(Community Matters) for the second time this month, someone who knows me well introduced me to others as a networker or a connector.
Yikes, this is NOT how I want to be known. And, I have not framed what I do any more competently than to leave this as the only description easily available to close friends.
I’m gonna work on this. It needs to be about helping others accomplish important political and community building objectives, about my past business experience intersecting with social entrepreneurship to help make great things happen.
Community Matters 
I don’t have the perfect one-word introduction for you. But I see “networker” or “connector” as they relate to you as true and fairly accurate, yet only the tip of the iceberg. As we all know, the these words can have hugely substantive or very shallow connotations. And thus, I’m guessing, some of your resistance?
I imagine these pop up repeatedly because they represent the most visible thing people actually see you do. They see you connect givers to causes, connect dreamers to ground, connect rut-dwellers to dreams, connect past business experience with social entrepreneurship, and constantly network with all sorts of groups of people so that when it’s time to connect, you know exactly the who and why–and often how.
When people use these terms to introduce you, I suspect they are meaning it in the hugely substantive manner. I suggest you merely work on the one-sentence follow-up that gives the person you’re meeting (or the group you’re speaking to) a chance to see the rest of the iceberg.
Hmmmm… maybe you’re a “magnifier” (and a magnificient magnifier at that!)
Cheers!
“Networking” is a tough word, as there are too many false preceptions about what that means. There some who have given the word a negative connotation…. but there is not other word to replace it.
I have found (and I preach) that the definition of networking is: “The creation of long-term and mutually beneficial relationships where all the parties involved find more success and satisfaction than they would without the association”
If you look at in those terms, you should be proud, as you do connect people to others with whom they take actions to better the world. Is that bad? I think you are falling prey to the negative mis-conceptions of the words.
Besides,… Eugene by any name would still have impact on our world!
Yes, I suddenly felt badly that might have spoken of and/or introduced you that way. It was always complimentary in mind… and bigger than just the words. I can now understand your negative reaction in light of how you view your talents and energy. Michael still jokingly calls me Project Manager, my job title at Dell (before I became Senior Project Manager) and I always hated that “title.” It’s honestly one of the reasons I left Dell – because I didn’t want to be thought of as “just” a good project manager… nothing to do with Michael’s teasing, just my realization of the limitation the job title had to me and wanting to think of myself as something bigger than that. Interesting…
Dear Stephen,
You know I only call you that still because that’s the name Benjamin (my dog for other readers) knows you as. You should be honored, he only knows about four names: Grandmama, HoneyBunny, Project Manager, and Eugene/Soo-Jin which he can’t distinguish from each other. To a lesser extent, Memsie and Melissa, if you really stress the ssss, but I’m not sure he can distinguish between these either. (It’s all really in the distinct, sing-songy way I said it back then.)
Michael
Dear Eugene,
Sorry to hijack your comments section. Sorry to let you know that to a dog your name sounds like Soo-Jin. (or at least the way I say it to him, it does.) Sorry that every time Benjamin sees you he was really expecting a cute young Korean woman, who would fall on the floor with him and rub his belly–but he’s always happy to see you too. Really.
I hope this comment provides clarity, even if it doesn’t resolve your snap introduction dilemma.
Michael