Over the last month there has been a raging debate on the Australian .NET mailing list (http://www.stanski.com/services.aspx#dotnetlist) over whether developers and others in the ICT community should be members of a professional society such as the Australian Computer Society (ACS) or Engineers Australia, or any of the other bodies out there.  Despite being a member of the ACS for the last couple of years and currently sitting on the WA branch committee I've often wonder myself as to the true benefit of being a member.  Last night I got my answer.

One of the sub-groups within the ACS is that of Young IT and last night we had Ron Gibson present to a group of student and young professionals.  For those who don't know Ron, he is one of Australia's lead authorities in the area of business networking.

You've presumably all heard the adage "It's not what you know, it's who you know".  Ron took this to the next level by introducing us at the ground level to what makes a successful entrepreneur.  In his overview of networking skills he reiterated a number of times that in order to suceed in business you need to establish true, meaningful relationships with other people.  Of course this requires a bit of hard work and each relationship needs to be maintained.  But the real question, especially from the students, was how do I establish these relationships.

Establishing relationships comes down to how well you market yourself.  And by "market" I'm not refering to getting out there and cold calling people, I'm referring to increasing your "Visibility" and "Credibility".  Ron took these two areas and worked through a number of techniques for improving visibility (for example attending trade show, doing presentations) and credibility (writing articles).

Lastly, there were three points that Ron really drove home:
1) People tend to respond in kind to behaviour of others ("do onto others as you would want done on you" - or something similar)
2) Do a favour to get a favour, without expectation
3) People are more interested in themselves than in you (leverage this by asking questions that involve words like "you" or "your")

Ron's leaving comments were "Make Networking a Priority".  I couldn't agree more.  This is the best way, and might I be so bold to say the only way, to make opportunities for yourself.  These might be future employment, projects, future business or even a date for Saturday night ;-)

One of the biggest benefits of being a member of a professional body, such as the ACS is the networking opportunities that it provides.  Being a member is not enough, you have to attend events, volunteer to help out or even be on the committee to get the most out of the professional body.

I'm open to comments and welcome feedback.  I would imagine that everyone who attended last nights event would agree that the event was well worthwhile.