The Capital Cabal is the brainchild of Hank Dearden. Hank has been active in Washington, D.C.’s Internet and New Media scene since 1994, and enjoys producing networking events and professional seminars. The focus is typically, but not always, on Internet commerce and communications technology, how it is being used, and its effect on business, government and society at large.
For his day job, Hank is founder and Director of 3D Technologies Ltd., a sales, marketing and Internet advertising consulting firm in the Washington, DC area. We continue our conversation and in part four of this five-part series Hank continues talking about how he has and you too can create great events in your area.
Hank on Creating Great Events
Steve: Since you are a veteran of attending and throwing networking events, how has the networking landscape evolved over the last 10 years?
Hank: Not to sound flip, but it’s evolved by continuing to evolve to market demand. A lot of groups have come and gone, some of the current ones are excellent events but are not produced regularly, it all depends. What has not changed or evolved-out is the dependence on sponsorship dollars to produce anything “large”.
However, there are plenty of smaller Meet Up groups that continue to come together, grow or diminish, each with a focus on a particular niche. Low cost and easy to use Internet tools allow for these groups and events to literally be created over-night…and if the founders leave town or get time-pressed by other demands they can (and have) literally disappear over-night as well.
Steve: One of the biggest failures I have seen at networking events is that either there is no central mechanism to connect with people you met but maybe didn’t get a business card from. What are your thoughts on this?
Hank: I don’t think people should rely on “central mechanisms” to make their connections for them at a live event. You’re supposed to be “offline” at these things, so if you liked chatting with someone make a note to self: look them in the eye and ask them for their card. If they don’t have a card, ask them to write an email on the back of one of your cards. If they hesitate then they probably don’t want to connect with you.
To be continued…
In Part 5, we wrap up our interview and Hank provides some great tips for networking in general.
Also, if you missed the previous parts of this interview you can find them here:
Part 1- Hank Dearden on Networking in the DC Metro Area
Part 2- Hank Dearden on Entrepreneurship
Part 3- Hank Dearden on Creating Great Events
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