Direct Marketing Events and Networking

I gotta confess to you: when I first heard about SDMA's Pink Slip Party, I was a little confused by the concept? Isn't the arrival of a pink slip supposed to be a reason to mourn? How can I make time to party when I'm hunkered down looking for the next big thing? Party schmarty! Aren't pink slips supposed to be about rejection anyway? Hrumph, said I.

 

But then it hit me: this might also be a chance to revise my attitude toward being unemployed. Instead of licking my wounds, I could be sipping a glass of wine. Rather than biting my fingernails, I could be noshing on chips and salsa. Instead of annoying the S.O., I could be chatting up my fellow marketers. Well, I concluded, at least it would get me out of my jammies and back in circulation for a few hours. 

 

So it was off to 24 | Seven in downtown Seattle the evening of April 16. What a revelation - it was much, much more than my limited foresight could anticipate. People were there to party and network in equal share - partworking? nettying? I'm not sure how to describe the vibe, but there was some really fine electricity in the air. Everyone seemed to have gotten the memo: tonight, at least, it's going to be about possibilities, potential, connecting.

 

For me, it was a chance to meet a bunch of people who are also looking for the next adventure, hear their stories, practice my script. Strength in numbers with a bossa nova beat. Nice. And to catch up with people I hadn't seen in way too long. To meet some folks face-to-face with whom I'd only had electronic conversations. Even to do a little bit of matchmaking - oh, you're a web designer? You must meet my friend who has the social networking startup.

 

I realized something significant at the PInk Slip Party: for all our emailing, and twittering, and facebooking, and linkedin-ing, it's really that single moment of contact, meeting as humans in a face-to-face interaction, where the spark of connection really takes place. The people I met at the Pink Slip Party, the conversations I was part of, the business cards I collected, the résumés I distributed, all seem real to me in a way that IM's and texting do not. Am I generationally predisposed to think that way? Of course. But even the next generation seemed jazzed by the event, chatting until the very end of the evening, having a great time. 

 

Someone, don't know who, once said, “A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change.” So it was at SDMA's Pink Slip Party, where the groove was on and the tone was upbeat. Whether or not the event can be tied specifically to "the" connection is irrelevant. SDMA provided the spark; now serendipity, or fate or good old hard work can forge the path.