Peer to Peer Networking

This issue of Certification Magazine is largely about computer networks. The most important networks, however, are human networks. Every day, in a myriad of ways, it’s the people we know and associate with who help steer, protect, and improve us on our journey down the road of life.

- CODY CLARK

Each of us starts out, for better or worse, with a few basic connections: parents, maybe a sibling or three, extended family, in-laws. The network gradually gains breadth and depth as we encounter new people — neighbors, friends, the person in the mail truck, the family pediatrician — and become part of new groups — in church for some, at school for most, and (a little bit later on) around the workplace, for almost everyone.

Knowing and interacting with other people is essential to success at every stage of life. Before our gentle exhortation starts to sound too much like a commercial for LinkedIn or Facebook Groups, let’s just leave it at this: People will make more of a difference to your life, whether through teaching, mentoring, employment, relationships (romantic and otherwise), service, or simple kindness, than anything else that touches it.