2 examples of why each connection counts
A few weeks back when I was going to back to Belgium I experienced two interesting situation that in modern networking that I wanted to write about. The first was while I was pulling my bags up the hill from my friend’s apartment to the metro. I was on my way back home after a four week vacation and had my luggage filled with both winter clothes and literature, so they were anything but light. I had not gotten far, when a young girl offered to help me. Obviously I needed help, so I accepted. As it turns out this young girl also worked as an au-pair but in Sweden. She was German and had learned Swedish really well during her year-long stay. We continued talking and did so for about 20 minutes or so, managing to find out quite a few details about each other. Before we parted ways we changed contact details in hope to stay in touch, an all of this happened before 5.30 in the morning.
During a layover in Mϋnchen I overheard two men speak, and as it turned out they did not know each other but just randomly began talking on the bus to the aircraft. The initiator of the conversation was an older American man. And the guy he started talking with was a younger student going on a study -abroad program, who wasn’t late to make it into a longer conversation. I don’t know if they decided to stay connected, but the situations are still interesting.
Both situations where less than half hour long and took place while being “on-the-way.” If there two guys would have meet 10 years back, they would have exchanged numbers and perhaps email, as would the German girl and I. But the chances of us keeping in touch over the phone would have been very spars and trough email it might just have lasted a couple of months. Then the situations would have been forgotten, and we would probably never have met again. Maybe in rare cases people did keep contact but very seldom and usually because the relationship had some kind of unique exchange, perhaps a special interest or so.
Today we have Facebook and other social networks, so of course the girl and I took each other’s full name and connected though the online network. We have emailed since then and will likely stay connected in the future. She is now back in Germany and perhaps I will go met her there one day? Perhaps the two men also connected through a social network, maybe LinkedIn or another, he young man will one day intern at the older man’s job, this is just speculations but it is still interesting.
Trough social network, you are connected without having constant interaction, if I don’t email the German girl every months I will still be updated with what she does and thus contact her once in awhile to stay connected. And because of that years can go by and we will still stay connected, even though we only met on the way to the metro for 20 minutes.
Today it does not matter where or when you meet or for how long, each meting can become a lifetime friendship. Therefore I encourage people to make sure to leave an opening for a reconnected even though you only met once. It is especially important for young people who have trouble finding jobs etc. Who knows what the lady who you gave your seat on the bus than help you with, if you don’t ask?
