here are some tips to help you make the most of the hallway track.

• Before the conference
  

  Prepare by looking up people’s names and faces. Make a list of people you want to meet at the conference, like the speakers you’re interested in listening to or other participants you want to chat with. Review their names so that you can recognize them when you read people’s nametags. If possible, look up people’s pictures, too, so that you can spot them in a crowd.

  Make time by managing expectations. The gaps between sessions are NOT the time to check your e-mail or join conference calls. Prepare for the conference by setting your coworkers’ expectations. You’ll get the most out of the conference – and you’ll have the most to bring back – if no one expects you to constantly check e-mail or be available for meetings. Block the time off.

  Make time by being ruthless with conference agendas. If you really don’t see any sessions you might be interested in, or if the session you’re in turns out to be a waste of time for you, leave and check the hallway track. If no one’s in the hallway, you can slip into anohter session you were interested in.

  Be easy to find. Plan to make it easy for people to find you so that they can continue interesting conversations with you or introduce you to other people they think you should meet. One of my friends wears a green blazer to conferences, so that he’s easy to find in a crowd. I wear a hat. Make it easy for people to connect.

  Plan to take notes and exchange information. Don’t waste the time you spend talking. Bring a notebook or a PDA that you can use to write quick notes. Bring business cards, too – they’re still the most reliable way to give someone your contact information as a physical reminder to follow up.

  Set up meetings with people you really want to meet. Reconnecting with old colleagues? Really want to talk to a speaker? Don’t leave it up to chance. Find out where people are and arrange to meet them.

• During the conference
  

  Give people excuses to talk to you. Make it easy for people to start a conversation with you about a topic of mutual interest. Write keywords on your nametag, or wear a second nametag with keywords on it. Going to a geek conference? Wear a T-shirt related to your project, and people will almost certainly ask you about it.

  Start the conversation. Yes, it can be scary, but the good news is that conferences give you natural conversation starters. Ask people what session they attended and what they learned from it. Ask people which sessions they’re looking forward to and why. Ask people what they’ve liked the most about the conference so far, and what would make it even better. Ask people what actions they’re planning to take based on what they’ve learned. There’s no need to stick to small talk about the weather or what people do.

  Expand the circle. If you want to open a conversation so that other people feel less awkward about joining it, don’t stand directly in front of the person you’re talking to; open things up so that you’re standing in an incomplete circle. See people hovering near the edge of your conversation? Invite them in and make them part of it. Connect the dots. Introduce people to each other, bring out shared interests, and make people feel comfortable.

  Look for homework. Make following up easier for yourself by looking for opportunities to give yourself homework. Find out how you can help the other person. Can you share your conference notes? Can you introduce them to other people? Can you help them with what they’re working on? Do you want to learn more about something they’re doing? Write that down and swap contact information. Now you have a reason for following up.

  Reinforce the connection. Unless you’re at a huge conference, you’ll probably see many of your new acquaintances a few times. Smile and wave to them. Chat with them and compare notes on the sessions people have attended. Introduce them to other people. Reinforce that connection so that following up is easier.

  Take breaks if you need them. Conferences can be overwhelming, particularly for introverts. Don’t be ashamed about taking a quiet break somewhere to recharge so that you can make the most of the rest of the day. I like taking a walk outside. I’ve sometimes napped in conference hallways so that I can be in good shape to give a presentation.

• After the conference
  

  Review your notes and do your homework. Congrats! You’ve gotten through your conference. Now do the homework you’ve promised to do and follow up with the people you promised to get in touch with.

Lucy Rosen with Claudia Gryvatz Copquin
Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press 2010
ISBN 978-1-60163-121-3

In Fast Track Networking, Lucy Rosen shares networking tips from more than two decades of organizing networking events. Many of these tips can be found in other books and blogs: wear your nametag on your right side, act as a host, and follow up. Where Fast Track Networking goes into more depth than other books I’ve read, however, is how to set up and run a networking group (also known as a mastermind group). Rosen includes step-by-step planning, sample forms, and a plan for following up.

In addition, she also provides several examples of referral sheets, which are short descriptions of how you help other people and what an ideal client looks like. I’ve come across that advice before, but printed referral sheets (as she suggests in her book) can be much more effective than the verbal descriptions I’ve seen encouraged in other books.

If you’re tired of going to yet another networking event with too many people, you may want to read this book for tips on smaller-scale, more intimate networking.

Plans: After the wedding, I’d like to experiment with one of the techniques she describes: inviting up to a dozen people out to have dinner at a restaurant. People pay for their own meals, but they come for the conversation and the potential connections. I’ve thought about doing that in the past, but I decided to host people instead because I could bring people together for more relaxed conversation (and for less money!) than we could in a restaurant or cafe. I find that I host these get-togethers infrequently, though, and perhaps alternating with eating out might be good for convenience as well as for expanding the circle of conversation.

Lifehacker had a recent post with tips on how to remember people’s names – generally useful tips, ground well-covered in networking books. There is one tip I disagree with, though. I realized I don’t often hear disagreement about it, so I thought I’d share. Here’s the tip:

DON’T ever call people by the wrong name

Hearing your name mispronounced can be annoying but forgivable, especially if lots of people find your name hard to pronounce, but hearing someone call you by the wrong name is always infuriating! Out of all facts that someone can possibly misremember about you (e.g., your job, college major, or ethnicity), getting your name wrong is the ultimate insult. It simply leaves a yucky visceral impression that the other person doesn’t give a damn about you.

I disagree with this tip because I think it creates unnecessary fear, anxiety, and expectation. I think there’s a better way to do this.

Let’s look at it from both sides.

If someone has forgotten your name, you could get mad about it… or you could just shrug it off and give the person the benefit of the doubt.  If they consistently get your name wrong, you could bear a grudge, or you could laugh about the possible crossed wires (maybe you really remind them of their great-aunt!). If they sneer while mangling your name so much it sounds like an epithet, something might be up. But in general, people are good people, and they’re not trying to insult you or say that you’re worthless.

When I talk to people, I don’t assume that I’m important to them, or that they should devote precious brainspace to remembering me. If people make an effort and get my name wrong anyway, I’ll still appreciate that. They’re human.

Let’s look at the other side. If you’ve forgotten someone’s name despite your best efforts, go ahead and ‘fess up, or try to see if you can pick it up from the conversation (or from a networking buddy). I prefer the direct confession route over the awkward-standing-around route. It gets the pain over faster, and it makes more of a human connection. I try to make up for any name shortcomings by remembering other little details about people, focusing on creating value, and connecting people with other people.

And if I thought I knew someone’s name but it turns out I was mistaken, well, it happens. I’ll try to remember. Some people’s faces get mixed up in my memory. I’m not going to beat myself up over it, and I hope other people don’t feel permanently offended. (Besides, if they did hold a grudge, that says more about them than about me…)

My only pet peeve when it comes to this, actually, are people who punish you for not knowing their name, those who make you guess or otherwise embarrass you when they detect the faintest whiff of uncertainty from you about who they are. Not cool. People who do that might “score points” in that conversation, but they lose the long-term game. (I remember writing a post about this before this other one, but I can’t find it. Ah well, probably not good to rant too much anyway… =) )

So.

Make it easier for other people to remember your name. (I usually bring my own nametag to events.) Make an effort to remember and use other people’s names, and to remember other details about them. Above all, be human, and let other people be human.

Soha wrote:

I’m a long time reader of your blog and I must say it’s pretty amazing and inspiring. I always look forward to your next post and read it over and over for tips and ideas

But there was one thing that I’m not sure if you’ve covered in the past .. It’s about keeping in touch with your networks and freinds

I’m really having a hard time with this issue.. Particularly how to stay in touch.. What do to and what to say and how often… Etc.. Is there a system that u tried that works for u? Or a schedule that You follow to keep yourself on track?

And what about freinds ?? Do u apply the same approach as with your networks or do u so something else ??

Hope I didn’t ask too many questions but any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated

I rarely e-mail or call people just to catch up. I occasionally look for experiences I can share with friends, and I host get-togethers from time to time. I like checking out people’s social networking updates from time to time, and I comment when I’ve got something to share.

I mostly reach out to people when:

• I’ve come across something that they might find useful
• I can answer one of their questions or help them out with something
• I can connect them with someone who has a question they can answer

More about the tools I use to connect

This mostly-passive networking style doesn’t fit the advice of most networking books, which focus on techniques for active networking: making lists of contacts you want to make, cultivating relationships through coffees and lunches, working those network events. It works for me, though.

Part of this might be because I let go of the need to be in close touch with specific people, and I open things up to serendipity instead. I don’t have to stress out about not being in close touch with my friends. I still feel warm and fuzzy about people even if I haven’t seen them in a year, and I hope they feel the same too.

Besides, it’s easy for people to keep in touch with me. I write about life on my blog, and I occasionally post social network updates on Twitter, which is synchronized with Facebook and LinkedIn.

Back to diffuse networks. Clouds, if you will.

There’s an oft-quoted limit to social relationships: Dunbar’s number, some 150 people in your “village”, the maximum number of people most people can keep track of, with their interrelationships and quirks. I don’t try.

I want to touch the lives of many more people than I can know, just as I learn from many more people than I can meet. People drift in and out whenever they want. I try to remember as much as I can about people, but it’s okay to re-learn and re-discover.

How do you keep in touch with people? Or perhaps, a different question: How do you cultivate serendipity?

2010-08-23 Mon 20:09

I was away for training last week, attending a 3-day learning session organized by IBM. There were around 500 IBMers there. My manager not only suggested that I go, he even gave me a lift. I resolved to make the most of it.

Packing light meant taking my work laptop, leaving my netbook, and bringing a small paper notebook along as a backup for note-taking. I like taking notes. I’d rather slow down and take notes than waste the time and the opportunity by forgetting.

In 2006, I wrote about how taking notes during conversations helps with post-event connection. What’s changed in the last four years? I now take casual notes on my iPod Touch. I’ve been thinking about getting a tablet PC for better note-taking. But for fast-flowing conversations, I still return to paper.

I’ve rediscovered drawing. My notes are punctuated by doodles: quick sketches of presenters, random objects that suggest themselves to a wandering right-brain. I like drawing. It helps me remember what a session felt like, instead of just what it contained.

I no longer bring fountain pens, as they’re all too easy to drop. Instead, I use a fine-point gel pen, which is clearer than pencils when it comes to scanning or review, and which writes more smoothly than a ballpoint pen does. I use a multi-colour ballpoint pen for review and emphasis.

My workflow has improved. While taking notes, I mark action items with a square on the left, particularly interesting topics with a star, ideas with a lightbulb, and thoughts and reflections with a thoughtcloud. This makes it easy to skim my notes for action items during review.

Instead of trying to hold the notebook open as I type thoughts in, I scan new pages at 600dpi full colour. This gives me a digital backup that I can flip through on my computer while I type my notes on a separate screen. As I type, I copy my action items into a separate section. After I finish writing my notes, I review the action items and import them into my task manager.

How can I make this even better?

I can write more neatly. This means slowing down in the beginning, but it will save me time when skimming or reading my notes. (And if I do it really well, maybe Evernote can understand my handwriting!)

I can try using a pad and then scan sheets using the automatic document feeder. Our printer/scanner’s automatic document feeder scans only one side, but I can simply do two passes. This would reduce scanning time.

I can save up for a tablet and see if that works out better for note-taking. I like being able to draw diagrams and icons while taking notes, so it would be good to experiment with a Tablet PC.

SCHEDULED: 2010-07-31 Sat 08:00

Introductions. I’m thinking about this because I feel odd when Judy Gombita (@jgombita) enthusiastically introduces me as a tech evangelist rock star, and I need to tease out where that comes from.

I recognize her introduction as a gift, and I appreciate it. Where does this reticence come from?

It’s my birthday, yay! (Happy birthday, Mom!) But I’m away at training, so the annual review + sketches will have to wait for the weekend. In the meantime, here’s something I was thinking about the other day…

I confess: I don’t go to “networking events” to meet people.

I go to eavesdrop on interesting conversations. I go to share and pick up tips and ideas. I go to practise avoiding the name/rank/serial number conversations (and in my small way, perhaps show people there is an alternative). I go to have fun connecting the dots. I go to work on remembering names and little details.

I’m not there to find a new job. I have an awesome one. I’m not there to find new friends. If the seeds of friendships are planted there, terrific. The real work happens outside the event, after all.

I’m there to learn from the conversations that people have with people other than me. It’s one of the reasons why I like having a group of friends over instead of talking to them one-on-one. Other people bring out different aspects of people that I wouldn’t see on my own.

What do I hope for? I hope that I can collapse the distance between people. I hope that I can share people and ideas and resources outside the event. I hope that a chance conversation might turn into a weak tie, and a month or several years down the road, into another connect-the-dots experience, another aha!, or another friendship.

So I seldom go to or organize networking events per se. I like going to events with a bigger purpose. DemoCamp, with its promise of interesting startups and ideas. Tea, an excuse for me to prepare treats and create a space for conversation. Conferences. IBM speed mentoring events in Second Life. (Yes, we have them, and they’re lots of fun.) Your typical stand-up-and-meet-people? Sometimes they’re the starting point of interesting conversations and reflections, like the ones I had with Neal Schaffer around sharing and with Judy Gombita about introductions. Sometimes they require lots of digging to get past the surface conversations.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve crossed some kind of tipping point, where the scale effects of the Internet tend to work more for me than the hallway conversations and chance connections of real-life events. (Are search engine results like those serendipitous encounters, except longer-lasting?) I prefer writing and commenting and tweeting over speaking over the din; we reach more people, blossom into more conversations. I could be missing out on subtleties, which is why I go to events from time to time–to see and experience and reflect. But the world stretches before us, and why limit myself to this corner when we could enable aha!s all over?

/Thanks to Dennie Theodore for blogging about large events and nudging me to think about them!/

2010-07-30 Fri 07:40