Conrado Morlan asked:




Networking is one of the most useful ways to get references or contacts. For some people represent a challenge to meet people and have an informal conversation, for others it may be natural to interact with others in any environment.

In general, I feel comfortable networking with people in live and virtual environments. I personally consider myself as an open virtual networker. Last month I have the opportunity to attend two congresses, one as a delegate and another one as a Presenter Taking advantage of this opportunity I was looking for new ways to network with the congress attendees. In both events, I was able to “break the ice” in several ways. Here are some of the techniques that worked out for me:

- From virtual to personal. First, I checked if any of the members of my virtual networks would be attending the events and make the arrangements to meet and greet. This was a good start and is always good to “put a face to the name” or “put a real face to the avatar”. This technique led me to meet in person five members of my LinkedIn network and a couple of Twitter followers.

- Ask/Answer questions! This technique was spontaneous. During one of the presentations I attended, the presenter pooled the audience about who wrote articles about project management and I raise my hand. At the end of the presentation and during the questions and answers section I asked a question related to what publications he would recommend to approach to submit articles. When the presentation finished two delegates approached me and told me that they share the interest of writing articles and asked for recommendations and references. We exchange ideas and business cards and now we are members of our respective virtual networks and looking forward for the next article to be published.

- Differentiation. In both congresses credential ribbons were available for both presenters and delegates. The delegates attached the ribbons to their badges and it showed the different credentials the individual holds, if was member of a group of specific interest, first timer, presenter, etc. The presenter ribbon makes the individual to stand out from the crowd. People usually approached to me to ask about the topic of the presentation, the time and the day of the presentation, asking for references about the topic or just to wish me luck. Credentials are great differentiators. I am one of the few 500+ credential holders of the Program Management Professional (PgMP) PMI’s credential. The PgMP black ribbon created a lot of attention. The interest of program managers in this credential has increased in the last 12 months and many of them are pursuing it and looking for advice. The PgMP black ribbon led me to start a mentoring group for project management professionals from Argentina and Costa Rica.

- Mistake as an ice-breaker. My congress badge included my name, company name, city and state. When I printed the badge, I did not realize that the city was incorrect. The city of the billing address was printed instead of the city of my home address. The final result: Plantation, TX. This mistake gave me the opportunity to meet many Texan project management professionals who asked where in the great state of Texas was Plantation.

Planning to use networking techniques or creating new one on-the-spot are good ways to start your professional network and meet other people sharing your same profession or common interest.

When attending any event do not forget to bring business cards. If you do not have a company business card you can design and order your own personal/networking cards. During the event and at the end of each day send a follow-up email to the people you meet, this will keep your network warm and will let you remember later the topics or common interest of the people you met.

Happy networking!