Last week someone asked me why I’m not friends with other Gen Y/Millennial bloggers. It’s not that I’m not friends with them, in fact I probably read and admire 99% of their blogs, but they don’t live in Austin, they didn’t go to UT, we aren’t friends from growing up in Atlanta and they don’t work for engineering companies or do social media marketing. Which is fine, but THOSE are the people I am interested in being friends with. People I can network with in real life and people who share a ton of my interests.
I always felt bad for not wanting to be a part of the Gen Y blogging in-crowd but during Chris Brogan’s SXSW Interactive panel called “I don’t trust you one stinkin bit” I started to feel better about it. Chris described the importance of “networking across.” Networking across means that you only invest in networks that are on the same playing field as you. His whole point is that it doesn’t make any sense to try and network “up,” or try to be a part of networks that are much larger/different than you are.
For example there isn’t any reason for me to try and meet Chris Brogan (or any other famous social media guru) and become his friend. Yes, he is important. Yes, he is smart. But really, what does he know about a technical engineering community? And what does he know about queso in Austin? We don’t really have anything in common. It’s nice to know important people, but if you don’t have anything in common with them what is the point of meeting them. Which is why it makes so much more sense to network across, instead of up. Network with people who share your interests and network with people whom you can have a mutually beneficial relationship with.
Sure it would be nice to meet Chris Brogan, but I have no idea what we would talk about. And it’s the same thing with a lot of the other bloggers out there. I love friends, but I want friends who add to my life. So from now on I’m going to really work on networking across, and forget about networking up and meeting famous people. (Unless someone can introduce me to Jeremiah Owyang, because I think he is beautiful.)
Does this make sense? What do you think are the benefits of networking up v. networking across?
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