The art of networking

I am not a firm believer in networking. Correction up until the night before the LOA convention in the Western Cape - I wasn't a firm believer. I'm a convert.

The annual LOA convention kicked off with a dinner. Thefood, while delicious,and entertainment, while enjoyable,took adistant second and third place on the podium, with making contacts and talking the overall winner.

What did interest me was being party to the start of what will be an interesting business relationship between an ombud and a member of a portfolio committee. Interesting in that these two gentlemen have not spoken to each other yet in the course of their business lives.

I don't plan to name the gentlemen but it is a symptom of peoples business lives, where they don't make enough time during working hours to meet with stakeholders who could have a major impact on their mutual business lives.

What was also interesting was how much they had in common. But back to my point.

I believe weneedlonger working hours almost introducing the concept of permanent daylight savings time effectively adding an additional two hours per day in which to get our stuff done. And I never thought I would say this but we need more meetings.

People need to be talking to each other more, not less. We have almost built ourselves into personal and business silos, focused so much on the small stuff and missing the big picture.

And how do we do this please welcome technology up on stage. The technology could be video conferencing once the national broadband provider gets his act together, and makes this the affordable option it is in most other countries.

We spend too much time traveling and due to stress levels we try not to travel during working hours. So use the technology. It makes sense - doesn't it.