Shane the “Maven” of Ideate tipped us off on this excellent list of tips for surviving networking events. In fact I have first hand experience connected with Shane who recently rescued from feeling like the odd one out at a recent SA Bog Awards ceremony. Shane quickly introduced himself and started a conversation which sparked some interesting thought and lead to the 2 of us having coffee recently.
Saying Hi makes all the difference
One of the lessons I learnt from Shane is that adding some meaningful value by being genuinely involved leads to meaningful developments, while being superficial and just chatting to be cool really gets you nowhere. Bloggers who should really be great at genuine dialogue, are guilty quite often of just being chatty for the cameras.
Add value and become a star
Due to that little step of Shane saying Hi and sharing some thoughts, led to us meeting and chatting about a business idea I have been working on and getting some great advice from him. It also lead to me finding out about the Heavy Chef Session run by World Wide Creative and attending their User Experience Design presentation. A whole series of events which I have benefited from. Shane probably has no idea how saying hi has affected me and place him in my list of respected individuals. He’s someone who walks his talk.
Here’s his post on Ten Excellent Networking Tips, which was inspired by the original post Ten Excellent Networking Tips.