When John Swainson, president and CEO-elect of Computer Associates, arrived at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late last month, he thought all he had to do to meet other executives was walk down the street. After all, among the more than 2,000 participants were scores of CEOs from dozens of industries, as well as heads of state, venture capitalists, Nobel Prize winners and Hollywood stars.

But Mr. Swainson soon discovered that networking at Davos, which bills itself as a forum "to improve the state of the world" but is well known as a four-day schmooze fest, requires a lot of strategic maneuvering. At the packed opening reception it was hard to grab an hors d'oeuvre, let alone find a particular executive in the crowd. Some seminars Mr. Swainson had planned to attend were booked, while others were located in hotels far from the central meeting hall.

"It's very big and spread out, and unless you do your homework and consciously set things up, you won't automatically connect with the people you most want to meet," he says.

Within a day, however, Mr. Swainson had learned to scan participants' name tags and launch conversations with anyone who might be helpful to his company. He talked with the information and technology minister of Jordan, where several computer companies are working to improve technology education. And he conversed with pop-music star Peter Gabriel, who mused about new ways to distribute music besides the Internet. "None of us comes here to book millions of dollars in deals," Mr. Swainson says. "But the ideas you hear could provide an opportunity for us in the future."

Networking is an essential skill for executives who want to expand their businesses and careers. It's a way to glean new ideas and build alliances that can lead to everything from new strategies and acquisitions to a new job or board seat. Those who learned the ropes at Davos, the elite business conference that costs executives more than $37,000 to attend, have a variety of tips for others who didn't attend.

For starters, there's a hierarchy to networking. One executive compares it to "a series of concentric circles that ultimately lead to the inner sanctum of power." Formal events that are open to everyone have less cachet than the invitation-only dinners and after-dinner parties.

Leonard Schaeffer, chairman of Wellpoint, a health-benefits company, made sure he received some of those invitations and also spent much more time in one-on-one meetings with current and potential customers than at crowded seminars. (He made the appointments before arriving.) Richard Gelfond, co-CEO of Imax, the large-format motion-picture concern, simply asked others where the most popular parties were being held, showed up and then followed invited guests into the room. At Goldman Sachs's cocktail party, he spotted Michael Dell, chairman of Dell, the computer maker, and introduced himself and suggested they do some business together. (Mr. Dell gave him the name of another executive at Dell to follow up with.)

Whatever the gathering, successful networking requires self confidence and the ability to find common ground with people who may be more powerful or more knowledgeable about a particular subject, says Richard Edelman, the CEO of public-relations firm Edelman USA. He initially felt insecure about what to say at a dinner where he was seated next to Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder and president of technology. "I didn't know enough to talk to him about technology," says Mr. Edelman. So he quickly turned to a subject he did know about, asking Mr. Brin how technology might be used to counter obesity. "You have to be curious and confident, but you can't be looking like a hustler -- no matter how much you want to do business with someone," he says.

It's also important to try to meet people from different places and backgrounds. "You've got to get out of your comfort zone to stretch your thinking," says Paul Sagan, president and CEO-elect of Boston-based Akamai Technologies, a distributor of online content and business processes.

He has been to nine World Economic Forum meetings, and each time, he says, he attended workshops on topics that had nothing to do with anything he knows about. This year, he went to a workshop on "consciousness," where he heard a presentation by a Buddhist monk. In years past, he has attended sessions on robotics, global warming and ethics. He not only learns new things, he says, but he also has built "a global network of contacts" who give him advice about doing business in their respective countries and have worked with him on social issues he's involved in, such as public-school education.

John Quelch, a Harvard Business School professor, agrees that "networking at its best is about broadening your mind and sharpening the focus of your work." At Davos, he attended a workshop about religion and democracy that led him to do more thinking about a book he is writing on marketing and democracy.

Mr. Quelch tells his students that networking can lead to new career possibilities "even if you aren't currently seeking a new job." He points out that "it can never hurt to raise awareness with others about your name and what interests you."