Someone posted an article on Facebook recently that says when you die, you can become a tree! A biodegradable urn contains a tree seed that absorbs the nutrients in your ashes. Well, fancy that! She wants to be a Christmas tree. While I love all things Christmas, I wouldn’t want to risk being dug up, strung with fairly lights and adorned with baubles. Although on second thoughts…
For 50 weeks of the year my favourite tree is a weeping birch. Not a very happy sounding tree, but an absolutely beautiful one. For the other two, it’s the creamy pink camellia, in bloom now and making me smile every time I pass one. So, feeling at one with nature this week, I ventured out to spend an afternoon in deepest darkest Essex. Well, deep, if not dark. Finchingfield has been voted the prettiest village in England – and rightly so. Its winding lanes lead to a picturesque village green and traditional duck pond surrounded by lovely cottages, pubs and tearooms.
I had lunch in the sunshine with someone I’d been introduced to at a networking event. He needed help with LinkedIn and I provide help with LinkedIn, so that worked out perfectly. Many people fail to understand the benefits of networking and see it simply as an opportunity to talk at people who have no interest or no need for their services. Sometimes those people speak without drawing breath, oblivious to the glazed expressions before them.
That’s not what networking’s about at all. It’s about developing relationships. It’s learning what other people have to offer and whether you’d feel comfortable introducing them to your own contacts. If you have a rapport with someone, they’ll introduce you when someone in their own circle has a need that you can fulfil. This week, for example, I had a need for an enormous cream cake in the spring sunshine and – voila! – I was introduced to someone who provided it!
How’s this for a weird Twitter introduction coincidence, proving it’s a small world, and shrinking… I recently had coffee with a graphic designer named Angie, someone I was introduced to by Joel, who was one of the first flesh and blood people I met through Twitter. Joel and I have met several times in real life, shared cakes and smoked salmon sandwiches and sat together in his mastermind group to help a struggling business owner overcome some marketing issues.
He introduced me to Angie, we hooked up on Twitter, we met, we chatted, we laughed, we drank peppermint tea. She later tweeted about me and it turns out, her boyfriend is someone I’ve tweeted with – both as myself and on behalf of one of my social media clients. The conversation was funny, centred around the Dalek with someone throwing in a famous Star Trek quote, and it went from there.
Social networking on sites like Twitter works in much the same way as physical networking. Talk to people, learn about them, understand what they do and make friends. Olivia Newton John summed it up reasonably well. “I’m saying all the things that I know you’ll like, making good conversation. I gotta handle you just right; you know what I mean.”
Maybe more of the conversation and less of the handling… I guess that’s up to you! We can always make conversation here: @WeekendWitch
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