Taking the Work Out of Networking | Wickre, Karen

Lange Beschreibung
The former Google executive, editorial director of Twitter and self-described introvert offers networking advice for anyone who has ever cancelled a coffee date due to social anxiety-about how to nurture a vibrant circle of reliable contacts without leaving your comfort zone.

Networking has garnered a reputation as a sort of necessary evil in the modern business world. Some do relish the opportunity to boldly work the room, introduce themselves to strangers, and find common career ground-but for many others, the experience is often awkward, or even terrifying.

The common networking advice for introverts are variations on the theme of overcoming or 'fixing' their quiet tendencies. But Karen Wickre is a self-described introvert who has worked in Silicon Valley for 30 years. She shows you to embrace your true nature to create sustainable connections that can be called upon for you to get-and give-career assistance, advice, introductions, and lasting connections.

Karen's 'embrace your quiet side' approach is for anyone who finds themselves shying away from traditional networking activities, or for those who would rather be curled up with a good book on a Friday night than out at a party. For example, if you're anxious about that big professional mixer full of people you don't know, she advises you to consider skipping it (many of these are not productive), and instead set up an intimate, one-on-one coffee date. She shows how to truly make the most out of social media to sustain what she calls 'the loose touch habit' to build your own brain trust to last a lifetime.

With compelling arguments and creative strategies, this new way to network is perfect not only for introverts, but for anyone who wants for a less conventional approach to get ahead in today's job market.

Rezensierung
'Karen Wickre may be the best-connected Silicon Valley figure you've never heard of, widely regarded in tech as a champion networker. Now she reveals in highly readable, practical terms how anyone can create and sustain a network painlessly, and why it matters. This book can change your career, and your life.' - Walt Mossberg, former columnist and conference producer for the Wall Street Journal, AllThingsDigital, and Recode

Buchausschnitt
Taking the Work Out of Networking Foreword
by Roy Bahat, Bloomberg Beta

When you think 'tech company,' images of computer networks or server rooms might pop into your head. Your first thought wouldn't be about human beings supporting each other, chatting over coffee, or making new friends. Yet one of the biggest open secrets in Silicon Valley is that the tech industry runs on personal networks more than it does on computer networks.

Whether or not you work in tech, this tends to be true. Many of us struggle with the same questions about the people in our professional lives: How do you choose who to work with when you barely know a person? How do you know who to trust? How do you nurture something real when your 'friends' number in the thousands?

Our relationships matter. They are more than just runways we light up to land a new job, or close a sale. Relationships are what make us human, in a world where machines often outdo us. So: what could be better than becoming more expert in how to connect with one another?

More than any other industry I've seen-and I've worked in government, for nonprofits, at a Fortune 500 corporation, in universities, plus cofounding a little company, and now as a startup investor-Silicon Valley knows how to answer these people questions. After a meeting at our venture capital fund, a visitor quipped, 'For folks who invest in technology, you sure do talk a lot about people.'

The author of the book you're now holding-a seasoned veteran of the tech industry-is therefore the perfect person to tell you how to build and keep your personal network. Based on her years at startups, big corporations, and long stints at both Google and Twitter, Karen Wickre has become an artisan of the Silicon Valley-style relationship building.

Karen's keen eye for the tradecraft of building a relationship makes her, like me, a student of the details of how we meet one another, what we have in common. The venture capital fund I lead focuses on investing in the future of work; we obsess over these nuances. What's the right subject line for an introduction email? (Pro tip: A one-word subject line like 'Intro' will get lost in everyone else's inbox.) When should you text someone versus sending them a DM? What's the right order for several names in a calendar invitation?

As Karen will tell you, the tech world is famously fluid. There's no harm and no foul in moving often between companies or roles. Because technologies themselves evolve so quickly, and because tech loves a good reinvention (and, yes, 'disruption'), this constant motion makes people in tech rely on our connections-a network of allies, colleagues, and friends-more often and more deeply than we rely on our (current) employer.

This Silicon Valley way of building relationships is about giving: It's about starting with what the other person needs, instead of what you want from them. It's about planting seeds and getting to watch them bloom and outgrow you.

And networking in this way just feels more natural than pressing your business card into someone's hands at a conference. It feels less slimy, less transactional, than the way most of us think of 'networking.' It's the opposite of the smile-and-look-over-your-shoulder move you see at party after party.

Karen's book encapsulates this networking-by-nurturing approach, and offers nugget after nugget on how to make it your own. In this paperback edition, Karen also helps us navigate life inside a company. She reminds us that-as companies get bigger and the tidy org chart's boxes and lines blur-we should be just as giving to our colleagues as we are to customer prospect or 'contacts.'

Even if you're obligated to go to a c