Establishing these contacts is easy, cultivatng the relationship I believe is the harder part.

As for the failure of volunteering to generate contacts, try different kinds of volunteer work, don’t forget non-profits, as well as continuing education, take a group exercise class, join a forum about a subject you find interesting. The biggest factor is it has to be something new, because your old social circle has probably reached a steady state. The side benefit here is even if you meet no one new at least you learned something new.

I think somebody should have mentioned the Never Eat Alone book by now. The post says to provide value, one way to immediately provide value is to be a good listener.

He argues that it is not the connection that matters but the hole that it bridges. That is, it gets back to the adding value.

http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/ronald.burt/research/NSSC.pdf

The strength of networking comes from doing it with people who are involved in work that’s related to–but not identical with–what it is that we do. That would be people who are close enough to our work to be able to refer us to employers and customers, but not identical so that they compete.

Maybe the second group would represent weak connections, but they wouldn’t be without value.

And even strong relationships, which may or may not have work in common, don’t always lead to the kind of help you need. For example, writers and editors tend to know lots of other writers and editors. But that’s a negative when trying to get work, because you are, quite often, competing and/or looking for the same work. (Especially if you specialize in a particular industry or type of writing.)

Same applies to actors, other performers, musicians. The world or work is often small, and not in the best sense. At certain levels, you are literally going up for work against many of the same people, time and again.

What you need are people who know the people who are hiring…because a lot of time, surprisingly, they don’t know the kinds of people they want to hire. (That’s why personal referrals for work are so critical to getting an interview. Everybody wants somebody else to vouch for someone, so their time is not wasted.)

Professional relationships are exactly that, professional ones, based on one’s work/career, etc.. Yes, many do turn into personal ones (my closest friends were people I worked with and for over the years. I think it’s because we have shared values and experience and interests. The work itself is not what kept us together all these years, even though we have worked together on more than one occasion.)

I have a problem with the use of the word “valuable” (as opposed to what, worthless?) and “weak” in all of this. You really don’t know the value of a relationship until you’re in it. And I guess I still believe (paraphrasing the I ching) that all relationships should be based on genuine interests, respect, shared values, etc. Not how much we someone can do for us (or even us for them). There’s way too much of that and always has been.

As more and more people are seeing today, you can have roots in many “communities” (working moms, fellow club members, associations, etc). It all really depends on how much effort someone will expend on your part. And people are really busy today, just holding their own.

Surprisingly, this is rarely a quid pro quo. Most people I know spent/spend a lot of time in genuine networking to keep in contact with people. When they needed help, a lot of the time they got more from actual strangers than from those for whom they may have done a lot in past.

You have to look at it as a circle, where you give as much as you can without expectation. You don’t really know who in the circle might be of help. Ironically, the closer many people are to you, the less they “see” your actual skills, abilities and/or understand your capabilities beyond what you may have already done. They often prove almost useless in terms of real networking.

(How many friends really know the exact skills, experience, knowledge is involved, let alone daily activities, entailed in another friend’s job? Seriously.)

Help those you can, when you can, because it’s simply the right thing to do. Ask for help, but don’t expect or demand it.

Less is often more in an effective network (the old 80/20 Pareto principal). More is not necessarily better, plus how many people can you really create a genuine relationship with?

However what I’ve found is that as much as I cherish strong connections, it is often the “weak” ones who are the source of help in some form. Maybe it comes down to that our strong connections are people who are very similar to us, and when things change, they can’t help us as much as the ones who are a little different.

It’s human nature to cling to the familiar, but it might do some good to step out and connect with more of the “weak” kind. Circumstances are always changing and they might become strong connections at some point in the future.