Last night was my monthly networking training group, and the topic of the evening was developing a networking action plan for 2010. As a part of that, we went around the room reporting on events we had attended last year.

We developed quite a list of networking events in Northern Virginia, and many of the people said it was the best part of the evening. By the way, if you are in the DC Metro area and want the list, DM me on Twitter, email me or leave your email in the Comments, and I’ll send you a copy of the list after I transcribe it.

And what if you aren’t in the DC Metro area? You can do the same thing and come up with a good list.

If you are in a regular networking group, such as BNI, you can ask everyone in the group to write down two events they attended last year. That should get a list.

Not in a regular networking group? No problem. Talk to the people you know who network regularly. Bring them all together for dinner or Happy Hour. Ask everyone who comes to bring two events with them.

Ask for more than just the names. Also ask for why they attended and their impressions. Much of the value last night was the discussion of why they were worth trying and the type of people who usually attend.

Before you know it, you’ll have a list of good events in your area. It’ll be worth your time. I know a lot of the networking in Northern VA, and I heard lots of new events last night.

Tags: Networking Events

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 10:48 am and is filed under Networking Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.