Networking the West with Liz Ryan

Networking Turkey

By Liz Ryan, 12-12-06

A couple of us from Boulder went down to Braun's, the sports bar next to the Pepsi Center, to check out the Integrated Alliances/Rockies Venture Club/Da Vinci Institute/Business Marketing Association holiday event. I have to give props to Mike O'Neil, the founder of Integrated Alliances, for putting on a big party (he got me there, and I hate big, loud sports-bar events) with probably 500 people, notwithstanding the large number of competing holiday events going on all over town.

Anyway, we met some very fun and interesting people at Mike's shindig, including Maxine Brand of OnTarget Resource Network, with whom I've been in a six-degrees tango for years, never (that either of us can recall) getting together in person until now; Ann Rogers from Franchises Galore, and Bob from McData, talking about the impending Brocade acquisition, and Gino Mozzarella, the "Godfather of Magic," who pulled off some rockin' magic tricks and a not-bad North Jersey accent (takes one to know one) and Hector Diaz, who is looking for a Director-level IT position, and Jonathan Manske, who was staffing the LinkedIn information table, and Mike Dunninger, who's an NU alum like me and works at IBM, and Ed Collins, the head of sales for Ross Print Marketing, who has a wonderful Boston accent and tremendous stories; and of course, the host, Mike O'Neil, who pulled the whole thing together.

There was a band playing downstairs, which made it hard to talk there, and there were models in fur garments working the crowd, which was odd (I'm not a diehard PETA fur-is-evil person, but it does seem that given the ambivalence around the wearing of fur garments, it's an odd choice for a general-audience event) but the conversation -- both networking conversations and conversations about networking, especially around the LinkedIn table that Mike kept staffed with volunteers all evening -- was lively. In the back of my mind, I was wondering whether I'd meet the astounding fellow that my friend had warned me about (read her story here) and then, when it happened, I was glad to get it over with and not have to worry about an encounter with the Networking Turkey later in the evening. So I have to tell you about that.

My friend and I approached the table where this guy was sitting (I've forgotten his real name, but he goes by one of those monikers like the Marketing Mustang) and said hello, both to the Mustang himself and to the henchpeople who sat on either side of him (the image that sprang to mind for me was Draco Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle) and he said (I SWEAR TO GOD) "Oh, let's bow down to Liz." I don't know what prompted that. He asked me about LinkedIn and what I knew about that site, and I said, Well, I just wrote this book about online networking, and my friend handed him a copy of the book, and the Mustang turned it over to my photo on the back and said "Is this your high school photo?"

The Mustang kept talking, while I gasped in disbelief at his turkitude, and he said "I hope your book isn't competitve with X's book." X is another fellow that we know who is planning to write a book on online networking, too. So I said "Well, it's hard to say, since X hasn't written his book yet." Then the Mustang said, "So you have this worldwide network, in Boulder?" Like Boulder is dogmeat city. And I said "Well, you know it's a virtual network, uh, Mustang, which means that you can be anywhere and participate in it. That's how virtual networking works."

Then the Mustang talked about a woman we both knew, and recounted how he was shocked to meet her because in the picture on her website, the lady's hair is black, whereas when he met her in person, her hair was gray. Imagine that. I was Mustang-ed out at that point so I took off for another section of the party.

Later I heard that the Mustang is job-hunting. Who hires a person like that? I regretted later that I hadn't come up with some spur-of-the-moment Dorothy Parker or Winston Churchill zingers, but I didn't rise to the occasion. Even though I'd been warned about the Mustang, he threw me with the astounding level of his boorishness. If you were me, how would you have responded?

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