Tina Seelig walks into a supermarket. As she browses, a gentleman comes up to her with instant lemonade in hand and asks her how to make it. Seelig goes over the instructions with him, and as they talk, she finds out that he's visiting the Bay Area from Chile for a start-up related event. She gives him her card and offers to connect him with helpful individuals in her network...A few years later, Seelig travels to Chile for work and sends this man an email to see how he's doing. The man responds and asks that she meet him at the lobby of some building and bring her colleagues and friends along, too. When they arrive, they are met with a helicopter that takes them on a breathtaking ride over the country.Seelig's message here isn't about making lemonade, duh, it's about making your own luck by, in this case, engaging with seemingly strange people (a man with lemonade powder) in unlikely environments (the grocery store). The key word here is seemingly.
"Lemonade networking," as I'll call it, is about building relationships, not networks; giving to give, not to get...and the surprise is waiting for you in the end.
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3 comments:
networking. that was unexpected. i TOTALLY thought the "lemonade to helicopter ride" point was just going to be more of "don't just make a bad situation okay... make it awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!"
i am not all convinced that meeting seemingly strange people is ever going to be the best use of your time. especially for introverts like me. tough call.
wait a minute ... how do you not know how to make instant lemonade...
or was that the point!? lol ;)
Oh! This is as good as number one. I was recently at a young professional career talk thingy and one of the points made was that one just has to network. In a certain sense it is good that it is about who you know rather than what you know; it is about your capacity for human engagement; otherwise you might as well be a computer programme.
And I like even more how you frame it as relationship development and not superficial, utilitarian network building. Take interest in the people around you; they're people too.
Well, you've set it up pretty well now. Bring us home ....
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