Networking: be interesting or be knowledgeable?

Woohoo more networking questions on WSO
I'm asking this so I can decide whether I should get back into drawing and painting or if I should continue to chip away at Porter's Competitive Strategy (I'm looking into management consulting/corporate strategy with a computer science background, not business)

I'm looking to break into MBB (obviously) or tier 2 to eventually get into MBB. Ideally I want to make my way towards a corporate strategy role within a company.

I'm currently a BI consultant at a very small, but growing boutique. I've always been terrible at networking but at this point I feel like going gung-ho and just reaching out to people via LinkedIn and/or email (which I still feel super creepy cold emailing) so I can get to where I want to be.
Time is of the essence this decade for me so if I don't act now, I'll never be able to act anyways. So I figured I will at least give it a shot in spite of my very bad social anxiety.

So I'm asking this question for advice from the professionals at MBB or who are currently in corporate strategy in-house for a company.

If some recent graduate began reaching out to you, would you find it more important that he be able to talk to you about the technicals of strategy and management while networking or would you prefer that he have an actual hobby that he can chat about?

Or neither?