When networking is effective, you can often find yourself as a member of a team where you have connected the people or groups of people to each other. Much like the old way of putting out a fire where the bucket brigade passes the buckets from hand-to-hand, strong teams may not always know one another. And networkers put people and teams together making the chain strong.
I often make use of my network. And I also give to my network. Because I believe in the power of networking. In some instances, it is feasible to see needs that fit together. In some cases, the connections are made and something may or may not happen. In other situations, I find that I, as the networker, sometimes get included in the next steps.
A great case where I was involved in the actual establishing of the venture between the two groups was that of an ambitious team in offshore wind and that of an oil & gas focused company with an ambition to access the offshore wind market. An exciting journey began…on the Chinese wall, actually. Read about it here: