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I’ve been thinking about professional networking. Used to be, networking was about individual personal relationships. Established in-person and cultivated carefully. In fact, just yesterday, I heard a conversation about one of these people who are talented at schmoozing: “Anyone’d be envious of his Rolodex.”

(Seriously? Rolodex?)

Anyhow, the point was that over the course of a decades-long career, this fellow has cultivated many good business relationships. Probably hundreds.

Contrast that with my weekend experience with Twitter. I have no idea how to “apply” microblogging in a professional context (yet), which is what Twitter is, but I wanted to check it out. Mostly it is reminiscent of a very busy chat, with all kinds of random haiku-like thoughts winging over the wire. There are ways to filter for people in your own network, etc. But the most interesting thing, at least so far, has been looking at other people’s networks. The numbers of people that individuals are linked to are quite impressive: hundreds, thousands, and in some cases tens of thousands.

I signed up on Sunday. Filled out my profile, including my blog URL. Did other things all day. Went to bed. Woke up and looked, as is not unusual, at my blog stats. Huh? 300 more hits than usual overnight? Wow.

Okay, I’m sure lots of traditionalists would listen to that and say, “Yeah, but what does that have to do with the Rolodex full of business colleagues I’ve cultivated for decades?”

Meaning, they don’t see the value of these fast networking options.

The main reason people network is to hear about how other people are solving the same problems they face. The number one question a professional (compensation manager, software developer, technical instructor, manufacturer, etc., etc., etc.) wants to ask another professional is: “How’d you do that?”

People can get trained in fundamentals (definitions, concepts, design), but once that basic education is squared away, the next level of learning involves acquiring some situational expertise — learning about different situations, adding in variables that have implications on the system, and just basically looking at as many possible permutations as possible. The rationale being that if you have knowledge of all the things that can happen, you’ll be able to solve for them. You’ll have a clue.

To be professionally adept, you need an encyclopedic understanding of all the things that can happen in your work environment. Back in the day, you got that on your own, one experience at a time. Maybe you found some case studies, if you were of an academic bent. Or you made a point to meet up and chat pretty routinely with someone, or a few someone’s, from your Rolodex. You scratched their backs, they scratched yours, etc. Martinis and cigars all around.

Are those in-person, individual relationships good to have? No doubt. Are they “better” than the ability to access thousands of stories/cases/people via technology? I don’t know. If your point is discovery of effective practices in specific contexts, how does it not measure up? In fact, how does it not exceed your wildest dreams?

I am working from home. People at the office are creating dramas and chaos, and I’m hearing all about it from different people’s perspectives, phone call by phone call. Crap. Why does this happen?

I am annoyed, I have a ton of things to do, and I need to calm down.

So here’s a picture of the huecho wall in Kolob canyon. What you can’t really see clearly is how the wall leans in toward you. A LOT. So when you are climbing, it’s like you are falling over backwards the whole time.

Okay, all better.

Patrick talks about how practicing primary informs the intermediate backbends. Yup, I’m there. Did some experimenting recently to see if the long haul of primary really is a prereq, and keep coming up with yes. So be it.

This morning’s practice was lovely. First one without the little space heater since last fall. Yes, I am a wimp. I live in the desert where it’s warm(er than everywhere else), and still I use a space heater. Not today, though, and the silence was quite nice.

On the Matthew Sweeney wall dropback front, I am able to make my first contact with the wall at calf level. So now what? One last foot to the floor? Ah, my climbing career makes me shake my head at how easy that seems… a foot, a mere foot. What did I learn in climbing, though? Oh yeah: you can generate a shocking amount of force in a very short fall.

So now it’s a mind game.

Fine. I’ll just wait it out. Eventually my mind will get tired. That’s my secret strategy.