One of our LAUNCH seminars this week was a great presentation by Will Kintish about networking. Again, another very funny, but very instructional IE presentation... He taught us about the six groups you find in any business/social event and which ones we'd have the most success with in approaching. He taught us, seemingly obvious, but highly effective short phrases to "dump" the rambling, boring person or the ignorant, obnoxious person. He challenged us to never again be the wallflowers at a gathering, but rather to go and talk to them all. And of course, we were all instructed to Linkedin it up.
I was lucky to have that night, and again the next night, two networking events to try out my new skills... The first was a classy dinner with the new U.S. Ambassador to Spain and Andorra Alan D. Solomont thrown jointly by the Georgetown Club of Madrid and the Yale Club. I pointed out to my friend the different groups and we surveyed the situation... At the end of the night, we both got a few business cards, rubbed elbows with the Ambassador, but most importantly, had a fun time talking politics.
The next night was the monthly meeting of Democrats Abroad of Madrid. I had an "ah-hah!" moment as Mr. Kintish would say, when one woman I was talking to mentioned that she was starting to do some independent consulting on corporate social responsibility issues with companies in Spain. Ah-hah! I want to do that! I offered my limited time and resources, and my business card, we'll see what comes of that...
All in all, as I've said before, I think networking is really important. Sometimes it's fun, and sometimes it seems more like a chore. I'm glad IE helps us with these "soft skills." It's bed time! Two more days of LAUNCH to go!
Hi! my name is Walter, I am from Lima, Peru. I am going to start classes the next April 2011. I have been reading your posts and let me tell you that they are great. It is really helpfull to find this kind of information in the web, and much more helpfull for a person who is going to start his MBA. Unfortunately I didn't find this kind of blog in spanish. I've been looking for it but i didn't get lucky. I didn't mencione that I am taking the MBA in it's spanish version, and I have got a question about it, have you seen a multinational classroom in the spanish's MBA? because I've reading differents comments and I don't have any doubt about the multinationality of your classroom, but as I told you before I didn't find a blog about this MBA in it's spanish's version.
ReplyDeletePlease, it will very helpfull if you have any comments about this, and don't get mad about my english, I'm working in improvement it's level. :D
Walter thanks so much for your comment and compliments! And don't apologize for your English, mi español tambien podria ser mejor!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if there are any current students blogging in Spanish. The school is publishing student blogs at http://news.imba.ie.edu/, so maybe you could check there every now and then. As for the Spanish sections of the IMBA, I think there's only 2-3 students not from Latin America or Spain, but I have met lots of students in the two Spanish-speaking IMBA sections (out of 7 total) because we shared the first day of orientation with them, and they can come to all the same events, use the same buildings, etc... So you will definitely still be in a very international environment and have the chance to meet everyone, especially if you are outgoing and try all the different events in the beginning.
Looking forward to meeting you in April!