How social is networking?

I was talking to one of my MBA colleagues this afternoon about networking.  I asked her whether people are organising meetings any better now than they did 20 years or so ago (not that she is old enough to address that question exactly but that was the comparison I was wanting to make).

I remember when a group of us established a branch of the Institute of Marketing (as it was at the time) in Cambridge.  We were all young, the city was quite small then and the viability of the branch was a little fragile so we had to do everything we could to keep people coming to meetings.  We had several people who had the specific task of greeting people and introducing them to someone else.  Nobody was left on their own.  As a committee, we tried to know everyone.  We weren’t a bunch of mates meeting up but a welcoming, professional team running a welcoming, professional event.

What's the point of HS1?

I don’t mean the rail service itself. I understand that bit. I used High Speed 1 to go to the Folkestone Triennial festival this summer and the journey was smooth, comfortable and, as you would expect, fast. It was particularly comfortable as the train wasn’t exactly crowded. The extensive sound-proofing along the route is unfortunate from a passenger’s perspective as you lose views of some beautiful Kent countryside but never mind.

What I mean is that I don’t get the point of the company HS1. I was listening to their CEO, Nicola Shaw, on The Bottom Line on BBC Radio 4 recently and I didn’t get it at all. They don’t own or maintain the track (that’s Railtrack). They don’t run the trains (train operating companies, TOC’s, do that). The key word seemed to be “liaison” and I think that was the problem.