Toiling the night away in flurry of purposeless conversations with other alleged young professionals who may or may not be in a loosely related industry is an invaluable way to spend a Wednesday night. Last Wednesday was no exception for Kelly Barrett who dutifully attended the bi-weekly Modern Marketing Disruptive Paradigm Shifters mashup. “It’s one of those bi-weekly marketing networking events that come around once, maybe twice in an entire lifetime,” reminisced Barrett looking longingly at a stack of collected business cards that will inevitably remain untouched on her desk until they are used to soak up a coffee spill several months from now.

“At events like these you create a truly special bond with people, so much so that in 2 weeks you can direct message them on LinkedIn and inquire if their company is hiring and if they could refer you…so very special,” continued Barrett wistfully scrolling through the digital toilet that is her LinkedIn connections feed…filled with a fresh pile of steaming adds.

Getting pegged in the face with business cards from packs of bloodthirsty consultants, chatting about impossibly high level marketing strategies that no one has the resources or wherewithal to execute and obediently nodding as people aggressively position themselves as game-changing, scalable solutions are additional benefits found at the popular bi-weekly mashup.

As long as the imaginary correlation between networking and professional development exists, bi-weekly mashups will contine to be a consuming abyss for precious lost time that could have otherwise been spent with friends or family.