The last six weeks has been a blur of meetings, conferences and visits. I’ve met so many people and now am trying to sort through the various messages, emails and LinkedIn requests to bring some order and make sure I keep my promises. (So if I’ve said I will do something and you don’t hear from me, please message me – I do want to do whatever we talked about but may have forgotten). The title of this blog came at the end of one meeting where an attendee told one of the leads of the organisation that had hosted, that there was a saying in his language that “you make friends before you need them” and he felt that he’d made many new friends in his time at the event and was looking forward to seeing what these new connections might lead to.
I have loved going to conferences since I first took a deep breath and walked into a building full of strangers as a PhD student. I was a bit of an outlier in my research group so went to conferences on my own which was terrifying initially but then became one of the main conferencing strategies I drew on when I used to cover this topic as a researcher developer. Whilst I understood why people stuck with their colleagues, I could also see they were missing out on the joy of the unexpected connection.
I partly relived by PhD experiences when I attended the ARMA conference for the first time. As a VERY new member this was a glorious dive into what ARMA does and my head has been buzzing with possibilities since. I made a lot of connections and was reminded of a way I used to describe networking to postdocs. This first connection is a single thread – a starting point. To build this into a genuine contact, more threads need to follow. (I used to use this metaphor long before I became a knitter but it speaks to me even louder now so I will also educate you all on yarn weights into the bargain. Let’s imagine we started with crochet cotton…it’s very fine, but it’s there.)
Adding a connection on LinkedIn or following up with an email adds a thread to this beginning and we now have a lace weight connection. Finding a common acquaintance adds another and we’re now working with 4 ply (way more possibilities, easier to work with if you’ve got patience.)
Our connection might grow if we then meet at a future event (Double knitting – now we can start to create something more quickly) and start to exchange ideas and advice. We’re in Aran territory now where we can quickly navigate complexity and produce some cable patterns – in this tortuously strained metaphor this means we start to create new things. Choosing to meet up to explore common ground takes us to chunky weight and if all works out, you’re ultimately connected by super chunky yarn and working together on shared obsessions. We can rustle up a tank top or a complex project plan in an afternoon based on our shared interests, mutually beneficial skills and experience and common values.
I work in partnership across all the work I do at the University and have always wanted these ties to be as strong as possible. Having good relationships with people tends to make it easier to resolve tensions and difficulties because the relationship with that person is important. In fact I’ve said to several of my collaborators that they are more important to me than the projects we work on – when we’ve been in tense moments, knowing this has often (not always) given us something to hold onto whilst we work it out.
It also motivates me to put the work into the relationships so they maintain their “weight”. It’s easy for a working relationship to fray and weaken if you pull hard on the threads without making sure they are intact and continuing to add new ones. Being naturally interested in people and their wider lives helps, as does being patient and understanding when the ebbs and flows of life impact on their motivation or focus from time to time. Understanding what they need to get from the shared endeavour is key as is making sure that they do this for others. We should make time for kindness and caring – I work far better when I feel people are interested in me as well as my skills or knowledge. (I’m aware this isn’t the case for all, but it does impact for me.)
So, in coming weeks I’ll be sending out threads and seeing who reciprocates. Sometimes we jump straight to pretty substantial connections, sometimes it might be years later that the purpose of the connection becomes clear. But I’m always happy to connect and see where it takes us.
(And particular thanks to my AMAZING local yarn shop, Untangled in Galashiels who didn’t bat an eyelid when I came in and asked if I could take a photo of some random skeins and balls. The one on the right hand side is hand dyed by them and called Starry Night if you are looking for something wonderful to work with.)
