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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Networking for Nerds, published by Evie Cottrell on July 6, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Sharing because I think this post is so damn good and will likely be valuable for at least one person. Originally written by Ben Reinhardt. Check out his blog here; DM him on Twitter here. “Networking.” What a word. When I left grad school in 2015, networking was for slick-haired salesmen, former jocks, and social parasites in general. Real heroes built better mousetraps and the world beat a path to their doors. But then I looked at what real successes actually do - they lead a balancing act between connecting and building. Though Edison, Einstein, Musk (and anybody you may have heard of) have done real work, their projects would have been stillborn or failed if they didn’t know the right people: partners, employees, backers, supporters. Always the slave to the scientific method, I proceeded with a “networking might be useful” as a hypothesis and did many experiments. Some were successful, some less so. In the process I developed a set of tactics that unleashed many opportunities - a stint as an EIR at Susa Ventures, speaking at conferences in Brazil and SXSW, and getting a company off the ground. (I like to think that) these were all built on a door of real value, but tactical network building provided the key. Here are just a few of the specific tactics I’ve developed. At the end of the day, all of them boil down to one thing - make it easy for the other person - to remember you, to help, and to meet. Tactic 1: The Projection Model How do some people seem to wind up with advocates everywhere? They create a little mental model of themselves that makes it easy for everybody they meet. Everybody has a “projection” - a small representation - of each person they know living in their heads. You know that friend who’s “the badass interface designer who is looking to get into machine learning and consults?” She has an amazing projection and makes it easy for opportunities to find her. A projection can be distinct - “Ben is looking for X, Y, Z and can help with A, B, C.” Or it can be fuzzy - “Ben’s that guy with curly hair I think who I met at that meetup and we talked about a bunch of interesting stuff.” If it’s distinct, whenever X comes up in conversation, you will instantly come to mind, and you’ll start getting messages like “we were having a discussion about X and would love to bring you on as an advisor.” In my experience, there’s a direct correlation between how well I create a distinct projection and people’s ability to help. When I was “the AR/VR guy who’s interested in giving talks” it led to a new friend introing me to an organization in Brazil that was doing a course on future tech, cascading to lecturing in Sao Paulo, making new friends, and opening up several collaborations. The trick is that projections are small and can only hold a few pieces of information (rule of thumb - about three.) In order to maximize the effectiveness of your projections, figure out which things you want to be associated with in people’s heads and be excited about them. Nothing is more memorable than distinct excitement. Similarly, try to figure out the things that drive the whomever you’re talking to and incorporate them into your mental representation of that person. The best way to encourage people to keep you in mind is to keep them in mind. (NOTE: Many people take this to the extreme and straight up ask the question: “how can I help?” This is exactly the sentiment you should have, but it makes your counterpart feel like you weren’t actually listening ) Tell a Story How do you build a strong projection? A strong story. Stories stick in people’s heads better than anything else. Make sure you have a good one. All you need is a short narrative with at least one compelling character (yo...