A dating coach has a 3C's rule that rates a venue for meeting women that also may apply to networking for shyer people:
Conversation-friendliness: How easy is it to hold a conversation (no shouting, no loud music, seating (if needed) )
Community - What brings these people to this venue? (e.g. a bar - random dropins vs art showing - people interested in art). A general networking event may rate low on this index but a Ruby brigade meetup (shared interests) may be high
Continuity - How likely are you to meet these people again? How involved can you get?
By this rule, local monthly small entrepreneur, coder, hacker meetups may be a much better use of your time than trying a general purpose networking event. Every time I go to a big networking-type event (where I meet people whose job it is to network), I get reminded that its not really my thing; I really go just to observe how bad/well people can make small talk. It's good practice. If you really want to observe good networkers, go to a political fundraising event (these people are pros, for better or worse).
I have met people at networking events - the key thing is you'll know pretty quickly if you hit if off with someone - the whole point of networking (as explained to me by the best networker I know - a woman president of a tech company) is to setup a "1st date" to follow-up if you hit it off - you don't go to networking events to have a 20-min conversations with one person but to meet a number of potential people who you might hit it off with for lunch or business.
If you go to a networking event and participate, good luck and remember: "One of the most difficult social tasks is to join an activity that is already in progress." Basically that means going up to a group of people who are chatting. There are techniques for doing this but theory is cheap, execution counts.
Conversation-friendliness: How easy is it to hold a conversation (no shouting, no loud music, seating (if needed) )
Community - What brings these people to this venue? (e.g. a bar - random dropins vs art showing - people interested in art). A general networking event may rate low on this index but a Ruby brigade meetup (shared interests) may be high
Continuity - How likely are you to meet these people again? How involved can you get?
By this rule, local monthly small entrepreneur, coder, hacker meetups may be a much better use of your time than trying a general purpose networking event. Every time I go to a big networking-type event (where I meet people whose job it is to network), I get reminded that its not really my thing; I really go just to observe how bad/well people can make small talk. It's good practice. If you really want to observe good networkers, go to a political fundraising event (these people are pros, for better or worse).
I have met people at networking events - the key thing is you'll know pretty quickly if you hit if off with someone - the whole point of networking (as explained to me by the best networker I know - a woman president of a tech company) is to setup a "1st date" to follow-up if you hit it off - you don't go to networking events to have a 20-min conversations with one person but to meet a number of potential people who you might hit it off with for lunch or business.
If you go to a networking event and participate, good luck and remember: "One of the most difficult social tasks is to join an activity that is already in progress." Basically that means going up to a group of people who are chatting. There are techniques for doing this but theory is cheap, execution counts.