Mac's Musings
'Should auld acquaintance be forgot.......'
02/01/2008Netting, networking, making connections - call it what you will - is somehow part of the human condition. And Christmas and New Year seem to be a good time to re-establish old connections as well as making new ones.
I had an email just before Christmas from my old rock climbing partner Dave Frost in Australia. He had reconnected after 18 years via another climbing friend, Mick Longhurst, in Devon.
Dave now has his own PR company based on some sun-kissed, palm-fringed beach just outside Sydney. No worries. Mick edits a paper down in Plymouth. But we all spent our formative years in journalism as sub-editors on the late lamented daily, the Sheffield Morning Telegraph. Happy days. We worked by night and spent our days climbing on the Peak District crags.
We've exchanged embarrassing pictures of each other looking very young and hirsute as we struggled up a variety of worryingly serious rock routes.
I also had a Christmas email from my oldest - no, longest-standing - friend, Chris Zachary, now a Professor of Dermatology in California. He's an expert in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery mainly for skin cancer victims. Zaco looks very young on his website though I'm sure this is nothing to do with being an acknowledged international King of Botox and laser sculpting (I know Zaco will be happy with this last line as there's a CNN interview with him on his website extolling the virtues of cosmetic infill for men).
Zaco and I played cricket on the beach as two-year-olds way back in the last century and went right through school together.
Finally, we had a New Year call early yesterday morning from my partner Judy's school friend, Zubeda. Judy and Zubby have been friends since - whoa, let's not go there - they were in their teens. Zubby now does some incredibly important job with American Airlines in Dallas and comes over every year to stay with us.
But, then, that's the secret of netting - whether personal or business. It's all about building long-term relationships.
Want to find out more? Click here.
