The Importance of Networking
The front page story of this month’s edition of Olivia Magazine, is all about the importance of networking. Olivia, a Finnish monthly for women striving for a well-rounded life, decided to focus on networking, and specifically why it is important for women. For expertise in this area, they turned to friend and contributor for Tattletech, Hanna Manninen, who dropped some knowledge.
In the article, Hanna shares some advice on networking and its real life application. In one anecdote, she talks about meeting with a young woman who sent her an application, not to hire her but rather to mentor her entrance into the PR industry. Hanna stresses the importance of sharing, urges that we should not be afraid of it, and suggests that with less fear of idea theft and more outstretched hands of support, one can succeed in business while simultaneously paying success forward.
Putting forth another example of this spirit of mutual success, the article also includes a story about Future Female, a network for women working in ICT or interested in technology, co-founded be Hanna, Krista Järvinen and Annikki Laine in October 2009.
Hanna concludes that younger generations of women are less jealous of each other and embrace change more than older generations, which is good because women are still a minority when it comes to power and authority do each other a disservice getting mired in competition.
It’s often easy to lose sight of the fundamentals behind networking since it has (1) become so much more immediate and transparent in the social media age (2) remained a business buzz-word for decades. However, networking is at its core the promise of mutually-implied success, a partnership of convenience perhaps, but still a partnership. We would all do well to focus less on competition and remember that people are involved at all levels of business, and therefor the most important part of networking is helping people and being open to help from others.
The November issue of Olivia is now available from kiosks, book and grocery stores across Finland.
