A person is a mind, a set of relationships, some property and a finite life. So there are exactly four things one person can give another: what they know, who they know, what they have, and their time.
Each of those can be given in three ways. That is twelve. Every request a human being has ever made of another human being is one of them, or a few of them together, and we split those into parts.
One example of each. The situations are real in shape. Nobody is named and nothing here is a testimonial.
What you know / Tell
I am launching in Germany in three weeks and I need somebody who has actually registered for VAT there
Answered the same day by somebody who had done it twice
What you know / Do
Can somebody who hires for this role read my CV before Thursday
A hiring manager rewrote the top third of it
What you know / Teach
I pay somebody to do my bookkeeping and I would rather be able to do it myself
Four sessions, and then the dependency was over
Who you know / Introduce
I am raising, and the people who invest in this are strangers to me
One introduction to a fund, and a second to a founder who had already raised from it
Who you know / Vouch
Somebody who has seen my work needs to say so, before a decision on Friday
A reference given by a person with the standing to give it
Who you know / Find
Nobody I know can help with this. Somebody, somewhere, must
Somebody went looking through their own people until the right person was located
What you have / Lend
I need a suit for one morning and I am not going to buy one
Borrowed, worn, returned
What you have / Give
We are moving out and there is a cot, a desk and a bookshelf that somebody should have
Three things went to two homes
What you have / Share
I need a quiet room with a door for two hours on Tuesday
A desk in somebody's studio, twice since
Your time / Turn up
Two hours on Saturday and a second pair of hands. That is the whole thing
Two hours on Saturday, and a second pair of hands
Your time / Be with
My father died last month and I am the executor, the translator and the one grieving, all at once
Held quietly. Nothing published, nothing in the feed, no price
Some exchanges are held quietly. Nothing is published, nothing reaches the feed, and the price can be waived entirely. Nobody profits from somebody’s worst week.
Your time / Go instead
I cannot be in two places at nine on Thursday, and one of them only needs a person in the room
Somebody went
The last one in each group is the hardest to arrange, and it is the one a network is actually for.
Five things we will never route. Payment or advantage for a favour. Misuse of a position somebody holds on behalf of others. Harm to anybody outside the exchange. Anything that trades on intimacy, dependency or need. Anything the law reserves to a licensed professional.
And three things that are not an exchange at all. An emergency goes to emergency services, immediately. Acute distress goes to a real support route, shown once, without a queue. A question a tool answers in four seconds gets the tool, named, and a warm note to come back if it does not hold up.
