This post has been sitting in drafts for a long time. I’ve struggled to articulate the real potential of learning to curate networks, especially for youth. But here goes…

Folk have often heard me say that I wish I had the networks I have now back when I was in high school (or even coming out of uni). Ironically the only time a contact blocked me on twitter was when I posted about this, and their response was to suggest that this is reserved for wealthy families in private school networks. When I challenged this notion, I got blocked. Whatever…

We can nurture beneficial online groups and their related physical networks so much more effectively now. These rely on making steady contributions and building trusted connections. So much so, that the belief that sending one’s kids to elite schools somehow also buys them into exclusive networks is becoming less relevant. I accept there might be some truth to these beliefs, but my career has certainly not been shaped by any networks from my school. I also once worked with a big independent school in Melbourne helping them build better networks for their senior students. It was a really interesting experience, given that their students were demanding it.

Around that time I created the following provocative statement, which I continued using in a number of presentations and workshops:

“Instead of just preparing kids for a world of work, how about we do better at preparing them for a world of networks.”

I get that schools want to shape students’ careers, but until we break some of the expectations on tertiary pathways, I think the real benefits of networks are being lost. It’s not that career discussions and work experiences aren’t useful when done well. It also doesn’t help that work experience seems to have been killed-off and watered down in so many schools – thanks to increasingly risk-averse contexts. It’s that I believe the real world of work is also about the diversity of networks you build and foster. You need to learn to carefully choose what networks you contribute to and the people you maintain connections with as a result.

Good networks are like ‘lily pads’ for great ideas, inspiring people, and yes, for potential jobs. I recall seeing a statistic several years ago that something like 60-70% of all jobs are never advertised. People find roles through direct networks, recruitment firms, and how ‘visible’ you make yourself. I have not gone through a conventional recruitment interview process in nearly 15 years, and that’s while shifting to three different jobs. I’ve recently broken that cycle though. The process of compiling cover letters, a relevant CV, and engaging in formal interviews certainly feels a little foreign. In the meantime, I’ve tried to heed plenty of good advice for how to word and shape what people want to read in an application.

But this is not just about employment. Networks are like ‘curated serendipity’. An elegant pairing of words that Aleks Krotoski coined, while working on the serendipity engine quite a few years back. I connected with Aleks during my role at the State Library of Victoria, where I had the thrill of developing all kinds of learning and education experiences for young and old audiences alike. It was during this role that I really accelerated and widened my networks. I was driven by an expanding curiosity of online connections and bringing diverse people together for in-person experiences.

Some of the notable networks I grew during this time included with Hub Melbourne, TEDxMelbourne, Freeplay Independent Games Festival, VicPLN and CPX. The VicPLN (Professional Learning Network) became a multi-pronged node. It was a massively popular hashtag on Twitter for teachers, often trending nationally, and is still ‘alive’ today. VicPLN was also an online course for teachers about being online; designed by the education team at the Library. We also ran physical VicPLN events, connecting education experts and driving pedagogical conversations; before TeachMeet took off. It also spawned a spin-off group called ‘Beer Pedagogy’, which is like pedagogy-fight club, but made palatable over a few brews.

The Creative Performance eXchange (CPX) was also a really special network. Once a month a group of really diverse folk would gather at the Deloitte Melbourne offices and engage in all kinds of unique workshop experiences. This was around the time that things like MeetUp were going gang-busters. I ended up helping curate the CPX program and we had about 1,000 members in the database. The ripples of these networks were pivotal in shaping key opportunities for me. This includes being involved in Do Lectures Australia and my own ‘visibility’ in learning and education circles. Which is when I first started this website.

Networks also breed ‘lily-pad people’ – folk who can connect you to even more relevant people. I can identity a whole host of folk who I would describe as ‘network nodes’. People who aren’t your solution, but they definitely know who is. These are the kinds of people I wish more youth had the chance to nurture. It’s a little like having a bank of mentors. It’s like LinkedIn (when done well).

This is a good recent example – a tweet from a father about his 12 year-old’s love of woodwork rippled to over 90,000 interactions in 24-hours. It brought networks, advice, and praise. Helping young people build these kinds of networks is very powerful. They also blur the lines of modern-day communities.

Coming back to LinkedIn, I once worked with a big government school in designing their staff PD day, arranging one session where teachers had to help a small group of Year 12 students curate their first LinkedIn profile. It was a humbling experience for the teachers, since they had to listen to and probe these students for the kinds of people and organisations they would like to be connected to. Teachers were challenged to help make connections happen from their own networks. In perhaps an unsurprising twist, I heard that the following week, word got around and a host of other Year 12s were asking if they could get help curating a LinkedIn profile.

I also once recall Will Richardson telling a great story about a US high school that instead of handing gifts to their graduating students, instead gave them one-year web hosting for their own domain name. A way for the students to ‘build their own brand’, and tell the world about what they’d achieved through their education. Such a brilliant idea.

We don’t seem to be building on these kinds of ideas nor preparing students for a world of networks that are increasingly online; ones that of course also breed work opportunities. While at Asia Education Foundation, we were running the Victorian Young Leaders to China program, and as part of the final workshop (after students had returned from China) we brought in a dozen folk under 30 who had all used Mandarin as part of their careers and networks. We scaffolded the afternoon to help the Year 9 students learn ‘how to network’ with these people, their peers and with apps like WeChat. It worked really effectively.

So where does that leave networks in the world of work?

I believe education needs to build a young person’s awareness of the ways groups and networks connect and shift, as well as their inherent value in lifelong learning. It means helping young people develop the confidence to play in these spaces, with opportunities to connect to experts and communities they respect and aspire to nurture. I know many examples where educators have helped link their students to these kinds of networks that relate directly to key projects and passions – it just doesn’t happen consistently enough. Nor do students learn to build networks as a result – they do it only to get a better result.

Schools could even have students involved in wider public events and conferences, and if that’s a step too far at least get more educators along to experiences outside direct education events. I still recall attending Pause Fest back in the early years of 2011/12 and wishing more educators attended. The stimulation of ideas, networks and innovation from experiences like this certainly ripple into how we should be linking to contemporary learning.

Good networks feed the landscapes we know well, but they should also lead us to the edge of our ‘sphere of concern’. Networks help us and provoke us to think differently. They should bring perspectives into our field of vision that we hadn’t realised were a crucial piece of the puzzle. A puzzle we might be working on for our own careers, passions, and purpose.