Missing the good old days of business networking…or are we?
Summer is coming and the UK vaccination programme is working. This means the business networking events we pine for are coming back! But they’re not. James West of ONLE and Sarah Phillips of Octima explain that networking isn’t going back to normal - and why many people are pleased about this fact.
The changes to the way we live and work that began in March 2020 are so cataclysmic that making concrete predictions is almost impossible. However, from our perspective within the ONLE network, there are two driving forces that give us a good indication of what will happen to networking:
Nostalgia for when everything was perfect is fading. 20189 wasn’t a utopia where the way we worked/played/networked was perfect. We’ll look at that in more detail but it’s clear that the number of people realising this is growing.
Collectively, the culture of work/life has changed - forever. When choice returns, we won’t go flock lemming-like to doing things exactly the same way. We will cherry-pick by prioritising what we genuinely missed during lockdown and rejecting the practices that have become redundant. This applies to the culture and approach to business networking.
We’re regularly speaking to people from within the network who have revised their original position of “I can’t wait to go back” to “I don’t want to go back”. In many cases, this shift has been so profound that people are actually WORRIED about this concept of ‘going back to normal’.
The realisation is that life wasn’t perfect in 2018. We wasted too much energy talking to people and engaging in activities that were wasteful. We travelled too much and damaged the environment in the process. Since lockdown, we’ve regained some of our most valuable commodity: time. And few of us will want to give that up.
In other words, even when the networking that stopped in March 2020 does return, it won’t be the same because not everyone will be there. The overwhelming majority of ONLE members say they now favour blended networking which combines online and face-to-face networking. But the ratios are important because the same majority want online networking to remain as the lead activity, supported by occasional face-to-face networking.
This is why we decided in August last year that we would keep our networking meetings online and support them with optional in-person events. Even then, we saw how members were adapting and enjoying the advantages of online networking. The only thing missing was the option of meeting people, and so the addition of occasional face-to-face events for those who want them means we have the best of both worlds.
Why some people prefer online networking
When the majority of us tried online networking, it was inconceivable that it would one day rival or even be preferable to face-to-face networking. There are a number of reasons why this momentous shift has taken place - some obvious, some less so. Sarah Phillips summarises the reasons why many networking events may find themselves half empty:
“I loved face-to-face networking, but I didn’t love all of it. I don’t miss the travel. I don’t miss being blindly sold to. I don’t miss the awkward small talk with people that I have little affinity with. The last 12 months have also shown me that I’m not the only one. For the more introverted among us, the structure of online networking removes many of these anxieties.”
It’s obvious that despite its short-comings, online networking is time-efficient, blows away geographical barriers and removes many of the undesirable elements of networking. However Sarah’s final point about introverts preferring online network that points towards a development that could prove to be just as ground-breaking for the future of networking.
Face-to-face networking has lost its monopoly
Before we went into lockdown, face-to-face was the only option if you wanted to network. Yes, online networking has been possible for some time but very few people took it seriously. We know this from bitter experience because we ran online networking for 18 months before the first lockdown and struggled - people wouldn’t give it a chance.
But now people understand the protocols and nuances of online networking, plus recognise the advantages, they have a choice. And as Sarah’s quote explains, certain people prefer the online networking medium because it suits their personality.
Yes, there are many people who will always prefer in-person networking. This is especially applicable to those extroverts who enjoy the bustle of a room full of people, are skilled at quickly building rapport and making themselves heard. But they represent a limited percentage of the networking population. Online networking favours those who prefer to listen, observe and use their words sparingly and build their relationships carefully.
If you’re one of those people who can’t wait for online networking you might not believe this fact, but it’s true: many people prefer online networking. Once you accept this truth, you’ll understand why ‘traditional’ networking will never be exactly the same.
We’re likely to see an influx of people who would have ordinarily avoided in-person networking but will find a suitable home online. Plus there will be an ever-growing number of those people who for numerous reasons are excluded from in-person networking because of their location, disability, home life etc. So while the networking world will fragment, it will likely to see its numbers rise as the diversity of people it attracts expands.
So, it’s now time to take off the rose-tinted glasses and stop pretending that everything was perfect in 2019. Instead, recognise what we’ve gained in the past year and how we can build on these positive changes. Networking is changing and will continue to do so. There has been lots of bad news in the past year, but a shake-up and more diversity in networking is very much in the good news category.
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