Communicating and networking

Seems there is a difference in focus between communication and networking, although the foundational skills and principles are very close, - we communicate to network and communicate via our networks. Let me try and distinguish.

Communication:

Passing a message, striving for mutual understanding, listening and crafting (targeting) for your audience, selecting the right medium, seeking to be understood, turn taking and 'floors'.

Networking:

Exchange of values, maintaining contact, balance and reciprocity, seeking to extend your reach and range, looking to include as many weak ties as possible, focus on relationships, positioning and connectivity.

Perhaps communication is an investment in being understood, telling, exchanging content and listening, while networking is investing in relationships, building social capital and exchanging value via transactions.

The same basic communication competencies apply, but there are additional key attributes in networking. Wayne Baker (author of "Achieving success through social capital") gives 10 interventions that get at some of this:

1) Facility design and location. Placement at natural intersections and designing for 'collisions'

2) Hiring decisions, who and what a person knows more than how they say or deliver it

3) Cultivating diversity and cross disciplinary links rather than segmenting, fine tuning and empathy for audiences

4) Rotating work programs to match and mix, increase the number and variety of contacts

5) Providing regular opportunities for exchanges and learning

6) Building communities of practice to accrue trust and strengthen bonding, communication is more ephemeral, once-off, message passing, an event related activity

7) Engaging in participatory activities in addition to conversation and dialog

8) Building for the longer haul, in networking trust, reciprocity, delivery, responsibility is greater

9) Outreach to connect to isolated clusters vs. getting attention and passing a message

10) Giving without thought of return, vs. crafting a meme.

Do not wish to downplay communication, it is a key managerial competency. Networking just has a different focus, strategy and goal IMO. Networking skills, like communication, are learned best via example, though failure and by practice. It certainly helps to be around a 'master' and to have a mentor.

Does this distinction work for you?

Comments

[Denham]

David,

Agree, communication is all about messages and goals - networking, I'm suggesting, is more about relationships and social capital.

[David Locke]

Sorry, but networking is communications. Goals and such are content. What did we communicate before networking whether social or technical? Nothing!

The cave paintings were about the hunt. Communications about the hunt were oriented towards the achievement of the goal of survival.

All media transfers the communications artifact as the realization of a set of requirements, otherwise known as goals. That the media has a NIC card or a smile attached isn't particularly different in regards to goal orientation.