While we aren’t all that clever, the lesson to be learned here is the engaging and fun parts. I also follow a food blog called cookingwithamy.blogspot.com. She shares her experiences in and around the food world (like going to the Pillsbury Bake-Off and reporting on it), recipes, book reviews, you name it. You never know what she is going to be covering, so it is interesting to sign up for notices of her new blog entries.

Neil’s party approach is so good. Most of us work so hard at our various projects and jobs, that I do think this “networking” thing has to remain fun or have amazing instructional value (like Kris and Dean’s posts), or people just drift away.

My concern with on line networking is the ease with which such communication can be misunderstood. Because I’m as old as dirt I was in the workplace when e-mail was the new thing and have seen ugly (and I mean UGLY) incidents occur over e-mail. Not to me, because I’m careful (Canadian, eh? ), but certainly to others, that damaged relationships.

I find in e-mail sometimes, because people are at a keyboard rather than face to face, they say things they may not say in person. I can’t imagine what people say when they can hide behind a user name.

The other thing I’ve seen is people on their “crackberry”, or other communication device, like a drug addict. Very scary.

I know myself fairly well and if I really had fun on twitter etc then I could easily see me dropping into the sink hole.

My response to the need to be social is to go to the local coffee shop with freinds and actually talk in person. I may be a little old fashioned but good conversation and a nice cup of coffee in the real, rather than the virtual, world works, at least for me.

My 2 cents.

I have an idea that might address two ideas brought up —

1. Networking as online party.
Great comparison. For this I’m going to use a convention as an example, because it’s a party with a lot of little parties going on — panels, demonstrations, conversations in the hall.

2. Balancing/organizing visits.

You want to plan your experience so you make sure you don’t miss the panels and parties you discussed with your friends during the car ride to the convention.

Currently I plan out which sites to visit every day, and which to visit every week.

I could put them in a list of bookmarks or online on del.icio.us, or even copy and paste from a text file. But I list them in a free password program called KeePass, just ’cause I’m a geek. People usually use this for keeping passwords, but with it I can quickly right-click through a pre-strategized list of URLs.

Using my URL listkeeper of choice, I right-click, the browser opens, and there’s the next site. I read the content, congratulate someone on a success, and before I get too involved, there’s KeePass staring at me from the screen with the other sites I’d planned to visit. I’ve included my email addresses and the social sites in the list.

With this method I find more of the good convention events in less time. Hopefully it evens out my attendance in various social rooms, too, so I visit friends who might otherwise feel shunned and don’t stay long enough in any one room to start being boorish.

I hope that idea helps anyone struggling with the oft-bemoaned Internet Time Sink.

Carolyn

P. S. I should set an alarm so I have a predetermined time limit to get through the list, shouldn’t I? There’s an idea.