How I do the Connecting Thing

Jay Baer let the cat out of the bag, so I might as well confess - I am a connector, and a life time one, too. Someone said on Twitter today that she wished people understood that the loudest ones are not necessarily those who are making stuff happen (I'm paraphrasing here). Many collect people, I learn about them - what they're looking for, what they're passionate about.

From strangers to friends on trains (part of being Italian and trains never arriving on time), to discovering amazing talent among people in a room crowded with voices intent on networking. I don't have a very sophisticated method, I'm afraid. No big spreadsheets or ultra-tech tools, although the human brain is probably the most sophisticated of all systems.

I just choose to observe, find out, and remember. Because I know a time will come when I'll be able to connect a dear friend with a resource, a business with a partner, an acquaintance with a job opportunity.

What do I get out of it? Why do we need to get something beyond the being helpful part out of it?

Connections is one of the topics here at Conversation Agent. I met Jason Falls when he noticed my first post on connection Katas. I still remember his comment about it.

Being that we're enamored with data, I can tell you that quantity and quality of connections both matter. There is a tipping point when you begin to know fairly well a good number of people and you can help exponentially.

I started making introductions to people early in life and my network has grown organically as a result - on two sides of the pond. Community can also form from the connections made between smaller networks.

During the years when I was facilitating online conversations at Fast Company and organizing live events - yes, 98 free live events, way too many to compete with anyone doing them today - content was the determining factor for inviting the right people to the conversation. Like any good Italian meal is an excuse to be social, right?

You want to have a mix of professionals in organizations, consultants, and service providers/agencies at events. And you don't want especially to be preaching to the choir. There needs to be a nice mix to make things interesting for everyone.

One of the weaknesses of professional associations is that often there are many more providers  than buyers at events, for example. Our community/network cut across professions, industries, and organization type. And it grew organically over time.

You can turn the dial with content and change results.

The other great thing is that because we had series of events, we had a great deal of diversity among attendees within the same community. We played with Legos, worked on the digital strategy for a museum and tested restaurant technology, we brainstormed with CEOs, and went shopping for the right internal communications strategies.

I summarized some of it here, the rest is what you learn with me in posts and through the connections we make now. It was never about me, it still isn't. It's about exchanging ideas and meeting people. In some cases, it's about giving the stage to anyone who decides they want to connect.

Give it time. It may not work today, but I will remember tomorrow, and the day after. I don't believe we lost the ability to pay attention to what's important - and you are important.To make the right connection, where the is a fit, takes time. But when you do, you fly, you're in "flow".

Yes, I do the welcome bit - an email on your first comment and whenever we have something to say to each other, email is the new offline. I do the the facilitation, answer questions - this post was the result of a question - the connecting - usually most of it behind the scenes - and thank often, in many languages. 

Finally, as I wrote to Jay the other day, I think it ironic that my posts show such a low comment count, because they are shared and discussed in many places - I wish TypePad had thought of innovating in the direction of aggregation vs. its own sign up system.

Steve Rubel says blogging may be dead - not by a long shot. It's "and/and", rarely, "either/or". I'm with the getting to know you movement, and for that you need to actually be impressionable and have enough content to invite discovery - in one place.

As for the impressions I make, I know it takes time to notice someone else. I'm in no hurry. I'm in it for the long haul.

What about you? How do you make real connections?

[image of world's tallest Lego Tower]

Comments

[Rick Simmons]

I find too many relying on the Twitter and email for what they call connections when many will still not do business with you until they see you face to face so yes connections - critically important and it allows us to expand where they are but we must not forget the physical needs as well.

[Bruce Christensen]

In a life full of many personal interests and business ventures, I find my connections need to be focused on just a few.

Working hard to make a few strong connections through focused attention, should build stronger relationships in the long-run.

When the need presents itself, the few strong relationships you have built can be relied on to assist in connecting with other important people.

My connections and your connections can be linked for the greater good of all.

[Joseph S Lima]

Great post as usual. I think there is a difference between "real connections" and "casual friending". Real connections are those that have been built over time, experiences shared, help exchanged. Casual friending is so commonplace today. Of course, casual friending can lead to a real connection but not on day one.

I enjoy helping others solve their problems or to help them make a new networking connection. But I will do and give far more to my friends.

thanks,

[Stuart Foster]

Go up. Introduce oneself and start a conversation. In PERSON mind you.

That's how I think you start a real connection. Anything else is just secondary.

[Kathryn]

I'm all about connections.

In a post recently I described my dream job as a matchmaker of sorts just one who has no specific intent other than to connect others with who I think they may someday benefit from knowing.

Good connections are made by paying attention. By good I mean real.

I've recently made some great connection and am very proud of it. I don't discount my connections made online. I've made some amazing ones.

Thanks for your writing. I appreciate and learn from it everyday.

[Elisha Kasinskas]

Perfect! I knew I liked your posts for a reason- we share a mindset. Glad I discovered you recently. I heard about a concept that said you can't have relationships with more than ~100 people at a time. For me it's always been quality, not quantity, being able to personally vouch for a person in my network, and helping others. You only get one chance at building a reputation, why risk ruining it by being less than genuine?

[Peter]

I have faith in a group of behaviors that revolve around connectivity:

* make connections
* seek diversity
* be generous of spirit
* be mindful ( aware without judgement)

These behaviors conspire (in a good way) to deliver a present that I could never have planned, let alone executed.

Its not a unique pattern of behavior (as seen from your post and the comments). What I find hard though is how to make my mind the servant of my behavior and not the other way round.

It comes back to faith and fidelity of behavior. Just because you can't measure it ( in comments etc) doesn't mean it isn't having a profound impact. Most of the time we change the world with out know it and do a great disservice to the future when we stop because we can't see the results.

Lovely post.

Peter

maintaining faith in behavior when the mind can't understand why

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Rick - you probably noticed how my examples were about meeting in person. However, there is a place in the mix for meeting online, and then finding an opportunity to do a tweet up. I think that many Web 20 conferences are probably also an excuse to meet folks off line.

@Bruce - it's situational and based upon shared experiences, too. For instance, I take the time to meet a few people well in one period when we find synergies and are working on similar projects, then we stay in touch and go on to meet others, etc. It's along a continuum.

@Joseph - welcome to the conversation. First time commenting, I think. Would it be fair to say that we tier our attention depending on the level of involvement?

@Stuart - we never really got to talk beyond the introduction part :)

@Kathryn - thank you for the kind words. Glad to be of service. Also, I think we decide what's real...

@Elisha - We move through life meeting people and if you think about it, the 100 you knew in high school have moved on (largely) when you met 100 more in college, etc. So there is room for many connections throughout life.
The quantity takes care of itself when you have quality.

@Peter - good hearing from you. The dissonance comes in a world that measures results by quantity and immediacy. I call it short termitis (borrowed somewhere). I know what makes a difference, you know it, the rest needs to believe it only when they "see (read quantify) it". Faith has a lot to do with it. Behavior in that we project and visualize and then make that happen.

[Nate Holland]

Connections, though are great if you have a good number of them, will forever remain JUST connections if you don't make a move to go ahead and talk to them, make conversation. Quality over quantity is an important thing people should learn and do. It's good to hear that you're putting your social networks accounts to good use.

[Sande]

Love the post - I'm a connector too, and I deeply appreciate hearing someone articulate the value - personal & business - of being such a person. A question - you mention that your articles are highly re-blogged, shared, passed around, yet it sounds like it's hard to keep track of this - could you say more about this? And are there alternatives? How else could you track this? I think it's a great point. Thank you!

Sande

[Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach]

I would be a connector if I wasn't so shy IRL. I've learned in the past that many people value learning about others who resonate with their ideals, so I'm forcing myself out of my comfort zone. So far, so good....

[CASUDI]

Connections: Like you I have been building bridges between people (making connections) since I was quite young. I have several networks and have a great deal of fun cross pollinating, often with great success. I have found email a great tool for taking care of preliminaries prior to a face-to-face meetings and for nurturing a relationship after. I have many long tern relationships, often started in the most unlikely of places, like trains :-) or marinas or department stores and just because I was interested in what people were doing or saying. Now fast forward to twitter where I have been a very minor player for over 7 months. I am curious how many of my Social networking connections will ever have the depth and scope of the relationships I made prior to social networking? Three people I know in Real Life joined twitter when I did, two more flitted in and out. Your willingness to connect and facilitate real connections for me and others, whom you have never met face-to-face is amazing and from my current point of view this is mostly the exception to the rule. However, In a couple of weeks I will be meeting @damoc for the first time . I met him on twitter where he was tweeting environmental information from Beijing and much later found out he spent time on an Island 20 minutes by Ferry from me, and was doing business with a former client (pronged into one of my existing networks !) This is the type of real life coincidence that has happened many times and it certainly elevates my first impressions of building in depth relationships via twitter.

Comments: This was a real bone of contention when I stared blogging. I was told comments on a post are an important currency. Just like followers people were letting me know how many comments they had by 9PM :-) And, of course I had almost no comments posted however clients, former clients (and those I hope will be ) future clients and friends emailed and called. My audience just does not like to post comments in a public place! This certainly must be true of many who read your posts and take so much from them. I only post very occasionally though I could far more frequently, time permitting. Your posts inspire, yes inspire many discussions between myself and my design partner James. You get a lot of people thinking about a lot of things. Unfortunately a large amount of the "comment" currency is hidden and cant be counted, but trust me it is there!

This was a great post. I had to comment Caroline Di Diego (CASUDI)

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Nate - There's an important part I did not get into in the post. And that is I never ask for myself. Rather, I ask on behalf of others, to benefit them. This is important especially in this day and age as too many have just their own self interest at heart or in mind.

@Sande - There is an alternative commenting system that will aggregate tweets, Facebook, and FriendFeed comments. It's called Disqus and can be integrated on the premium or higher level TypePad. Pity that TypePad is choosing to ignore this trend and not innovate the tool.

@Barbara - maybe you find it easier to connect online? My friend Mack Collier is an introvert and he says online is easier to manage for him.

@Caroline - thank you so much for the amazing comment. I love your story about connecting on Twitter and finding out that there is an off line relation to it. You would not have known or paid attention had you not met casually. These days I spend less time on trains and walking around town as I did in Italy, so tools like Twitter may help set the stage to meet people casually who I might find affinity with. As for the comments, notice how those folks who speak to their importance often have many :) Part of it is a self fulfilling prophecy, if it matters to you, then you find a way to attract them writing simpler posts, or controversial material, or driving people to the post. The flip side of having comments is having too many and not being able to keep up with meeting people and responding.

[Zoe]

It's wonderful to see that you advocate patience -- it's a rare reminder in this space that so values "real-time"!

I'm trying not to think of my friends as "real-life" vs. online, because the language seems to devalue online relationships. Like our various friendships offline, different online relations fill different needs/purposes. Sometimes I feel that someone who reads my blog "gets me" in a certain way that perhaps a friend of 10 years does not -- it allows us to engage different facets of our selves.

Thanks for provoking new thoughts, as always!

[IncreaseSalesCoach]

Excellent thought provoking post. It reminded me of the importance of 5 key connections required for sales:
* The personal one-to-one connections
* the personal connections you facilitate between one-to-another
* The referral connections to people, products, and services
* The reinforcing connections that demonstrate your commitment to the relationship
* The connections you make between the potential buyer and the outcomes they want

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Zoe - life eventually teaches the patience lesson to all of us. I'm a good student. If you observe nature, as I described in my conversation with Colleen, you don't see things grow until they've grown and you don't saw any seeds by watering more instead of planting. In some ways, modern marketing has become like watering without putting down any seeds. No seeds, no yield. Simple.

@Cheryl - nice to meet you and thank you for visiting and adding some of your earned wisdom. Selling is a skill and an important one at that.