Networking

When I recently heard that the closest meaning in Macedonian to networking was a negative term, it bothered me enough to write about it, because I love to network and meet new people and don’t think networking should be considered negatively.

Combing through the thesauruses’ and dictionaries’ on the internet, I found that the word “nexus” is the root of “networking” – originally an information age word. The definition, “a connection or series of connections linking two or more things” originated in mid 17th century from Latin, ‘a binding together’, from nex-‘bound’, from the verb nectare. Thus networking can simply be considered as people helping people when connected together by a common interest, conference, goal, vacation trip, etc. They can do this through mentoring, sharing skills and resources, guiding and directing others and thus remain connected to others through a series of actions and exchanges of information.

Networking among people is a social skill. Job hunter’s are often advised to ‘network’ as a way of getting a job. This almost always results in frustration because networking is not a job finding tool or a way to access inside information, even though that may be the outcome of having a good network! A network of friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and peers is dynamic, opening exciting new opportunities all the time!

Of the hundreds of conferences that are scheduled every year in academia, industry, non-profit sector, government etc where papers or ideas are presented, the attendees not only get new information about the conference topics, but also spend unstructured time each other! Connections are constantly being made, deliberate, random or accidentally and often unaware where these connections will lead us!

Though esoteric and maybe a boring topic, just writing about networking has hopefully given you, my reader some insight into the true meaning of networking.

Kuli

Veligdon – Easter
There is a local tradition in town to “build towers” on Easter which is unique to this city. The following story is one version of the birth of this tradition.

During the Ottoman empire, the Turkish landlord or "Baig" of this large estate, now known as Makedonski Brod was so pleased with the work of his Macedonian peasants, that he granted them a day of freedom from work – coinciding with Veligdon. To this day, after the elaborate religious observances, the “Brodians” gather in the square and a group of sturdy men stand shoulder-to-shoulder forming a circle. Five men clamber on their shoulders and form a circle atop the first. Four such “towers” or “Kuli” were built this Monday.

To the sound of drums and the Balkan bagpipe, the towers slowly moved up the road to the next open space, where after disbanding were soon joined by the whole crowd in the traditional ora (dance). The energy is high and by this time all the residents, who had gone to their villages earlier in the day to celebrate easter service at their respective village church were also back. In addition, gauging from the fact that there was not a place to sit in any of the coffee shops in town, many people came from the all over Macedonia to witness this unique celebration.