Being a Relater

At the Tumblr event on Sunday, I met Bill Cammack while standing with a group of friends. In his recent post, he talks about how he didn’t recognize my Twitter name or my real name, and therefore was unable to place me in context. He also mentions that’s he when he tried several times to draw a connection between us, and found none.

Now, to be fair, Bill did a very good job at facilitating our initial conversation. However, it’s easy for me to tell people what I “do right now” with any number of simple answers — marketing, advertising, search marketing, digital media — and much, much more difficult to explain what it is that I “do.” Because I do a lot of things. And to his credit, he did a very thorough e-stalk on me, and emailed me with all sorts of comments and questions.

Yes, I am in advertising. But I’m also a geek, a writer, a blogger, an author, a photographer, a photojournalist, a restaurant reviewer, a programmer, a world traveler, a public speaker, a fluent Mandarin Chinese speaker, an entrepreneur, a web and graphic designer, a videographer, an inline speed skater, and probably a lot of other things that I’m forgetting.

And I have a VERY wide range of interests which are arguably even more varied than my background.

The point here is not to brag. The point being I have a *very* diverse background, and thus am usually able to contribute an experience or some knowledge to most any conversation that is happening.

This makes me quite good at small talk. But it still doesn’t mean I enjoy it by any means. I’m still fundamentally an introvert who happens to possess some SERIOUSLY STRONG extroverted qualities.

Bill is obviously a good conversation starter. And he’s a fantastic networker for this reason. I’m also good at networking, but I use tend to use a different approach to conversations.

As a keen observer, I prefer to move around a room, watch how people are interacting, overhear a couple of conversations, and then find one where I can jump in. This is my way of finding context, when it isn’t possible to know something in advance about the person standing in front of me. Plus, the participants in the conversation are already more interested in talking to me than if we had all started cold, because I’ve made myself relevant to what they’re already talking about.

I’m a relater.

In my experience, people aren’t interested in “you.” They’re interested in how “you” are interesting to them. Being a relater is a good way to efficiently and effectively establish common ground, and skip the whole awkward “Uh, so, yeah, what do you do? Uh huh. And how is that?” And that’s the part that I dislike. Not the getting to know you part.

Being a relater makes me highly proficient at virtual networking, because I have a wealth of information at my disposal. You might not know me yet, and you definitely do not yet know that you want to know me, but when I make initial contact with you, I will demonstrate by relating my experiences and knowledge to your own.

I find that people come across an article which inspires them, they’re likely to think to themselves, “Well, man, the author of that article is obviously inspiring himself and he must get a bajillion emails a day with people telling him how inspiring he is. Yeah, it’d be nice if I sent him an email and told him how inspired I was, but it will be one of the bajillion that he gets everyday and there is no point because why would he respond to mine over all of the other ones?”

Uh, helloooo, self-defeatist.

Not to say that this internal monologue isn’t EXACTLY correct. Because it absolutely is. But nobody is forcing you to be boring and normal like everybody else.

WHY was it inspiring to you?

WHY did you find it interesting?

WHY was it more on-point than anything else like it?

Chances are, the author wants to know.

Maybe it’s just because I started using the internet when I was so young, and I had not yet had a chance to develop the attitude described above. But when I come across something or someone who inspires me, I always reach out. I’ve made it habit. I’ve gotten to be an ace at writing self-introduction emails. I think it’s a good skill to have.

However, that doesn’t mean that “real-life networking” is any less important. Apparently, Bill wasn’t the only one who didn’t get a full impression of who I am.

I also gave my stock “Oh, I’m in marketing” answer to Marco Arment, one of the founders of Tumblr who came up to me and introduced himself because he recognized me from my Tumblr. In an email exchange this week after finding out more about me, he wrote “I completely underestimated your geek level.”

So, what I’ve learned from writing this post is that I need to get better at delivering my “personal” elevator speech. Because otherwise, I leave the person feeling befoogled.

June 15th, 2008

 

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