I attended an excellent presentation on Monday evening this week. It was an SCL event and Richard Stephens was giving his very impressive annual round up of case law relevant to IT contracts.
It was a well attended session with some 100 lawyers present and definitely worth going to for the content alone. However what really surprised me was that when the talk finished,and the eminent law firm which hosted it offered wine and canapés, very few people stayed. Maybe 20. There was instead a long queue at the cloakroom as people beat a hasty retreat.
What is wrong with everybody? What is the point of all that network training law firms provide if it is not put into practice? Surely this was a great networking opportunity to meet other lawyers or reinforce connections you already had and also speak to the speaker who was there. I did all of these.
I found this simple but apt definition of "networking":
"interact with others to exchange information and develop professional or social contacts".
Have we lost the ability or inclination to do this? Are we maybe relying too much on LinkedIn or Twitter and other social media as a substitute for the real thing? Or maybe everybody was scurrying back to their offices to put some more chargeable hours on the clock?
If so shame on you - what a missed opportunity. The wine was good too!
It was a well attended session with some 100 lawyers present and definitely worth going to for the content alone. However what really surprised me was that when the talk finished,and the eminent law firm which hosted it offered wine and canapés, very few people stayed. Maybe 20. There was instead a long queue at the cloakroom as people beat a hasty retreat.
What is wrong with everybody? What is the point of all that network training law firms provide if it is not put into practice? Surely this was a great networking opportunity to meet other lawyers or reinforce connections you already had and also speak to the speaker who was there. I did all of these.
I found this simple but apt definition of "networking":
"interact with others to exchange information and develop professional or social contacts".
Have we lost the ability or inclination to do this? Are we maybe relying too much on LinkedIn or Twitter and other social media as a substitute for the real thing? Or maybe everybody was scurrying back to their offices to put some more chargeable hours on the clock?
If so shame on you - what a missed opportunity. The wine was good too!
RSS Feed
