On today’s show – Fostering connections and being a better networker.

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My guest today is Jessica Levin, President and Chief Connector at Seven Degrees Communications and author of “The Art of Connecting People: Why Planners Should be Master Connectors.” Jessica’s made a career out of bringing people together for mutual benefit and by teaching others to do the same.

Jessica has a very interesting approach to networking. Sure, she goes to meet & greets and cocktail hours like the rest of us. She uses social media and other tools to expand her social network like we all do. But what makes Jessica’s approach unique is what happens next. She actively identifies people’s resources, strengths and challenges and then matches them up with others  in her network who can complement them in some way. And by setting people up for success in this way, Jessica believes that her entire network benefits. As event marketers, this is a tremendously important skill to understand and Jessica speaks to it very well.

In our discussion, Jessica teaches me the difference between networking and connecting – how networking is quite passive compared with connecting, which is more of a problem-solving activity. We talk about the inadequacies of the basic cocktail hour and what event professionals can do to foster more profound connections at their events.

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