I don't know about you, but with Memorial Day behind us this feels like a pretty official start to summer if you ask me (The official, official start of summer is on June 21st). With kids out of school and triple digit temperature days expected later this week I figure now is as good a time as any to talk about how to network in the summer.

Yes, networking really is a bit different in the summer. Especially in Austin when a lot of people will try to get out of town to escape the heat and many networking groups and associations go dark until the fall.

You don't have to change a lot, and to be honest most of these suggestions are good practice any time of year. With many organizations lightening their meeting schedules or going dark all together it makes sense to focus more on one to one time with key individuals. I'm always a proponent of this strategy, but it's that much more important now. The challenge will be that getting on people's calendars is harder. With kids out of school and various vacations throughout the next few months you'll need to work just a little bit harder. Here are a few tips that will help:

1) Be persistent. In my experience people aren't quite as focused in the summer as they are the rest of the year. They may have kids at home, and are likely in a semi-constant state of preparing for and recovering from various vacations. It's likely going to take a few attempts to get someone's attention. Expect it and be persistent.

2) Don't wait! This is a bit of a networking pet peeve of mine. If you say to someone, or someone says to you: "Let's get together soon." Schedule the meeting right then! If you wait it's very unlikely that a meeting will ever happen in the first place. If it does it's going to take way too much extra work for both parties to get the meeting scheduled. Anytime anyone makes this comment pull out your calendar and schedule it right then.

3) Mix it up. With the longer days of summer you have a great opportunity to go beyond the traditional coffee or lunch meeting. Consider scheduling a late afternoon get together with a nice cold beer and perhaps a patio if it's not too awful hot. It is summer after all. Enjoy it.

Happy Networking!