Networking At The Bugle

At The Bugle, being a great employee means being a networking maven. Most professionals have the luxury of only needing to network with others that work in their industry, but at The Bugle we are expected to have contacts in all corners of the social and professional world. Being connected makes us better at hearing the news and the sooner we hear the news, the sooner we can write the news.
    At The Bugle, one of my most esteemed colleagues Mr. Halifax talks to us about networking all the time. He says that networking is the single most important thing a journalist can do to build success. He says that before the age of the internet, networking was a much more difficult undertaking that required a ridiculous amount of time and energy. I suppose he is probably right. But, Mr. Halifax has mastered the tricks of the trade as they have evolved and now he networks like we all do: both on and off the internet but mostly on.
    Outside the internet, networking usually means that you have to make yourself available to meet people by attending events, volunteering with key organizations and arranging semi-casual social/professional meetings with contacts. These are all things that take a lot of time and energy but putting in the face time really makes the difference. People are much more likely to remember you when they've met you in person.
However, while putting in the personal man hours to build your contact matrix gives us networking quality, Mr. Halifax says that nothing can match the internet's ability to precipitate quantity. He once said that if he had to choose only one way to network for the rest of his career that he would choose the internet.
The internet is an unmatchable networking too: especially sites that are set up for social or professional networking like Facebook or Twitter. Some people argue that these sites are more for social networking and less for professional networking but Mr. Halifax says that businesses understand the merit in participating in the world of social media. He says that these sites provide a career tool for individuals and a marketing and advertising tool for businesses. Professionals can take advantage of the stream of real time information generated by Twitter and Facebook. They can also work to understand industry trends, follow and friend industry leaders and keep apprised of industry wide events and opportunities.
Now that I've had the opportunity to work alongside a networking genius like Mr. Halifax, I've realized the importance of having a professional network of my own. Hardly a weekend goes by that I don't attend an important event, have drinks with a contact or follow up on referrals and hardly an hour goes by that I don't find another key person to add to my friends or follow. I'm building my network because like Mr. Halifax says, it's the single most important thing a journalist can do to build success.