This is a good article by Harvard Business Review. One of the more exciting aspects of our annual conference - which set a new record of 135 companies attending last week - is that it is, as Ed Gribbin of Impactiva put it so well, like family. We get to see new relationships being formed realtime. They include business, mentoring, helping and a lot of pure friendship.
We'd learned long ago what this means when a senior sourcing executive said he never opens emails from factories, unless they are fellow AAPN members. Funny how familiarity opens doors. As for those doors - when a door of opportunity opens for you, it's often because someone on the other side of it grabbed the handle for you and pulled.
We're starting to promote the AAPN for exactly what it means to you - a networking platform for apparel professionals. We proved it last week. We'll prove it more this year at regional and other events too.
As Carlos Arias also said last week about the size, success and family feel of our conference, "we got here because we all grew up together in AAPN".
Why Your Inner Circle Should Stay Small, and How to Shrink It
HBR: March 07, 2018
When it comes to networks, the bigger the better, right? Not necessarily. Carefully curate your most trusted, inner circle and you’ll be surprised at how much more valuable you’ll become to the larger community of people in the world who care about the same things you do.
We live in a time when “bigger is better” is the prevailing assumption when it comes to, well, just about anything. So it’s only natural for us to want to supersize our network of connections — both online and off — because the more people we know, the greater our chances of being exposed to opportunities that may lead to professional advancement, potential mentors, material success, and so on. But in fact, being what we call a “superconnector” has nothing to do with supersizing your network. Rather, it’s about surrounding yourself with a carefully curated group of people who you admire and respect and with whom you share common beliefs and values — people who will set the tone for the foundation of your larger network filled with people who provide value to one another. And that core group should be a lot smaller than you think. Read More