This week I’m spending some drive time thinking about how we might improve networking at SQLSaturday and that led to me thinking about the general state of networking within PASS. Some early thoughts on networking in general:

• It’s not enough to put people in a room and say “network”
• It’s not enough to put like minded people in a closed environment for a day either
• Extroverts will generally do better at meeting people than introverts, but even the extroverts will tend to focus on learning (good) and interacting with people they know more than people they don’t know
• Networking is a good thing, with the understanding that time invested in networking is a gamble – you never know if or how it will benefit you or the other person
• Few people carry business cards
• Networking should be optional, but lightly encouraged and facilitated
• Many people are nervous about networking (and just saying hello)
• Almost everyone in our business is capable of good conversation and/or small talk
• It’s interesting to meet “famous” people in the industry
• Small conversations can sometimes shape you in large ways
• Traditions help, events help
• LinkedIn is (to me) the most reasonable way to track/catalog your professional network
• Networking skills can be taught fairly easily but require practice
• Events/dinners/etc have to be designed with networking in mind
• Especially for an introvert (me) knowing people makes an event more fun, more relaxing
• Introverts require quiet time to recharge
• We don’t talk enough about the smaller benefits of networking
• Its easy to stay in the comfort zone of talking to people we already know
• As a speaker, it’s common to watch people sit apart if they don’t know anyone and to watch everyone “face front” as if to avoid possibly interacting with someone next to them

I don’t have any big ideas yet. In Part 2 I’ll talk about my networking education and goals, and the history of the networking page.