I drew the napkins I am going to post over the next few days back in October when I spoke at Blog World in Los Angeles. I thought they would be appropriate to post again for the people attending Social Media Tulsa this week, where I am speaking.

It’s such a well understood idea that it is a cliche: You must cultivate relationships in networking to get ahead.  I agree with it, as far as it goes.  The problem is it doesn’t go far enough. It is not enough to collect contacts like so many vegetables at harvest time.  For me to feel and be successful at networking I want to transform my private garden into a community teaching garden.

I have many areas where I need the expertise of other gardeners in the Social Media world.  Wordpress, twitter, publishing, database development, monetizing, you name it, I need help with it.  But I also have some expertise as well; art, design, writing, content creation,   If I want my fellow gardeners to help me in my areas of need then I need to be willing to help them in theirs.

But wait,  isn’t that what I am doing by speaking at these conferences? Yes, it is what I am doing and I am very hopeful my session, Six Stop Signs on Creativity Road (Friday 2:15 pm) will be of great benefit to many.  But my session is going to last an hour.  With people talking to me after (if I am lucky), maybe another 45 minutes.  The Social Media Tulsa conference lasts 2 days.  Am I going to single-mindedly pursue harvesting from other people’s garden during the other 46 hours or am I going to set in my mind that I am in a community garden where I will look for opportunities to plant encouragement, motivation, inspiration, knowledge and friendship in at least equal portion to what I harvest for myself?

I like a community garden.