Networking

I was caught by surprise this morning by an email from a past colleague reaching out to network with me. It was unexpected because of the way this guy came in and went out of my life. Abrupt - in a word: there were no visible signs from my perspective that foreshadowed a split. But regardless of how someone comes or goes, I welcome these moments. It's an opportunity to recall past friends and co-workers and evaluate for a moment your relationship with them and how you can help them.

As I write this post, I begin to think about all the other people that I have been networking with in the last 5 months. 2009 has been a tough year for many people professionally. Jobs have been lost, career paths altered and a sense of foundation that many once took for granted has been shaken. When a person begins to see the proverbial cracks in the dam I think it's both natural and intelligent to start building a stronger more diversified community around them.

With the proliferation of LinkedIn and Facebook, even the ease with which you can zip your resume around to your contacts via email, make networking that much easier, but I think it doesn't replace the value of getting in front of someone and have an actual conversation. When given the option; get in front of someone, take the meeting, buy someone a cup of coffee. Getting to know someone in the flesh I have found, goes a long way to really begin to understand them.

I love to meet people, everyone has a story... you just have to ask a lot of questions to figure it out sometimes.

So here's a question, is networking a learned skill or are you born with it? I think the finer points of networking are learned (regardless of who you are, practice makes you better), but I don't know if the foundational desire/need/ability to meet and connect with people is learned or given. What do you think?