{"id":76206,"date":"2014-07-08T11:30:15","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T16:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=76206"},"modified":"2014-07-07T16:42:53","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T21:42:53","slug":"small-talk-at-conferences-how-to-survive-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=76206","title":{"rendered":"Small Talk at Conferences: How to Survive It"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Fallon Bleich, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Arkansas<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Small Talk at Conferences: How to Survive It<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"fallon.bleich\"<\/a>I have major social anxiety and therefore going to ALA conferences can be a huge chore for me. It\u2019s not\u00a0that I don\u2019t love seeing all my fellow librarians and learning awesome new things, it\u2019s that I have to face\u00a0the dragon known as small talk. Nobody likes to do it, it can be incredibly awkward, but I swear that\u00a0some of the most important connections I\u2019ve made have come from small talk at conferences. So, for all\u00a0of you socially anxious, anti-social, just plain awkward folk like myself out there, I\u2019m going to teach you\u00a0how to use small talk to your advantage.<\/p>\n

First off, don\u2019t try and force it.<\/strong> It\u2019s already kind of awkward anyway, and forcing it will just make you\u00a0feel worse. Avoid the normal things you would avoid, such as politics, religion, etc. And while we\u2019re at\u00a0it, don\u2019t use the old standby and try and use the weather as a topic of choice. That conversation goes\u00a0nowhere and doesn\u2019t really help you accomplish anything. Instead, take a look at their name badge and\u00a0ask them about what they do at their library\/university\/wherever. If you want to start with a simpler\u00a0topic, then just ask them where they are from and what they do. Or ask them if they\u2019d gone to any great\u00a0sessions earlier. Something to start a conversation without being stereotypical; this will get you started\u00a0and allow for the conversation to flow more smoothly.<\/p>\n

Now, you\u2019ve opened the door! So, what\u2019s next?<\/strong> Keep the conversation going and be engaged with the\u00a0person. This means engaged and active listening; don\u2019t stay in your head the entire time, otherwise\u00a0you\u2019ll miss out on some great conversation. And try and contribute to the conversation besides \u201cuh-huh\u201d \u201cyeah\u201d and \u201csure\u201d. By doing this, you\u2019ll find out information about this person and be able to share\u00a0with them also.<\/p>\n

Now, the hard part is getting something useful out of small talk.<\/strong> How do you accomplish this? A lot\u00a0of practice and a decent ability to talk about yourself without coming off as ego-centric. Make sure\u00a0that any information you slip into the conversation about yourself is organically inserted. Nothing\u00a0makes small talk award faster than abrupt transitions and random information that has nothing to do\u00a0with anything! For instance, if you start talking to someone about their job and find out that they do\u00a0something that you would love to do, you can say \u201cOh! I am so interested in what you do; as someone\u00a0who is job hunting, can you tell me how you came to that job field?\u201d or \u201cI would love to do what you\u00a0do! I\u2019m currently looking into getting into that field myself,\u201d which lends itself to a natural transition of\u00a0them asking you how the job hunt is going, etc. Finally, don\u2019t be afraid to let conversations die naturally.\u00a0It\u2019s ok if you\u2019re not great at small talk in the beginning. Just keep striking up conversations with different\u00a0folks and eventually you will find that it becomes a smoother process for you. Once that happens, the\u00a0information will start flowing naturally.<\/p>\n

Why bother with all of this? Like I said before, some of the most important information that I\u2019ve gotten\u00a0from conferences has happened during small talk moments. It\u2019s an important part of the networking\u00a0thing, and it\u2019s led to some inside information both on the job hunt front and for conference purposes.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had everything from job hunting advice\u2014once I even did a mock interview while waiting in line to\u00a0get my book signed\u2014to when an author is going to appear for a signing next. This year, I even managed\u00a0to small talk with a vendor while waiting to check in to my hotel and ended up getting invited to an\u00a0event I hadn\u2019t previously been invited to! The beauty of small talk is that while it doesn\u2019t always lead\u00a0somewhere, the ability to do it well can lead to so much more than you would think. Yes, it is something\u00a0that can make a socially anxious person\u2019s skin crawl, but the more you do it, the less it sucks the next\u00a0time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Fallon Bleich, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Arkansas Small Talk at Conferences: How to Survive It I have major social anxiety and therefore going to ALA conferences can be a huge chore for me. It\u2019s not\u00a0that I don\u2019t love seeing all my fellow librarians and learning awesome new things, it\u2019s that I have to face\u00a0the dragon known…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":59613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,5584,4668,4238,3835,5594,4377,6347],"class_list":["post-76206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-communication","tag-conference-tips","tag-conferences","tag-fallon-bleich","tag-fallon-zschiegner-bleich","tag-inalj-arkansas","tag-small-talk"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/fallon.bleich.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-jP8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/59613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}