Networking 2.0

By Cleo Thompson, founder of The Gender Blog

“I haven’t got time for networking”, one senior woman from a major City of London investment bank told me recently.

“All that standing around in rooms full of complete strangers, drinking either bad wine at the end of a long day, or bad coffee and stale croissants at the start of another day – no thanks. It’s so unstructured and unfocused, and such a bad use of my time. I’m sure there probably ARE useful and interesting people at some of these events – but how on earth do you find them in a packed room, and what use might we be to each other?”

Other women told a similar tale, with one commenting that she had now stopped going along to organised “group meet ups”, as she found that she either knew no-one, or would see a familiar face in the crowd and then “cling to that person for the whole evening, thus negating the idea of meeting new people!”

In response to this changing mindset – and independently of each other – two London based women have begun to evolve a more nuanced, “networking 2.0” framework, which delivers the benefits of what we might perhaps call “old school” networking – expanding your contacts, sharing connections and skills – but which also uses technology and social media interfaces.

Alpha Female: on-line networking

“I’d had the idea bubbling away for years”, explains Carol Paterson Smith, rising star at Rothschild Blackpoint, founder of Alpha Female and recently profiled on The Glass Hammer.

“And I wanted to create something for those women whom Suzanne Doyle Morris (author of “Beyond the Boys’ Club”) has dubbed the “Robo Babes”: women who enjoy being women, who don’t want to ape men, who embrace their femininity; women who are very bright, know their stuff and who are very hard working.

“What my friends, colleagues and contacts were telling me was that they wanted a website which could give them more than just a networking hub – somewhere they could turn when they needed to know things like how to negotiate for a better bonus or how to be a great role model.”

She continues: “I also wanted to create something that is beautiful, chic, inspiring and which celebrates the rewards of working hard. We showcase great places to shop and to visit, and we promote suppliers who appreciate that alpha women work the hours that they do and need their services. It’s important to tell the market that we are here and that we need looking after.”

Paterson Smith is also clear that Alpha Female can appeal to different generations of women, observing that: “For younger women, it’s a one stop shop for finding role models and building your network; for more established women, it’s about connecting them to their peers.”

Twenty-first century women

Her model of targeted networking appears to be a hit – in only a few short weeks since the site’s launch, over 500 women have signed up and Paterson Smith is full of ideas for ways to get the word out and attract more suppliers and female participants.

“Twenty-first century feminism is about fun, success and connecting with like minded women. My goals for Alpha Female are huge, and global too. I’d love to create regional specific site hubs, such as pages on NYC and Paris, and add a philanthropic component by supporting specific charities such as Hera (which helps formerly trafficked women become entrepreneurs). I have plans to add in lots more content, and business focused educational material too. And I can see a time in the not too distant future where an Alpha Female member could, for example, move to Hong Kong from New York and arrive there with a readymade network of contacts with whom she’s previously connected through the site.

“Finally, I also want to work with head-hunters to encourage them to support and advance female candidates and to challenge their thought processes around recruitment and advancement.”

Innovative networking for your career

Staying with the career theme, across town, successful serial entrepreneur Christina Ioannidis is turning her hand to connecting diversity, skills and networking via the use of an innovative suite of social networking tools.

Ioannidis is an organisational and individual development consultant, with a background in telecoms, IT and FMCG who turned entrepreneur. She runs both Aquitude, a consultancy which works with corporate clients to assist them in harnessing diversity and innovation for competitive advantage and Bidiversity, a not-for-profit which aims to fertilise innovative thinking between different business sectors.

Most recently, she has moved into career development for women, by creating Club Purl, an invitation only networking group for women of differing levels of seniority and industries from around the world who can connect via LinkedIn, personal development webinars, privately hosted networking dinners and structured, one-of-a-kind, virtual “speed networking” calls.

Ioannidis, London based and of Greek and Venezuelan heritage, is a committed and passionate networker, dubbing herself the “mistress of reinvention”, following her double corporate redundancy and the failure of her original bespoke accessories business. She is clear that she has learned the hard way that you need to move on in order to create credibility and reinvention – and that networking with your female peers can be one way of progressing.

Branding

“Very often, women consider themselves to be victims in a very difficult business culture – but there are things you can do to get yourself out there and build your own brand. I created Club Purl because women are good at supporting each other but lack the opportunity to do so in a structured way”, she explains.

“Yes, you can go to a networking event and have breakfast, lunch or drinks with a like minded woman – if you happen to find her. But suppose you can’t find her, let alone a number of other women? What I wanted to craft was a framework and a format which would help women to take control of their own careers by using a combination of networking and peer mentoring, in order to extend their circle of influence both in the UK and globally.

“I think of it as insurance; nobody’s really looked at the fact that we pay car, household, health and travel insurance but we’ve never yet had insurance for your career.”

Thus, Ioannidis positions the annual subscription for membership of Club Purl as professional insurance (“for the price of a latte”) – a policy which will help you in the event of business failure or redundancy. It provides a network, a framework and a support system for now or serves as career development for the future.

Participating in this type of structured networking, and using the type of social networking tools with which many of us are already familiar can, Ioannidis believes, help women move towards control and ownership of their own career paths.

Using a process which she’s called Power Minds, Ioannidis has already connected women across the world in locations which include London, Dubai, Australia, and Singapore. She now plans to collaborate and bring the Club Purl/Power Minds concept to NYC. Her innovative suite of structured networking activities includes offering Power Minds conference calls, which enable women to network across geographical boundaries and industries. At present, these consist of around 6-8 women on each call, and are time boxed, with facilitated questions and a wrap up session.

An ardent user of Twitter, Ioannidis also offers Club Purl members access to webinars, which are based around personal branding and what she refers to as “individual DNA – how to use social media, how you’re branded, how you appear on-line and how you can promote yourself, via various channels, messages and achievements.”

The future of networking?

So what will networking look like in the next decade of this brave new world?

Christina believes that the world is getting smaller; “I see a spider’s web of networks across the globe, women connecting with each other and helping each other out. Networking is now no longer limited to physical events but is taking place virtually – and I see a future involving video networking to support that face to face need.”