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Angelo Romasanta

Networking

Networking experiment

Posted on December 21, 2020

As an extremely introverted person, I really find it difficult to network. Connecting with strangers really drains me. I do not like its transactional nature. And the truth is I am too much of a mess during small talk. I always feel awkward, afraid of running out of things to say. Networking cocktails still do not feel natural to me. I’m still trying to understand how to enter and exit conversations.

However, once I’ve connected with somebody, that’s the easy part. I can easily handle one-on-one coffees and just random chats. I like listening to people and trying to help them however I can.

This year, to force myself to “go out” more and create new relationships, I pushed myself to conduct an experiment. This experiment started from October, so about 3 months now. It was simple:

Every weekday, I would connect with one interesting stranger on Linkedin.

That’s it. Either I come across their profiles when they liked a post of a current contact or I come across one of their work that I found interesting. I tried to do it everyday but there were just some days when I just could not think of whom to connect with. I then connect with them with a personal note on why I would like to be their contact.

Since the experiment started, I’ve sent out invites to 56 people. Out of these, 47 have connected with me. Out of these 47, 8 sent a personalized response, typically thanking for connecting. Out of these 8, I’ve chatted with 3 people.

I think it’s been a successful experiment so far. For someone who barely used Linkedin to now connecting with one person every day, I think it’s a good achievement already. However, I had not been too deliberate about scheduling conversations with these people to get to know them better. For next year, my goal then is to increase my rate of personally connecting with newly formed connections.

Low risk, high reward

Posted on September 30, 2020September 30, 2020

Before I started my PhD, I came across this wisdom that would change my life forever. I don’t remember anymore from whom I got this tip from originally but I’ve heard it many times since then from various outlets like Jordan Harbinger show, the Serendipity Mindset book, etc. Ever since I have started applying this advice to my life, it has opened up to great opportunities that I would not have gotten otherwise. I won’t keep you waiting any longer, the wisdom is simply this: don’t be afraid to reach out to strangers.

As an introvert and a naturally anxious person, it was difficult for me to initiate in the past. But then, imagining the worst case scenario made me realize that the worst thing that can happen is that the recipient ignores my email, never to remember my name ever again.

I’ve gotten internships, opportunities to travel and speak, met fascinating people just by this small advice. I typically just message people either on LinkedIn or email about something that interests me about what them or what they have done recently. If I read an interesting paper, I message the author. If I see somebody giving a fascinating talk, I contact the speaker.

I was doing it on and off. I never really made it a habit to message people religiously. I also never tracked the number of positive responses I’ve received.

As an experiment, I’ll start doing this more consistently and systematically from this point onward. I will message one person every weekday. I will be tracking my results in this blog.

About This Site

I am Angelo, a postdoctoral researcher in innovation management at ESADE Business School. In this blog, I share my learning adventures.

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