I spent three days this week at the ITechLaw London conference attended by some 400 leading technology lawyers from around the world. I was privileged to present a session on tower outsourcing at the event. It was I thought an excellent conference at which to learn and to network.
It was great to meet old acquaintances and to make new contacts. As an in house lawyer I am a potential client and a target for networking. I enjoy this and actually relish the chance to meet new people in my field.
What did however strike me was the difference between the effective networker and the novice. The effective networker approaches you at one of the networking breaks and you discuss the conference and maybe some legal issues for a few minutes and establish a rapport and sort of get an idea of the other person and their legal practice. Then you exchange business cards and move on or maybe continue the discussion. If you meet again at the conference you do so as old friends.
The cruder approach is somebody who ignores the "foreplay" comes up to you as you are just going into or leaving one of the sessions, says who they are, how great it is to meet you and virtually thrusts a business card into your hands. I generally then have no idea who they are and have had not time to establish a rapport with them. If you meet them again at the conference they ignore you. This "novice networker" may well not get a LinkedIn invite from me as a follow up!
It was great to meet old acquaintances and to make new contacts. As an in house lawyer I am a potential client and a target for networking. I enjoy this and actually relish the chance to meet new people in my field.
What did however strike me was the difference between the effective networker and the novice. The effective networker approaches you at one of the networking breaks and you discuss the conference and maybe some legal issues for a few minutes and establish a rapport and sort of get an idea of the other person and their legal practice. Then you exchange business cards and move on or maybe continue the discussion. If you meet again at the conference you do so as old friends.
The cruder approach is somebody who ignores the "foreplay" comes up to you as you are just going into or leaving one of the sessions, says who they are, how great it is to meet you and virtually thrusts a business card into your hands. I generally then have no idea who they are and have had not time to establish a rapport with them. If you meet them again at the conference they ignore you. This "novice networker" may well not get a LinkedIn invite from me as a follow up!
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