So, what is networking anyway?

I outlined my thoughts on networking last month and why I feel we are off track. If you missed it, you can read it here.

Before we can analyse networking, why we do it, and how we might do it better, I believe we must first define what networking is and perhaps understand where the definition of what we know as networking has come from.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, networking is defined as:

The exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions. Specifically: the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business

The exchange of information is an important aspect I’d like to focus on first. Do your networking activities centre around exchanging information? Do the events you attend achieve this exchange? I hope they do, but considering an ‘exchange’ is important. An exchange requires a flow of information, not a one-way conversation. Information has to be both given and received. In contrast, many online marketers (especially those automating the spread of information) focus on sharing information with little consideration of how it is received (nor do they target those who have expressed interest in receiving that type of information). Our automation of the exchange of information has a lot to answer for.

Another part of this definition worth focussing on is cultivating productive relationships. Cultivation is once again a crucial part of what people miss. Cultivating anything takes time, be it relationships, soil or acquiring a new skill. You can not expect that activity or event will give you the desired results or activate the values that led you to seek out networking in the first place. It takes time, effort, and trial and error and rarely leads to results with minimal or one-time effort. Productive relationships are also an essential part of networking. A productive relationship should deliver desired results and reciprocity with another person (or group). The relationships we seek out must be done so with some form or reciprocity in mind. The words 'cultivate' and 'productive' have taken on new meanings in capitalist culture, and how we interpret what we consider productive is up to an individual. Productive rarely has a monetary value attached.

Finally, the definition of networking considers the activity beneficial for employment or business, which is true for where we most see the word used. It is mainly for professional environments. Personally, though, I believe we get so much more from networking, be it friendships, wellbeing, a sense of community and belonging. It’s a fundamental part of the human experience. Yet, network building (or community building) is what we as a species have done for centuries, long before our need to do it for professional circumstances existed.

For this project and the subsequent essays, I feel it’s also worth offering my own description of what I mean when I talk about networking.

For many people, networking is associated with the bro-culture of Silicon Valley (which designs the tools we have come to associate with networking) and the extractive mindset behind mass marketing to exploit these tools.

One of the most fascinating things I found in doing this reading was looking at the historical use of the word networking - it was first used in 1967. Consider that for a moment and wonder what we were doing before 1967. We certainly cultivated productive relationships and exchanged information. 1967 was also the year hippie culture emerged, aerobics culture began, the VCR was invented, and the year in which the following words and phrases first appeared - self-professed, ego trip and credentialism. It was a time of change and a shift in how we saw the world.

I want to reframe networking in a way that is more constructive and works at a collective level. When most people think of the word community building, something we as humans have done for a long time, it is more in tune with how I would like us to consider networking. I feel we need to get back to this and move away from the extractive activities that do not allow for information sharing and cultivating relationships.

Defining Marketing vs Networking

Tad Hargrave, of Marketing for Hippies, defines marketing in this podcast episode that I love:

“When you go to a farmers market … when you close your eyes, you can hear it, a din. It's a beautiful, delightful human din. It's an old tradition that’s been going back a long time in humanity, where communities would get together, and the market where people would gather is a place where you would say, here’s what I’ve been up to since I saw you last because you’d made things, it was all product with a bit of fortune telling going on in the corner. That was the place where people got together to share and trade. No doubt it started informally and had to become more formal as cities developed, but that sound that you hear of the market, that’s the sound of the market being itself, doing what it does. If you can imagine the market as an organism, that's the sound that it makes. The other way to say it is when a dance expresses itself, it is danc-ing, when the market expresses itself, it is market-ing. That's the sound the market makes, that’s what it sounds like, it's people getting together to share what they have come up with.

The market is a place where people get together, have conversations, and trade. That’s the market doing what it does. It’s an organism, an ecosystem where there is dependency, people getting together to share. It’s not a market if people aren’t getting together to share something."

I like to think of networking similarly, but it goes beyond the market people getting together to trade. Networks exist everywhere. They are sometimes strong and, more often, weak, but they exist underneath everything we do. Networking happens throughout conversations, at work, at home, at school, at the gym, in healthcare, and in spaces where we aren’t seeking to trade. It’s in these spaces where we need to better understand human connection and interconnectedness and use that for the purpose we seek. Modern networking environments exist as a function of marketing. They certainly contribute to the overall building of networks, so they definitely have a place in contemporary culture.

Networking is often defined as something that happens at networking events. That is true, but it is frequently pitched as the only place where it happens, which isn’t true. We are building networks all the time through daily interactions. Just because someone doesn’t have a social media presence doesn’t mean they are lacking in a network. They probably have a very strong one. So, networking is a more expansive, complete view of human interaction, not just the interactions we build through networking events and work meetings. It goes beyond the dictionary definition of networking as a function for building relationships for business and employment only.

To give you a visual for what I mean (because I love the very visceral description Tad gave for marketing), we could think of a gathering around a medieval traditional well.

Wells are one of the oldest water systems known to humankind, and water is essential to life. The well was where people came for water daily, filling their buckets to collect water for their homes. But it was where people would gather, talk, discuss social and political life, and exchange information. Conversations rarely centred around trade, but they would discuss the town, the people, the gossip and engage in conversation. They were also places of reflection and debate. The well was where people conversed and built loose ties and a culture that became common to the place where they lived. These networks were built in other places, at the market, during sporting games, but the well as a vital daily gathering place where people would continually return to.

To me, this represents what network-ing should be, not just at the market but everywhere we go. It's the network doing its thing. It exists as an undercurrent to what we do and is rarely forced. In traditional times, the activities there resemble the modern office water cooler. Culture is not built in formal workplace meetings but in regular conversation. In these types of spaces, a sense of connection and belonging is built, and conversations naturally flow. Yes, this happens in formal networking spaces, but a lot happens outside.

It is at the well, when we are in community with others, making more organic connections, rather than the market, that many find a sense of belonging.

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