Networking, the way most people are taught to do it, is exhausting. You attend a conference, exchange business cards with strangers, and three weeks later you cannot remember a single conversation. There is a better way, and it does not require a name badge.
Proximity beats density
A conference puts you in the same room as 500 people for one day. A coworking space puts you in the same room as 30 people for 200 days. The math is obvious once you see it.
The slow-burn relationship
The relationships we tracked never started with "hi, what do you do?". They started with someone asking to borrow a charger. With a casual lunch invitation. With the kind of trivial repeated contact that, over months, lets you see how someone actually thinks and works.
How to use this on purpose
Three suggestions: take lunch with at least one new person per week. Offer help — actual help, not a coffee meeting — before you ever ask for any. And join the community channel; lurking is fine for the first month, but be visible by month three.
