Last week we held a networking event at the Brier Creek Country Club.  It was an event that I organized together with LinkingRaleighNC and YoungTechStars.com.  When I first started working with Greg Hyer on the idea of a joint event, we weren’t sure what to expect.  I wanted to get people together to talk about business ideas; Greg is all about LinkedIn (besides founding LinkingRaleighNC, he also teaches classes in using LinkedIn for career and business) and wanted to have a live event for his nearly 5,000 LinkingRaleighNC members.  So we decided on a networking event that would be of interest to LinkingRaleighNC members, NC Startup Blog readers and also to Taylor Barr’s YoungTechStars.com readers.  We figured if we can get 20 people together, we can get a room at a restaurant or country club and serve lunch.  Frankly, we weren't sure if there would be enough interest.  It turned out we were quite wrong about the interest level.  Registration quickly got beyond 20 and we shut it off when we hit 65, because that's all the room could accommodate.

Greg and I were both interested in covering the on-line and off-line aspects of networking.  There seems to be this divide between on-line and off-line networking that appears somewhat parallel with a generational and technological divide.  And a racial one as well as we later realized, but more about that below. 

Since we were going to talk about networking, we wanted to bring some speakers in that could talk about on-line networking as well as off-line networking.   For the on-line part I couldn’t think of anyone better than Wayne Sutton.  Wayne is a social media strategist and consultant and easily the most socially networked person that I know.  For the off-line, or “in-person” networking part, we invited Chuck Hester, a local legacy known for his LinkedIn Live events that draw upward of 350 people every other month. 

Now as bad luck would have it, Greg Hyer had a family emergency and could not be present.  At the last minute a very gracious Martin Brossman agreed to jump in and cover Greg's speaking topic.  Martin is a professional sales and career coach and brought his years of networking experience to the event.

So our speaker line-up looked like this:
Martin Brossman:  Strategies for the Entrepreneur Using LinkedIn
Wayne Sutton:  Using Social Media to Build Your Business and Support Your Career
Taylor Barr:  New Media Roundkick – the Tools for Networking
Chuck Hester:  In-person Networking: Paying it Forward

The folks at Brier Creek Country Club set up a nice spread for lunch and as people arrived they mixed and mingled and got themselves settled with lunch and drinks.

I did a brief introduction and tried to set the stage for a discussion about networking in two different worlds: on-line and off-line.  I seems a bit like old versus new.  And we might think the new (on-line) is replacing the old (off-line).  Personally, I think that that's not the case at all.  On-line networking is simply an extension of the tried and true methods of networking.

In the old (and not so distant) days your network was the people you know from work, sports, neighbors, church and any other organizations you belong to.  Because you belonged to the same organizations, you automatically had common interests and knowledge.  And “networking” meant keeping in touch with phone calls, water cooler talk, over coffee or lunch and the annual Christmas cards. 

Then in the last few years Social Media came around and introduced an overwhelming and often confusion array of on-line tools for networking.  But networking itself hasn't changed.  Social media allows you to be more effective and more efficient with your networking.  All the “old” networking activities, from coffee to Christmas cards, still hold the same value.  But that doesn't mean that you can ignore the social media tools for networking.  Social media has made networking more powerful and, somewhat unfortunately, more competitive.

All this quickly became apparent when we started the presentations and Martin Brossman talked about what LinkedIn can do for your job search and your business.  If you build your profile well, people can find you and get meaningful information about you.  Likewise, LinkedIn can prepare you for an interview or business meeting. 

Wayne Sutton talked about what to consider when using social media for your business or career.  He gave a short version of his consulting work where he helps companies get a meaningful on-line presence.

Taylor Barr reviewed just a few of the many tools that are mostly free and that allow you to quickly and easily upload pictures, videos and audio files.  There are many ways to build your on-line presence. 

Finally, Chuck Hester took us back to the personal part of networking.  His Paying-It-Forward concept has become so popular that he travels the country and the world speaking about it (his latest book on the subject is out now).  And Chuck also spoke about his LinkedIn Live events (the next one is May 12th) and about the importance of building your networking by selflessly offering favors without necessarily expecting anything in return.

The event stirred up a lot of interest and enthusiasm for the attendees to build their network and their on-line presence.  And many new connections were made and that's what we were hoping for.

Afterward I had a chat with Wayne about something he said in his talk.  He had mentioned diversity as one of the strategies to consider for your on-line presence.  And he had pointed out that he was the only black person in the room.  It had not occurred to me until he said it, but this struck as completely odd.  Here are 65 people from across the Triangle and from a broad range of backgrounds coming together to talk about networking and there is just one black person.  Seeing how publicity and registration for the event was all done on-line, there could not have been any racial selection for this event.  What's more, very few people at the event knew each other beforehand, so it was not a reflection of the existing network that people brought with them. 
Wayne felt it related to the black community's lack of interest in professional networking and their views on the potential benefits of social media – what it is and what it can do for you. 

Whatever it is, it creates a social gap.  I believe there used to be a social gap that had a racial aspect to it when it comes to who is and who isn't on-line.  But that has largely gone away now that the cost of getting on-line has come down.  Lets hope we don't see a new gap around the use of social media and on-line networking.  Social media is capable of being an equalizer with regard to our on-line presence; lets hope it really is.

I welcome any comments or opinions on this issue.  Is there a racial divide in social media and on-line networking?