Socrata

Many moons ago I was a twenty-something programmer with the social graces of a twenty-something programmer. Two or Three months into a new job I was invited to a party at the home of Jim, a co-worker whom I hadn’t come to know all that well. Jim was a kind of quiet guy. He was our application architect and as an early career programmer I wasn’t yet exchanging a lot of banter with the architect. I didn’t think he even knew my name actually.

I showed up at Jim’s house and he greeted me at the door. “Come with me said.” He led me to some guy whose name I don’t remember, but whom I’ll just call Dave for now. Jim proceeded to introduce us. “Kevin this is Dave, a friend of mine from college. Dave, Kevin started working with me a few months ago as a programmer. You guys are both huge 49er fans, you both like to race mountain bikes and you both inexplicably waste perfectly good Saturday mornings luring unsuspecting trout from idyllic streams. You two have much in common. I’ve got to circulate and mingle, but I thought you two would hit it off.”

I learned a lot that night about the power of a genuine and authentic introduction. Jim knew more about me than I knew he did. He recognized that I’d be coming to a party where I wouldn’t know many people. He broke the ice and provided a context to start a dialog with someone with whom he thought I’d have something in common.

Since that experience I pay a lot more attention to the introductions I make and receive. You should too. What does it say when you try to connect via Linkedin but won’t even bother changing the default greeting? What does it say when you won’t even compose an optional greeting when you send a friend request through Facebook? What’s the implication when you make a half-hearted introduction between two people without providing context?

Every introduction you make contributes to your reputation and has a dramatic impact on the reception of the introduction itself. Make the 10 minute investment to provide a genuine, authentic introduction.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.