Have you ever felt your hair stand up and a gulp in your throat while approaching someone in a networking event? Do you find joining a group of people who are already socialising, agonising? Well, networking must be a nightmare for you! Co-founder and GM of Wieden+Kennedy’s PIE (Portland Incubator Experiment), an active partner of startups within the Portland area for over 20 years, and tech blogger, Rick Turoczy feels the same! Yes, and so he shares a unique networking guide meant for fellow introverts.
Face-to-face networking: Rick suggests that introverts are best at one-on-one networking. Big networking events & conferences can be quite intimidating and so a face-to-face, uninterrupted meeting with a person will put one at ease and expand the scope for a relaxed and detailed conversation.
Rick minimises the magnitude of networking by assigning it with the simple act of ‘collecting dots’. Each person you network with is a dot. You keep collecting dots over a family dinner, at the water filter, or over a simple cup of coffee. Rick explains how one cup of coffee can simply open up people and make space for quick exchanges & networking. He also points out the pressure an introvert feels to make himself/herself valuable during that short cup of coffee. According to him collecting a dot isn’t the most valuable part of networking and asks people to focus on the reflections. He says that we need not worry about making the coffee rendezvous valuable as most value is attached to when we spend time, long after our meetings, reflecting on those dots,
‘The dot gains context, it starts providing value to all other dots, stops being a single point of reference,” says Rick speaking about the importance of reflections.
When it comes to how to use these dots appropriately, Rick focusses on common sense.
‘Common sense isn’t common’ says Rick, who encourages introverts to connect the collected dots using their common sense. ‘Common sense is common to you’ he says. He emphasises that our common sense will help pursue connections of dots and build community. Your common sense will make you see why you connect one dot to another. One’s unique experience, one’s day-to-day dealings with work & people and the dots one has collected, one can see connections the other cannot and vice versa.
“Building community is artificial,” says Rick talking about how especially for introverts building community doesn’t come naturally at all. Yet, he gives examples of some artificial creations which have helped man to a great extent for eg, coffee!
He urges introverts to make the most of a simple coffee invitation which will at least help you and the other person collect a dot. He ends on a strong, confident note, ‘the reflections & connections, you’ll figure that out.I am confident.” He leaves the audience with the conviction that everyone in the audience will know someone that someone else should know and that’s how we connect the dots and build community.
So introverts, just say ‘YES” to one cup of coffee and you’ll begin this wonderful journey of collection, reflection & connection!
