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Networking for introverts
- Try1275 3y agoThe Bartleby column is the one thing in the Economist I skip week after week without feeling I miss out on something. I am sure the woman who writes it has a tattoo of a cubicle somewhere and a RTO T-shirt.
- bjt12345 3y ago[flagged]
- pretext 3y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20230907143540/https://www.economist.com/business/2023/09/07/networking-for-introverts-a-how-to-guide https://web.archive.org/web/20230907143540/https://www.econo...
- archo 3y agoand : https://archive.is/AbtKo https://archive.is/AbtKo
- subtypefiddler 3y agoAt first I was surprised the economist would talk about the networking stack, but this is about social networking. The introverts bit makes much more sense. Regarding the article it says "because they bring you new information, more infrequent and distant relationships (or “weak ties”) are more useful than close contacts." Mark Granovetter studied that in 1973 in The Strength of Weak Ties.
- screamingninja 3y agoMost of the article appears to be about what does not work. Here is the relevant part from the bottom of the page- > The real secret is to save your energy for the people who are most likely to be interesting to you. > The sweet spot in networking on LinkedIn is someone with moderately weak ties to you: connecting with a person with ten mutual friends markedly increases the probability of changing jobs compared with someone with just one shared friend. > In other words, networking pays off if you can identify people who can bring you new information but are close enough to your world that this information is useful. In the offline world, a tool like ChatGPT should make it easier to find useful prospects in a list of event attendees. But you still need to overcome all your instincts and approach them.
- badtension 3y agoWhere can I pay for information presented in such a short, clear and to-the-point manner? Preferably human generated as well (no to robots). I dream about having access to this kind of internet.
- screamingninja 3y agoHacker News, of course! :) I am curious though, why human generated only? AI is getting better at summarizing everyday. Does it really matter if you cannot tell the difference?
- badtension 3y agoI am not an expert in modern NLP SOTA but from what I see these models do not work that well. You didn't summarize the article but took some of the most important points and shared what really mattered. It may not be perfect but required a real life experience. I am afraid there will always be a chance of getting "techno-babble" from our models, at least until they we get to some sort of AGI. Look at your first line: > Most of the article appears to be about what does not work. No model will decide to include that info and it is vital for me to understand why you chose just a few lines out of it. We are still long way out from trusting in reliable LLMs.
- PartiallyTyped 3y agoThere are two things to that answer; first, a summary: > Most of the article appears to be about what does not work. and then a segmentation, where they list the content. This is very much in line with LLMs can do. Segmentation is part of a standard QA benchmark, and summaries are obviously something we have. You can also ask a model to not only identify a summary, but segment only the relevant parts given the summary. The "difficulty" is in pairing the two LLMs together.
- fouc 3y agoI asked chatgpt to pick the most important 2 or 3 lines of text from the article. It returned: 1. "Fortunately, there is advice out there on how to break the ice with strangers. Unfortunately, it’s abysmal." 2. "Making contacts on a site like LinkedIn is a lot less stressful." 3. "The real secret is to save your energy for the people who are most likely to be interesting to you." It got 2 out of 3 wrong basically. I'm not sure how to objectively measure/improve that in an automated way. I suppose some prompt might do better though? I guess a second pass of the results through another LLM could potentially help like you suggest?
- taddevries 3y agoI don't see anything in here that I would call a "How-To Guide." This reads mostly like an ad for LinkedIn and then they threw in a very poor ChatGPT reference at the end to hit the keywords.
- bil7 3y agoI can only assume the fake conversation in this article is an attempt at humour, but it's not very funny. For a better starter question at an event than "Juicing up for the big keynote?" try making an anecdote about the day, such as, "that last talk was interesting, did you see it?" or going personal, like "that's a cool sticker on your laptop, where did you get it?"
- screamingninja 3y ago> “I’m having a baby, Keith.”
- yread 3y agoWhat is this article even about? And what does this even mean: >In the offline world, a tool like Chatgpt should make it easier to find useful prospects in a list of event attendees. So, should you feed a list of conference attendees to chatgpt and ask who to talk to? And how? I personally go to conferences quite often, I'm terrible at networking but force myself to talk to people and I do have some results but I can't shake the feeling that cranking out some more features and better marketing would bring in more revenue...
- janekm 3y agoI think the idea is "figure out a list of people who appear to have shared interests whom you might enjoy talking to", but the chatgpt reference does appear odd indeed
- yread 3y agoOh yeah that sounds like a nice idea. Good luck trying to find them among 5000 delegates based on an outdated linkedin photo if they don't respond to your connect request though.
- etothepii 3y agoI suspect that it's better features and more marketing.
- llimos 3y ago> They are the people who are actually reading the conference blurb. They look at email on their phones with greater intensity than ever happens at the office. They endlessly circulate the room, like bits of plastic in the ocean waiting to be snagged on something. They take a seat in the main hall while the sound engineers are still testing the microphones. Ouch.
- Tycho 3y agoI think extroversion and introversion are just orthogonal skill sets. The solution can simply be “get better at extroversion.” For instance, small talk. You may style yourself as someone too intellectual to be entertained by small talk, and profess to be terrible at making small talk. This is to misunderstand the value proposition of small talk, which is to establish trust and rapport with strangers before you commit to sharing any high value information. To be fair the value of social customs are often not grokked even where they are followed and are effective. But if you need a reason for everything, figure it out. Also, confidence. This is simply a function of how positively you expect others to receive your presence/engagement. People who are quiet and taciturn in one setting will often be charismatic and open in another setting where they know the audience. Realistically appraise why others might react positively to you, and work on being able to deliver that value. The confidence will flow naturally from there.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lylejantzi3rd 3y agoWhat you describe has nothing to do with introversion or extroversion. Those are social skills and, yes, they're learnable. My favorite book on the subject is superhuman social skills by Tynan. He's an introvert. If you're curious, Introversion and Extroversion are characterized by different brain chemistry. Introverts make more heavy use of the acetylcholine pathways in the brain and Extroverts make more heavy use of the dopamine/adrenaline pathways in the brain. A more detailed analysis can be found here: https://musingsonmormonism.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/easily-the-most-fascintaing-and-illuminating-comparison-of-introversion-and-extroversion-ive-ever-seen/ https://musingsonmormonism.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/easily-t...
- Tycho 3y agoWhen you exercise different skills, your brain activity changes, yes. Doesn’t mean these are real categories. Brain activity of a tennis player will be different from the brain activity of a concert pianist.
- Tuggtablett 3y agoHow come such an article ends up with 30+ points? There's literally no meaningful information. I'd look into what accounts upvoted this link, something seems off.
- screamingninja 3y agoMany of us upvote seemingly useful titles before reading the article. This one turned out to be clickbait.
- _chu1 3y agoHonestly I read this website for the comments 70% of the time.
- klibertp 3y agoThere are supposedly many introverts frequenting HN and longing for any help they could get in building their network. Some of them probably reflexively upvoted the article without looking at it first. Since it's impossible to un-vote a story, those upvotes remained even as they came back here to complain about lack of meaningful content in the article.
- yura 3y ago> Since it's impossible to un-vote a story When I vote a story, an "unvote" button appears to the left of the "parent | context | flag" buttons. Are you saying that it doesn't work?
- klibertp 3y agoNo... I just honestly didn't notice it's there! Will need to check if it works next time, thanks for the tip :)
- msp26 3y agoThe article is shit; I just wanted to encourage more discussion on the topic in the comments.
- anoncow 3y agoHow does me being an introvert change concepts of networking? Ah! This is the "other" networking.
- lopatin 3y agoI was like "What's so extroverted about setting up a NAT?". I am not a smart person.
- runald 3y agoJust talk to people with UDP, that way you don't have to do handshake, just speak without waiting for your turn. When they say "I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that, can you repeat?", you'd just go back to your little corner and drop all incoming packets, and wait until the party ends.
- dentemple 3y ago"Quiet Contemplation for Extroverts: A How-To Guide to Sitting the Fuck Still For an Hour" I'm fine as I am as an introvert, thank you very much. Maybe we're not the only ones who need to be more accommodating of the world?
- chefandy 3y agoSo... in the context of career networking... Everybody should just mind their business and leave each other alone?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Lutger 3y agoNah, the mirror image of this would probably be a meetup for management type folks, with talks praising the efficacy of NOT interrupting your team when doing work requiring deep attention, let them only come to the office when it is really useful, stop doing meetings, etc.
- chefandy 3y agoExtroverted developers suffer from interrupts just as much as introverted developers, and I've been interrupted numerous times by very introverted managers. This is a matter of understanding developer workflows and uniquely severe context switching penalty-- not a difference between introverts and extroverts.
- lolinder 3y agoI just switched jobs from an extroverted manager to an introverted one, and the difference is night and day. My new manager doesn't feel the need to talk to me except for at scheduled times or if I reach out to him. Outside of those windows, I'm free to focus 100%. I don't think he is doing it on purpose, it's just the most natural way for him to act. My previous manager couldn't stay in his seat for more than two hours at a time without coming over and talking to me—sometimes about work, but often about politics or whatever else was on his mind. He could have used a training session along the lines of what OP proposes.
- fredgrott 3y agoIgnore this, my bias is that I am in fact an introvert.... 1. Figure out what subjects you are passionate about. 2. Now, figure out what medium you can express that in 3. given those two choices the SM platforms to use would be Instagram LinkedIN X Youtube Medium 4. Now the money part....the value is knowledge+access That means in your chain of SM output you want to eventually pivot to something like one day of streaming on Youtube *Important! Medium just changed their revenue algos...you get paid more for reads at Medium now, I will clear just under $1k this month and will be under 25k views...and yet I am busy building code for some textbooks I am writing....
- arnorhs 3y agoFor me, the real problem is actually showing up. I know it would be good for me and I'd drive some benefits, could open up connections. But the idea of going to an event and chatting with people feels revolting.
- amelius 3y agoIf only there was a small-talk LLM that could operate over a brain interface.
- andrewfurey2003 3y agostartup idea
- amelius 3y agoMaybe an invisible airpod. Could work for dating too, LLM as your wingman ;)
- SanderNL 3y agoDon't want to awaken any sleeping dogs here, but what the author describes reminds me more of social anxiety and/or self-esteem issues than introversion. I'm an introvert. I can sit still and not speak to anyone for weeks and be fine. Happier even. Having no-one around recharges me like nothing else. The reverse is true as well which makes me incredibly popular at parties /s. When I was young(er), a networking event (or social event of any kind tbh) would have scared me to no end and have me act akward. I'm older now and through the grace of aging I give substantially less fucks. Suddenly these things are no longer the problem they once were. My introversion hasn't changed, in fact I think it got worse. I have somewhat of a test for this. I think about or even just approach a random person and try to strike a conversation as authentically as I'm able. If even the thought gets me nervous, that's anxiety, not introversion. In my experience a bout of introversion-hunger will feel like "I need to space out now". Like I can't even be bothered with anxiety anymore. Getting rid of anxiety has a massive ROI. Getting rid of introversion won't work and will probably backfire. At least, that's my experience.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoThis for sure; it's a kind of anxiety that can be alleviated with self-confidence and exposure over time, or in other words, practice. Loads of people have trouble with small talk because they don't know how it works, but it can be learned and practiced.
- azan_ 3y agoHow to learn it?
- lacrimacida 3y agoHow about getting extremely drained in loud and chaotic environments where even conversation abilities break down due to noise? Im getting older and give a lot less fucks as well but some things that were extremely unpleasant that I used to have a hard dime with are no longer on my calendar. Why go through the pain when there is zero gain? Why even bother? If I really have to, in such environments, in order to tolerate it I blast white noise on my headphones, kindof pointless in the end if you ask me. Whereas small settings, with less than a dozen people around are a lot more productive. Not hiding this fact makes it even more tolerable, I just excuse myself from these envs.
- neilv 3y ago> The researchers randomly changed the “People You May Know” recommendations algorithm that LinkedIn shows its users, so that the prevalence of weaker and stronger connections varied among people on the site. The experiment showed that weaker ties (where a pair of users had only one mutual friend, say) were more likely to lead to job applications and job moves than those where people had 25 mutual friends or more. Was this research experiment with people's careers and livelihoods done with informed consent of human subjects?
- bartread 3y agoThis sounds like a fair question, and it might be (including from a legal standpoint - IANAL), but the way I figure it LinkedIn will be constantly experimenting with their recommendations anyway, whether those results are shared for research purposes or not, and they're not going to ask your permission to do that. It's what you sign up for when you join the site. And it's the same with other social media. Perhaps it seems more seriously because it's LinkedIn and it's a "professional" network. I'm not really defending them: it's more that I've always taken the view that I am responsible for my career and, whilst LinkedIn's tools and recommendations might be helpful, they're also not definitive, and I'm not going to hold them responsible for either opportunities that don't work out or for failing to show me all possible opportunities that might be a good fit.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoIt reminds me of Facebook's experiments where they tweaked people's feeds to alter their moods - sometimes for the worse.
- cvwright 3y agoTrying to find people more job opportunities is very different from trying to make people depressed.
- bartread 3y ago> Trying to find people more job opportunities is very different from trying to make people depressed. Yeah, but having suffered with depression myself, having had a friend with depression commit suicide, and having seen my dad's life utterly ruined by it, I'll take LinkedIn fucking around with potential job opportunities every day of the week and twice on Sundays. And, to be absolutely clear: no, I am not joking. Facebook manipulating peoples' mood and thinking is a far worse and more pernicious problem. A person's career is serious business, but it's not the most serious business.
- revskill 3y agoIntroverts should never deal with Networking.
- kdottt 3y ago[dead]
- totetsu 3y agoThat’s when you start talking to people at the party about your CCNA qualification
- montgomery_r 3y agoI read the article and remembered why I cancelled my sub to The Economist. This was written by an intern who had half read the research paper with 15 minutes to filing deadline. LI/virtual and physical networking aren't the same, and, per comments, the author had not taken the trouble to understand what an introvert is. Poor stuff.
- mongol 3y agoI think it was funny. Not much meat to it but entertaining. If every article was written like this, it would be tiresome, but a few per issue I don't mind.
- UI_at_80x24 3y agoI'll have you know I've been networking for a VERY long time. Token Ring, IPX, SMB, and then most recently TCP/IP. =) Seriously though, I describe myself as a gregarious introvert. I'm an only child so I also love being the center of attention. And, (no surprise) I was also the class clown. I can mask really well, so none of it shows. I dislike being in crowds/groups where I haven't known people for many years. That wouldn't stop me from getting on stage during an open-mic comedy night though. I prefer to sit quietly reading a book though.
- billbrown 3y agoI found Matthew Pollard's "The Introvert's Edge to Networking" to be an outstanding resource. (Don't be fooled by the awful branding around it: I listened on Audible and never saw all the Over-the-Top marketing until just now.) https://matthewpollard.com/theintrovertsedge/networking https://matthewpollard.com/theintrovertsedge/networking