Dom Murphy : SXSWi 2008: The art of saying hello
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05:09:11 pm on March 13, 2008 | # |
Feeling quite inspired after the Logo discussion I headed over to a 15 minute book reading by Thom Singer about networking at conferences called, Some Assembly Required.
I’m crap at networking, I’m the kind of person who absorbs stuff in so I thought attending this session would give me a few angles on how to get out there at these conferences and not to hang out at the back.
The talk was pretty short — just 15 minutes — but crammed full with useful information. The best piece of advice (and it’s common sense when you think about it — isn’t everthing?) is to simply say hello and take it from there. Thom retold the story about how, the day before, he met a chap who was setting up a focussed social networking start up. He met him simply because the man’s name tag said he was from New York. There had been huge delays in getting down to Austin from New York and so that provided the seed to start the conversation. He finished the whirlwind talk explaining how his daughter had a rare skull disease which was pretty much incurable. Through his network of friends he found himself with the opportunity to speak to a brain surgeon who had developed a new technique which would cure the problem — the only man in the world. It was a poignant moment to finish on and really hit home how a simple “Hello” could change everything.
As he left I decided to put his words into practice and turned to the chap sat next to me. Turned out he was the same man from New York who the speaker had spoken to the day before. We got chatting and he explained his start up project Get Naked. Going against the grain of Facebook and MySpace where bigger is better, his project was to keep the stuff you want to share with your friends to yourself. It wasn’t about having ‘friends’ with those you barely know, It was about sharing and communicating with your closest friends. I liked that — I really dislike the whole “how many friends have you got?” mentality. It was a good chat, I gave him our TAK! promo pack and he gave me his business card. Thom Singer said, one of the most important things to remember when networking is to follow up the meeting afterwards, which I intend to do.
I was on a roll after that and instantly got into the networking mode and shared a beer with a producer of the Austin Chronicle before heading over to the Adobe Lounge to see if I could find Sara Forsberg. Sara works for Adobe and recently asked us if we would be featured in their Design Center project. Unfortunately, she wasn’t at SXSWi but I did end up having a good long talk with other key Adobe staff and again swapped contact details.
This networking thing is easy!
