The best networking conversation I've ever had at a work event wasn't at a networking event. It happened during a break at a workshop, talking about the actual content with someone, and the opening to mention my coaching practice came up naturally. I didn't register it as networking until afterward. That's usually how it works when it works — the conversation comes first, and the networking label gets applied after the fact.
What changed for me wasn't a technique. I stopped treating networking as a separate activity and started relating to it as something people in my position just do — I work with people, I build things that require collaboration, of course I talk to people I don't see regularly. Once that's just part of your identity, the question stops being "am I networking correctly" and starts being "what's this person working on."
There's also a risk calculation worth doing. Unless you go out of your way to be a jerk, the worst case in a networking conversation is that the other person doesn't remember you later — and research on social memory suggests casual conversations with strangers aren't remembered in much detail a month out anyway. That downside is close to zero. The upside — a referral, a collaborator, a door you didn't know existed — isn't.
Any conversation you're already having with someone you don't regularly talk to is a networking event. You don't have to label it while it's happening.
I'd like to hear about a conversation that turned into something later, without you planning it that way. Hit reply.