Customer Reviews

How to Work a Room: A Guide to Successfully Managing the Mingling

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

..if you really want to learn how to work a room. The book is written for women who are shy. Even if that describes you, there are better books to read. Most of the book addresses the issues of how to shake hands, how not to wear see-through blouses, and how to avoid having sex at trade shows. Unless these are burning issues for you, you will find nothing of value in this book. I am a professional consultant and attend conferences and networking events several times per month. I bought the book in an airport, read the first half, skimmed the second half and left it on the plane for the next person. It was a waste of an hour and a half and [my money]. Save yourself the time and expense, unless you are a 22 year female college grad in her first sales job who needs instruction on who to flirt without getting in over your head and need to be told that you shouldn't have sex at trade shows.

Book tells you what you should be doing but it doesn't tell you HOW, which is what the author promises to do. I felt this book might be good for people who have absolutely no experience with self help books or self improvement but for anyone else it's just fluff. It provides very few examples. All the material could have been nicely summarized in a pamphlet.

How to work a room. What a great concept for a book. Unfortunately the book barely delivers. While there were a few good suggestions, this book was too basic and offered little except some common sense ideas. The author seemed more at home talking about how women can meet men than the real art of working a room.

In summary great title, very poor execution. I would say more but this book offers very little to respond to.

How do you judge whether a "How-to" book is worthwhile? With business books, I ask one simple question: After reading the book, did I bring away at least one thing that made a positive, measureable difference in my life? If so, it was worth the time and money spent on it. "How to Work a Room" is just such a book. I picked this book up while waiting for someone, opened it to a random page, and read the short section on meeting people at parties by "acting like a host instead of a guest". A week later I went to a meeting of an organization I wanted to join, and found that I arrived at the same time as the woman in charge. Remembering what I had read, I immediately pitched in (before even introducing myself, and ignoring her pro forma protests) to help her get set up. Along the way, we introduced ourselves, and as the other officers drifted in, I was introduced to them (with the president's obvious stamp of approval), and so on until not only was I known to everybody there, but I was in the thick of things as a comfortable part of the inner circle. Now, maybe everybody else in the world already knows this stuff, but this kinda shy 40-something man didn't. I made more friends and business contacts in 3 hours than I had in the entire month before. Bottom line: I haven't even read more than a few pages yet and I've already got my positive, measureable difference! Buy it, read it, use it.

How to Work a Room includes very practical common sense ideas that can help overcome fear and shyness as well as offering encouragement for putting the ideas into practice. Ms RoAne set our to write a book that would enable anyone, particularly someone prone to fright at large crowds, to walk into a room and connect with people. Her techniques can help wallflowers move into the mainstream of a business or social gathering and have a more satisfying time (and have more fun). For example, one of Ms. RoAne's more powerful techniques is to encourage moving from guest behavior to hosting behavior. The idea is simple and non-threatening, yet by providing a purpose to interact with others at a gathering, a user of this technique can turn a situation that is usually intimidating into a good experience. Other techniques and strategies are also useful and all are summarized in the final chapter as the ten commandments of connecting with people.

A reader focussing mostly on the techniques presented by the author and not taking some of the examples too literally will benefit most from this book. I have seen her strategies and techniques work first hand and recommend this book.

How to Work a Room is a reasonably good book, but I think women will get a whole lot more out of it than men will. I, as a man, was not terribly interested in worrying about being hit on by my co-workers ("The Intercepted Pass") or dressing in a business appropriate fashion. There are good points for both men and women, but these can also be found in other materials.

The books an easy read. It starts out in the standard way with reasons we don't perform as well as we should etc. After a few chapters, I started to get useful information. The yiddish words through me off until the end of the book where the glossary was located; should have been at the beginning of the book. The edition I read was published in the late 80's. There's a more recent edition out by the author. There are many references to California personalities mainly in the bay area in the examples. The ten commandments at the end of the book is a handy reference sheet. Chapter 13 though interesting regarding how she meet her husband and got the book deal; it really wasn't necessary. This is a must read for those starting out in business working conventions and trade shows espeically in the tech industry. Making connections is a must.

In the good tradition of standard self-help like -how to win friends and influence people- this one is a good guidance for people wanting to be better in the art of socialising. Should be read by anyone with people-to-people communication whether at job or for personal gratification. Should become standard text book in a communication and public relation trainnings. Good to laymen and easy to follow. Tanadi Santoso 12/97

This is a book fabulous. There are a few things that are common sense, but sometimes its good to have such things presented in the way this book does. Its an effective book and can have a powerful effect on a persons social life.