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Links to JEF Speech

Here is a summary of the speech given over the weekend to the JEF Convention 2007. To access the speech, check the following links:

For Audio: http://fwconsulting.podomatic.com/

For the Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/fwade/networking-strategies-for-the-csme-professional

Here is the press release:

New ways to network for Caribbean Managers

Kingston, Jamaica, May 5, 2007: Attendees at the JEF Convention 2007 in Ocho Rios on May 5th, 2007 were challenged to upgrade their networking skills to keep pace with the threats and opportunities of CSME. The speech they attended at the conference was entitled “Networking Strategies for the new Breed of Caribbean Managers.”

The workshop was lead by Francis Wade, a Jamaican consultant and President of Framework Consulting In., headquartered in Hollywood Florida, USA. Mr. Wade, the founder of the 14 year-old firm, has been working with companies in Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica to address business issues that have a particularly difficult people dimension. During that time he has had to develop some innovative techniques for networking that “violate accepted wisdom.”

In his speech, Mr. Wade noted that the old ways of networking – on the golf course and on the cocktail circuit – were only suited for a small subset of professionals. He said “business-people who force themselves to attend these kinds of events give networking a bad name.”

Instead, he advocated an authentic approach that anyone can follow, building on real commitments, rather than manufactured interests. He gave the following 10 tips:

1) Be Brave: Don’t follow the crowd, and allow yourself to be distinctly different from everyone else

2) Know What You Are Passionate About: Pursue whatever area of interest you have, and become an expert in that, rather than following areas that are popular, “logical” or even areas in which you have current skills but no real interest

3) Drop the Miami mind: Think of yourself as a Caribbean professional rather than having half your mind in the USA, Canada or England

4) Reach Out From Your Interests: Take the areas you are passionate about, and find others in the Caribbean who share them

5) Ignore Distractions: If someone tells you what you “should” be doing to network, and it doesn’t fit your natural interests, ignore them! Also, if the actions you take feel forced or contrived, stop them.

6) Embrace Internet Technology: If you have a distrust of new technology or the internet, overcome it, knowing that your future as a professional is inextricably tied to how you are presented in cyberspace

7) Google Yourself: Use a Google search to see what is already being said about you on the internet. Make this your baseline

8) Design an Online Self-Portrait: Define the online “portrait” of your accomplishments, skills and interests that you would like people to see on the internet

9) Actively Participate: Join in and contribute to online discussions related to your areas of interest especially if they are Caribbean based. If they don’t exist today, create them by sending out invitations to regional partners

10) Write!: Find interesting ways to use ezines, blogs and mentions on web-pages to share your thoughts on your authentic areas of interest. Write frequently!

The Bottom Line is that professionals must take advantage of the changes coming with CSME and the existence of internet technology to network in a way that feels natural. While our literacy rate in Jamaica puts us at a disadvantage compared to countries such as Trinidad and Barbados, we are often seen as being more assertive and outgoing, and we should use this to our advantage.

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Networking and the Internet

Next week I will be speaking at the Jamaica Employers Federation Convention 2007 on the topic of networking in the Caribbean region.

As I prepare, it has struck me that this kind of networking is based on some fundamental differences that all professionals across the region must come to terms with.

The first is that there is absolutely no way to network across the region without using the internet.

The second is that internet-based networking is actually happening whether a given professional is actually actively involved or not.

How so?

Imagine that in five years or so your name will be all over the internet. Today, a Google search done on a professional’s name probably picks up some small scrap of the total content that will be available in 2012. who will be creating this content that will be picked up the search engines?

Good question, but I can’t really know the answer. I can say with full assurance that a working professional who is committed to either growing their business or rising through the ranks in some company is going to find their name mentioned in the press, on their employer’s website, in meeting minutes of conferences, in their friend’s blogs and at their cousin’s myspace.com website.

In other words, if they do nothing, then others will be defining who they are to the world. More specifically, they will be defining them to the rest of the Caribbean region.

What is the professional to do?

One approach is to stick one’s head in the sand and hope that all this internet nonsense will just go away.

A better approach is to start today to create a profile of oneself on the internet, by engaging in the following kinds of activities:

  • set up a myspace.com page
  • start a blog
  • have conversations in chat rooms, message boards and mailing lists
  • speak at conventions and conferences
  • author papers and columns in ezines
  • upload videos to YouTube
  • write letters to the online press
  • post up a bio to the company website

These are just some of the ways in which a professional can create content that demonstrates who they are to a global audience. Sharing interesting ideas is probably the most effective way to become known in this, the information age.

Not so long ago, only 15 years in fact, there was very little understanding about this new thing called “email.” Today, email is a staple of doing business, moving from complete obscurity to the kind of ubiquity that makes not having an email address a kiss of death.

In the future, putting one’s head in the sand about their “internet brand” will be just as deadly. A good time to start to build that brand is right now.

Ideally, a Google search on our own name should yield a combination of items that we want our fellow professionals to see, rather than some random smattering of stuff other people have decided to say. It is critical that our region’s professionals take the task of managing their online brand as an essential one — as essential as deciding what to wear to work each day.

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My Vision of a Trini-Jam Chamber/BizClub

What would a Trinidadian-Jamaican Chamber of Commerce, or a TriniJam BizClub actually accomplish?

After the doubles and jerk-chicken are over, and the reggae and soca music has stopped, and the wining and dubbing is finished… what else would happen?

I originally thought of the idea when I did a couple of research projects in Jamaica that included multiple interviews with Trinidadians. A former Managing Director first put the idea in my head, saying that he would love to be able to learn from the other Trinis that were coming to lead companies in Jamaica for the first time. He said that there was much that they could learn from each other, and that had me think that there was not only a lot they could learn from each other, but also a lot they could teach Jamaicans about doing business in Trinidad.

Since then, and recently, the public row over the LNG issues and the trade gap between the two countries has resulted in a war of words, in which Dawn Rich’s column in the Sunday Gleaner represents perhaps the most extreme opinion.

Maybe the Chamber/Club, with a chapter in Kingston and another in Port of Spain, could be a place where:

  • Trinidadian – Jamaican business relationships are fostered on an individual level
  • the ins and outs of doing business in each country are shared
  • business-people working away from their home country can find help in assimilating to their new surroundings
  • the culture, laws and practices of each country can be frankly discussed, compared and understood
  • innovative business ideas can be shared
  • success can be celebrated
  • myths can be addressed and dismantled
  • equality of opportunity can be balanced between the two countries
  • the goals of CARICOM can be furthered
  • our companies, employees and people can benefit from our willingness to cooperate

A Chamber/Club with these goals is obviously not for everyone.

For one, it will take a certain willingness and awareness of the big picture — that we are all bound to each other, and are all one.

While it may be interesting to, at one level, to compete with each other in business, a short-term focus on my company’s success over yours is ridiculous for this small a region. It is much better for us to cooperate in expanding the pie, than it is for us to fight over the crumbs.

While I wouldn’t recommend that in the Chamber/Club each company gives away its trade secrets to its competitors, such an organization would benefit those members that have an interest in putting cooperation first.

So, that Trini-Jam “whatever it is” would be a place for Trinidadian and Jamaican businesspeople to cooperate for the greater good of our countries, companies, employees and people.

P.S. If you want to join the mailing list for the most recent information on this topic, add your name by sending email to fwc-triniexec@aweber.com. You will automatically receive a copy of our report “The Trinidadian Executive in Jamaica,” plus be added to a mailing list of those are interested in business-people with an interest in Trinidad and Jamaica.

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Response to the Trini-Jam Chamber Idea

I promised to update anyone who might be interested in the response received to the idea of a Trinidadian-Jamaican Chamber of Commerce.

It has been good, by my estimation, given that I asked for people who would be interested in putting some of their own time and effort into the formation of such a body. In short, there are enough people responding both in Jamaica and Trinidad to have at least a meeting in each country.

I am thinking of an initial meeting here in Kingston in the May time-frame (well after Jamaican carnival,) and at the moment am wondering what an agenda might look like.

Also, I am wondering if the word “Chamber” is just too heavy a word for what I have in mind. Here in the Caribbean, words like “Chamber” and, say, “Legislative” have a rather musty, old-man feel to them.

Instead, should it something more informal and energetic like a “Trini-Jam BizClub?” Here is an example of the New Zealand Business Club.

Hmmm — send me your comments, or add them to this post below.

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An Open Letter to Trinidadian and Jamaican Businesspeople

Written to the recipients of the report: “The Trinidadian Executive in Jamaica.”

As a recipient of our recent report “The Trinidadian Executive in Jamaica” I can imagine that the current volley of words flowing back and forth between Trinidad and Jamaica has caught your attention.

If so, I would like to you to consider taking time out of your busy schedule to put some muscle behind the formation of a Trinidadian-Jamaican (“Trini-Jam”) Chamber of Commerce.

Clearly, the growing environment of distrust and harsh words is bad for business on both sides of the Caribbean. No-one is winning, and the upset words being spoken in public are going to be harder and harder for those speaking them to take them back. Unchecked, this probably can and will grow worse.

I don’t know about you, but I believe that we, Trinidadians and Jamaicans, can all do much more, and probably should have done much more a long time ago to help create stronger and more lasting bridges between businessmen in both countries.

I suspect that you know what I am talking about. You know Trinidadian and Jamaican businesspeople who have never visited the other island saying things that you know are sheer nonsense, and come from a simple lack of experience. You may have heard talk about people being “backward,” and other talk of “Tricky-dadians.”

What it will take to reverse the current slide into something none of us can afford is simple — it will take you and I. We are ones to be proactive, and to forge an environment of trust, partnership and prosperity.

Let us:
  • meet to get a Trinidadian-Jamaican Chamber off the ground, with a chapter in Kingston and another in Port of Spain

  • pass this email on to others who have a vested interest in Trinidadian-Jamaican business relations

  • start to convince our colleagues in the two countries to get on planes, attend trade shows, take vacations — whatever they need to do to start to become familiar with our countries

First step: send me an email to francis@fwconsulting.com letting me know that you are interested in participating (i.e. with some of your personal time) in the formation of a Trinidadian-Jamaican Chamber. I will schedule a face-to-face meeting once we have 5-8 who are interested here in Kingston.

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Taking Networking from Talk to Action

It is quite awkward when a fellow consultant tells me that I should be working with them, without really giving me a concrete reason why.

I find that it happens often here in the region with other consultants, who appear to think that the fact that I know their name is enough to be “networking.” This issue afflicts foreign and local consultants alike, but the impact on local professionals is higher because the business conditions are much more difficult.

Now and again I get the desperate call or email from someone asking me “if I know about any work or project opportunities.” I know them, and I might like them, but I actually don’t know them in a professional capacity — to their detriment. In other words, I cannot qualify them because they have done none of the legwork with me to give me a first hand experience of their thinking, their abilities, their skills or how well they can work together with me.

The problem is that they then drop off the radar altogether… never to re-appear until they need some more leads a few months later.

Recently, I put together a project that required 10 consultants to perform a specialized, public training. The stakes were rather high and it just could not fail.

I found myself reaching back to professionals in the U.S., partly due to the fact that my network of consultants in the U.S. is a rich one, and the fact that I could qualify their abilities to execute to some degree. They were used to delivering at a high standard, and this was a program that required nothing short of flawless execution.

There was no-one I could think of who was based in the region who I trusted to have the skills to deliver the project.

Part of the problem is that while I know people here, I don’t know their skills — so that disqualified many. But as I thought about it some more, I realized that none of them were taking the steps to build the kind of bridges of trust that are needed to be staffed on larger, more difficult projects.

I think that the primary obstacle is the kind of peculiar “professional fear” that our region’s professionals have of being “taken” — that someone will steal their ideas, their relationships, their projects, their livelihood, etc. In a prior blog, I spoke about the willingness to have the ideas in this blog stolen and used wherever possible.

I think there are some simple ways in which other consultants in the region could network more effectively with me, a fellow consultant. I would advise another consultant in the HR field to:

  1. Participate
    I write 2 blogs, my firm sponsors CaribHRForum, and I regularly ask for sources of new ideas. A fellow consultant could easily join in online discussions, ask questions, give ideas for future content and make public comments, just using the channels I have set up for myself. I other words, they should become a pest to me and others who are either delivering or paying for consulting engagements in the different fora that already exist.

  2. Volunteer
    Very few people ask: “How can I help?” If asked, they infrequently respond affirmatively to opportunities to work with me in a volunteer capacity. The truth is, that I work with people I trust, and that trust can be developed easily by stepping up to help when our livelihoods are not at stake.

  3. Ask for Project Advice
    I think that reaching out for help when projects get difficult is a great way to build bridges. I spent an hour with a consultant doing just that a few months ago, and even if he didn’t use any of what I suggested, I thought that it showed a willingness on his part to learn and to think out of the box. (N.B. Just remember to close the loop after the project is over.)

  4. Request Project Collaboration
    Sometimes it is useful to bring other people in on projects just because the alliance would make you both stronger, and possibly lead to further opportunities. It costs real dollars to do so, and it takes some risks, but the value created from sharing the work can surpass the short term cost.

  5. Say Yes!, Even When You Must Say No
    Another recommendation would be to demonstrate enthusiasm to the idea of being asked to work on projects when I happen to call. It may be that the project is not a good fit, and may not work, but the enthusiasm goes a long way.

  6. Don’t Drop Off the Face of the Earth
    I recently staffed a project with a consultant that I had completely forgotten about. He only came to mind when the client mentioned him as a possible candidate. What they could have done to stay in my awareness was to find some way to stay in touch. I had to hunt them down through other people, because the contact information I used was already old. Plaxo.com, a contact updating system, is a powerful and free tool for getting this done.

In addition, I send out some 500 Christmas cards each year — at great expense and effort — to contacts from all over, in an ongoing attempt to remain “top of mind.”

Unfortunately, a consultant who is not prepared to do the activities I have listed above is only making it harder on themselves.

P.S.
One of the activities I am undertaking this year is to deliberately deepen my own network of HR consultants. We plan to offer a training in the Lights!Camera!Action! techniques later this year — probably free of cost — in a hope to do just that. More information on these techniques is available as a free download by sending email to fwc-lcaintro@aweber.com

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BOOM!

Last night I attended the first networking event sponsored by Boom networking, a Jamaican-based party/learning/teaching group of young(er) professionals.

The results? Spectacular.

In a recent issue of Framework’s OnePage Digest I had mentioned that:

Boom Networking (fete): If there is such a thing as a business fete, then this is IT. Their newsletter explains everything you need to know about the upcoming “La Investa Fiesta” which I have heard rave reviews about, but have not been able to schedule. If you go, bid on some drinks for me in the “Alcohol Exchange!”

Now, I can safely say that Boom has brought another part of their mission successfully into focus — sharing ideas and networking — in the form of last night’s ScotiaBank sponsored event:

Welcome to Boom Business! We have partnered with ScotiaWealth to bring you cutting-edge workshops and seminars to improve your life. Based on your feedback when you registered, our first topic is:

“Seeing Around the Corner—Exploring Untapped Opportunities”

Wednesday 31st January 2007
at 6:00pm
Talk of the Town, Jamaica Pegasus

This session will feature discussions with Patrick Casserly, Indi Couch and André Hylton as they S.H.A.R.E. how the took advantage of uncommon opportunities in their businesses.

Then, André Bello will share some Global Trends you should be aware of, and give you a new framework for Creative Thinking.

Important – Space is limited! Confirm your attendance by calling Dionne Blackwood at 932-0543.


It was brilliantly done, from the excellent speakers, wonderful presentation, tasty finger-food and high quality wine tasting. A hit on several levels.

I consider myself lucky to be able to attend the first of what I hope will be a long series of events.

And, I can’t wait to get to the next party!

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Internal Networking

Following a presentation I gave on Regional networking to the HRMAJ conference, I was asked the following question:

Can you please give me some tips on internal networking? I am new in my HR dept and at times the going may be tough.I have an MSc in HRM but based on feedback I have not made the transition from theory to practice as yet. It is noted however that I am not necessarily using most of the concepts learnt in school as yet.

I think this is an interesting question to sink my teeth into, and with her permission, I’ll answer the question she raised here.
———————————————————————————————–
OK, permission granted. Let’s call her “Q.”

First off, Q, I would forget about all that was learned in school. Not that it wasn’t interesting or valuable, it is just that so little of it is applicable that it is better to focus your energy on other things than trying to remember or use everything you learned. When you need it, it will be there, so relax . The workplace is not just another step from your masters, like a PhD might be. Outside of the classroom (in which you have spent probably 20 years of your life) the rules are very different.

This I know from experience… I graduated thinking that I should be using as much of my classroom learning as possible, but in retrospect it was just not as important as just about everything else I will mention here.

I would focus on the following:

  1. Developing the critical interpersonal skills that you will need forever but did not even begin to learn in school. I would look for skills that help you give feedback, communicate, sell, public speak — all those skills that involve speaking and listening. I would sign up for every course possible, because you can never get too much of them. Join Toastmasters and get lots of practice speaking in public.

  2. Start reading books and taking courses that require serious introspection into why you do the things you do, and don’t. Start to learn about what makes you tick. Take diagnostic tests such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, read books such as “The Road Less Travelled” and take personal development courses that help you think about your career. The sooner you decide what your passions in life are, and face up to the kind of courage it will take to pursue them, the better.

  3. Find some good people to emulate. This might be the most important. Don’t copy them, but learn from them, taking the good and leaving the bad. Understand that you will outgrow them at some point, but until you do, learn.

  4. Work with people who will stretch you. Look for tough projects to volunteer to be on. Often, the best people are attracted to the most challenging projects. You will be networking with them as you work alongside them. Stick your hand up and volunteer to come in on weekends and to stay late to work with them.

  5. Pick a single area you are interested in and learn everything there is to know about it in your job. Become the expert and go WAY beyond what people are asking you to do and be. It may not pay off for a year or two, but when it does, it will.

  6. Look for chances to take a leadership role in ANYTHING. At this point in your career, if they have a Garbage Committee, you should be trying to head it up! If there are no such teams, then form them. As a young employee I helped to start a group called “The Gang of X” in my department, from our my own initiative. It was not just fun, it was quite an empowering experience as we looked at ways in which the department could improve.


Pitfalls:

  1. If you get bored on the job for more than a few days, get yourself going by asking your boss for more to do. If you find yourself bored for weeks on end, then for the sake of your career you need to quit.

  2. If negative people like to spend a lot of time hanging around your cubicle, “run dem.”

  3. If you ever find yourself holding on to a job for the money, know that it is the beginning of the end, and that you have given up on being a professional. Just because everyone else you respect might be doing the same thing, that means nothing in the grand scheme of things in which your self-esteem and respect are more important than your pay.

  4. If you fail to keep in touch with people, read The Tipping Point where Gladwell talks about mavens. Find excuses to stay in touch by sending material that you find of interest to see if they also might be interested. I regret not doing this earlier in my own career. This takes tons of time, and you will do it clumsily at first — just make sure that the things you send out are truly of interest to YOU, and not just done because you should.

For example, I am sending out 500 Christmas cards this year to fellow professionals in Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados and the USA. They are all hand-written. Many gasp at the idea (and the cost), but the first few times time I saw a card I sent on the wall of a couple of different people I did business with, I realized that I had discovered something of value.

I am not saying that you should use this particular method yourself, but you must develop one that you authentically enjoy.

Q, I hope this helps. If you recall from my conference presentation, I believe in starting with what you are passionate about first, rather than what logically “should” make sense. Engage the heart, and your mind will follow — when it comes to networking. Only then, will it not feel like a burden but more like doing what comes naturally.

P.S. Consider me to be your test case. How are you going to “network” with me from now on?

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Doing Business with Strangers — Networking 4.0

A couple of days ago I met a friend, colleague and business partner of mine who lives in Trinidad. We spent all of an hour together. Yet, this was only the second time we have ever met in person.

The Internet has further opened up the possibility of doing business with people that we hardly know, and this is not limited to performing simple transactions. What enables this deeper level of commerce and cooperation is not how well we know other people from first-hand or second-hand sources, but how well we can get to know them from the different sources that exist in cyberspace.

Knowing someone from their Internet “reputation” is very different than knowing that they have certain qualifications or experiences, or hold one position or another.

I am listening to a brilliant, not-so-new audiobook by Seth Godin called “All Marketers are Liars.” In the book he talks about a company being authentic, and allowing its true character to come across in all communication with the public. An example: some CEO’s have blogs, and these blogs give very powerful insight into the true nature of the company, especially when the blog has an authentic voice. Not surprisingly, those bloggers that insist on trying to “put their best face forward,” are the ones that appear to be the most “faked”. When the blogger is a CEO it puts the entire company at even greater risk.

Successful networking in the Internet age has a great deal to do with having the courage to be authentic in cyberspace, and taking a lead in defining oneself.

The truth is, that if we do not take the lead to do it ourselves, then someone else will do it for us by mentioning that they met or know us, and what their impressions are/were. In other words, we run the risk of being defined by others to our detriment.

Most of the defining will be done by strangers.

Can these strangers be trusted?

Whether or not they can be, they must be interacted with, if we as professionals are at all interested in creating a personal brand that people can trust. If we think about the interactions we are interested in having, we can drive them towards certain outcomes that we have an interest in.

For example, a professional project manager who has an interest in the management of concerts could express it in the formation of a public brand that demonstrates their passion, and expertise. Over time, they could simply corner the market on this brand by generating an Internet and therefore public presence.

What allows this to happen is a skill at interacting with strangers in cyberspace.

This is a skill that I cannot quite name, but it has to do with learning how to make and trust Internet acquaintances, both professional and personal. Kids in their teens get this concept readily — they live in a networked world in which friends are thousands of miles away in other countries, and they communicate with them via IM, email and text messages in real time.

In our day we had something called a Pen Pal — a stranger we got to know by exchanging mail over long distances, and long time periods.

Today, the intervals have been shrunk dramatically.

We have blogs like this one, in which, with the click of a Publish button, anyone in the world can have instant access to any of the thoughts that I wish to share.

The difference is staggering, and the trust required to operate in this new world is quite different from what it ever used to be. Instead of trusting my Pen Pal, I now need to trust millions of people who interact in cyberspace.

The upside of all this instant exposure is that cyberspace can be used to amplify authentic messages — warts and all.

For the professional, deciding to stay away from it all is just not an option. Having no presence on the Internet is a little like not having a telephone — it communicates something about our level of seriousness and professionalism regardless of whether or not that is the message that we wants to send.

The best option, as always, is to be proactive, and to master the medium. There are many ways to get our message and our brand out, but it is up to us to use them to our benefit.

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Networking Issue 3.0

Defining Who We Are

A good friend of mine shared with me that she became a lawyer because that was the last application that was left.

While studying for her A-levels as a n 18 year-old , she had no idea what she wanted to do after graduation, and when asked by her Guidance Counsellor what she planned to do, she responded with an honest “I don’t know.” Her Guidance Counsellor, who could not allow this particular vacuum of intent to go undisturbed, insisted that she needed to apply somewhere, especially given how bright she was.

They talked over a few ideas, and came up with one, but she had completely run out of applications to the local university for that faculty. However, she did have some remaining applications to the Faculty of Law and… well today my friend is a lawyer.

Or to put it more accurately, a she is lawyer who has no passion for the practice of the law.

What she does have is a secure job in a secure profession that most people would envy. According to the logic of most Caribbean employees, that is more than enough, and “she should be happy.” After all, what more could she want?

While our system of education has tragedy written into its script, with a 16 year old having to choose four subjects on which to “concentrate” to the exclusion of others, there is a wider travesty occurring daily in our societies. People are not working on what they care about. Or, in other words, people find themselves in professions and jobs for which they have no personal passion or belief.

They arrive at work each day, go through the necessary motions and come home in the evenings to demonstrate to their children that one must make do with what one has, and never seek to change anything. If anything, most of one’s effort should be directed towards holding on to what one has.

I will not argue with whether or not this approach to work is right or wrong, but I do know that it has inescapable consequences.

First, it enforces an ongoing mismatch between people and work. If I am too afraid to leave the job I dislike for one I do, then someone else’s interest in this job will never be satisfied. In effect I am blocking them from having it by staying it in myself. Movement from one job to another is a positive thing to be encouraged, in part because brings everyone closer to the work that most satisfies them. Ultimately, this is good for the economy of countries, as productivity has everything to do with job satisfaction, according to Caribbean studies like Why Workers Won’t Work by Kenneth Carter. High quality work is produced most easily by motivated people who want to be in the jobs they have.

Second, it creates organizations of people who are demotivated. The faces of people in our service industry across the region who appear to be suffering are encountered everywhere. They seem to have no interest in what they are doing, and no hope that this job will lead to anything or anyplace new. They seem to be just holding out until it all ends… somdeay.

Thirdly, the next generation of workers (our young people) comes to identify work with drudgery, as opposed to self-fulfillment. Given the lack of psychic rewards they become unwilling to delay the gratification they can get from both entry-level jobs (with an instant paycheck) and criminal activity. There is no bright future in their minds to look forward to in the long-term, and life instead becomes about getting theirs now.

What does this all have to do with networking?

To put it simply, networking occurs most easily and naturally when it is a natural extension of what we love to do. Whereas it is possible to do “logical” networking — doing the things that one is supposed to do — it is much easier to do “passionate” networking, starting with topics and questions that one already has an interest in pursuing.

And this is where networking begins — with an honest assessment of who we are, what we are interested in, and how to make these real or apparent in the listening of others. The best place to start is withareas of authentic interest.

My advice to someone who is not already passionate about what they do is: find something quickly, or resign yourself to a struggle. Who we are will not be denied, not matter how hard we try.