Networking – deepening your involvement with the professional community

Engaging with your professional community serves two purposes:

• It allows you to keep learning and growing through the work and insights of others.
• It also allows you to share your own insights, successes, and failures with the very people who can appreciate them the most.

Networking has acquired a bad reputation over the years. It conjures images of stuffy rooms full of strangers, places where you put on a brave face and an air of confidence to “work the room.” Maybe you give yourself a quantifiable goal: “Meet five new AI PMs today.” Maybe you do indeed speak to them and exchange a few words but nothing meaningful or especially substantial comes of it. You’ve done the work. You’ve left your house, met five strangers, and checked off the “networking” box on your to-do list. The connections feel lukewarm at best and the experience...