nteraction in mind. Still, there's no escaping it: if you aren't consciously building relationships, you're probably getting lost. At the most fundamental level, then, most of my advice has nothing intrinsically to do with electronic communication at all. My real topic is not (technological) networks but (professional) networking. Therefore I'll discuss networking in a general way before describing how electronic mail can accelerate it. In the past, the only ways to learn networking -- not just being part of a social network, but having the skills for systematically seeking out and becoming acquainted with new people in the service of professional goals -- were to be born to a socially well-connected family or to apprentice yourself to a master of the art. And even though the term "networking" became fashionable during the 1980's, it is only recently that really useful books on the subject have begun to appear. (Some of these are listed in the appendix.) Many people resist the idea of networking because they associate it with "playing the career game", "knowing the right people", "kissing up to the powerful", "cynicism", or "politics", or because networking supposedly takes time away from "getting real work done". Some people grew up being told the dangerous half-truth that "if you do good work then you will be rewarded", as if rewards magically appear whether anybody knows about your good work or not. Others are allergic to the Machiavellian overtones of "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Indeed, people will accuse you of all sorts of terrible things if you admit to having worked-out ideas about networking. Many people, watching the real networking experts in action, assume that they must know some dark, inaccessible secrets that make it all easy (they don't). This is all terribly unfortunate, not least because it helps to stratify the world of research: networking is about community, not hierarchy, and people who don't learn t...
