Sunday, November 09, 2008

Taking networking to the next level

I've been out of touch for a while. Not sick, called to assist in a political campaign, or anything like that -- the teaching load drastically increased.

My big challenge is coming up with a way to help students who have Facebook mastered for scheduling a party or study session how to transfer (extend) that talent to the world beyond college. The business and professional world is still about networking, right?

I incorporate news items and things I find on the web into my Facebook post, mention them in the face-to-face class, and bring in as many examples (and guests) as I can. Does it all make sense at some point?

What do you think?

2 comments:

Christa M. Miller said...

Why not make them network? What year are they - doing internships yet, or no? Maybe a good idea to help them develop contacts pre-internship or during-internship, not just via FB but also via LinkedIn, etc.

So, have them identify 1-3 areas they want to intern in, then have them connect with people in those fields. This may involve research like finding out which companies regularly take interns in your area (better yet, those that don't - make the kids "sell" themselves to those companies).

Anonymous said...

Not everyone will ever "get it" without practice.

You really do need to get them in front of real people for real networking sessions. There are over 500 networking events in my town going on each month.

I attend many of them and I recall only one time in the past couple of years that a group of students showed up as a class assignment.

We might all be better networkers if that happened more often and we had to practice our own skills at the top of our game.

I look forward to hearing whether you are making progress with them.

Thank you,

Bill Austin