“Strategic” networking is never about getting a series of gold nuggets out of peers. Other people don’t have answers that will map 1:1 into your world – at least exceedingly rarely. Situations are different.
Instead, it’s the little ideas. Tiny seedlings that grow into something beautiful only with careful processing and gene-splicing with other lil’ idea-seeds.
That changes how to approach a networking conversation. Don’t go in to get “insights”. Go in to get surprised, taken aback, confused, or worried. Go in to experience things that might plant sneaky little seeds you can harvest down the line, and to plant your own seeds with others.