Glossary
Dormant tie
A dormant tie is a relationship that's gone quiet — someone you used to be in touch with but haven't connected with in a long time.
Dormant ties are contacts you were once close to but have drifted from. Research on networking finds that reactivating dormant ties is often more valuable than forming new ones: the trust is already there, but the person has been in different rooms than you, so they bring fresh information and reach.
The catch is they're easy to forget — out of sight, out of mind.
Why it matters
Reconnecting with dormant ties is one of the highest-ROI networking moves: low effort, high trust, novel reach. But you can only revive what you remember to revive.
Wend surfaces the people you're drifting from before the gap gets awkward, and drafts a warm reconnect message.