While its origins might be more technical, the term networking has stretched into the human realm, and with the advent (and overuse) of the term Social Networking, has raised our sensitivities about its meaning. In its most neutral sense, a network is a collection of connected resources that share and exchange and economize together. If you think about the network of people around you, hopefully it’s a vision of something supportive, a chain of people who sustain and inspire you and connect you to a community.
Networking has some less than positive connotations. Someone who networks too much can be perceived as superficial, a collector of business cards, a name-dropper. Picture the person shaking your hand at a cocktail party, looking over your shoulder to see if there’s anyone more important or more connected that they should be talking to instead of you. That’s a networker, in the most pejorative sense. Keep reading »
