[jblow]

I feel like a reasonably successful person at this point, and I don't do "networking". I am not uncommon in this regard; most of the most successful people people in my industry do not do "networking". That's why I posted my original comment; I feel it is a reality, among at least a very strong subculture of talented people, that is underrepresented in rhetoric.

Addressing some of the other replies: I have done certainly a lot of speaking engagements, and yes, these have been very helpful for becoming more known and whatever, but I never do them for that reason; I always do a speech because I have something specific that I really want to say. Any publicity is a by-product (and sometimes publicity is highly aggravating and undesired). I certainly don't try to meet people via speaking events, parties, dinners, whatever. Sometimes I do end up meeting people, but not that often really, and again, it is a by-product.

In my experience, successful people almost always go to a party just to go to a party and relax or see what's up. They aren't going to a party for ulterior motives like maybe meeting someone who they might be able to get something out of and blah blah blah. Actually, successful people often just don't go to parties because they have other things to do and parties where you don't have a strong peer group are not going to be very interesting.

If you have a specific business objective, you are not going to solve that by randomly going to an event and having random conversations. You are going to solve it by calling someone on the phone or emailing them. If you don't have a specific business objective, you probably won't find much traction with whatever you are doing unless you get a specific business objective.