Growing Your Social Capital

Interviewee #1

1. Who? Peggy Trudeau: former Human Resources Manager at Naylor Association Solutions; former boss of mine
2. Slot? Domain expert
1. Peggy Trudeau has worked in the Human Resources industry for 20 years. She worked for a plethora of businesses, whether they were related to health administration or consulting. Since she worked in a more generalist role, she was able to gain experience in recruitment, payroll, compensation and benefits, and legal compliancy. She’s gained a lot of knowledge and experience from her years of experience that I would consider her a domain expert.
3. How did you find them? I have worked directly under Peggy, as I was her intern. Therefore, she provided a lot of professional guidance and knowledge on many topics, especially those related to HR.
4. Nature of exchange? As previously mentioned, I worked under Peggy as an intern; therefore, the relationship I have is one with a superior. She’s been a mentor for me, and someone who has taught me a lot about HR and its related fields.
5. Will they help exploit your opportunity? Even though my business is related to building self-defense workshops, including Peggy in my network will help with any compliancy or legal issues I may have regarding my business. There are many rules that need to be followed for a business to be considered legal and transactional, therefore having her expertise would definitely steer me in the right direction.

Interviewee #2

1. Who? Morgan Faroni: a RAD self-defense instructor (another RAD instructor, different from the one I previously interviewed)
2. Slot? Market expert
1. Morgan has been a RAD instructor for a few years and has been teaching young women in the college campus area about proper self-defense techniques 
3. How did you find them? I have personally taken self-defense classes with Morgan and I was able to contact her through that way. She also happens to work at the Financial aid office on campus. 
4. Nature of exchange? Having been a student of her class, she has a very personable yet authoritative experience. I see her as a resource and advocate for women and protecting them. 
5. Will they help exploit your opportunity? She is a big advocate for women and having them feel the need to protect themselves in unsafe situations. I believe with her help she would be more than willing to act as a potential instructor once this business were to establish itself. She also would be willing to teach on crisis management and give any of her past experiences and knowledge to other potential instructors.

Interviewee #3

1. Who? My neighbor: app creator of emergency alert features
2. Slot? Supplier expert
1. My friendly neighbor has some experience dabbling in app making. He’s a Computer Science graduate and has a daughter in college, and during his free time he went and created an application that sends out alerts to the officials when pressing a button. He created this app because he figured it would help his daughter as she went off to college.
3. How did you find them? Since he is my neighbor and his daughter and I are really good friends, I was able to find out more about his app and his supplier functions through proximity.
4. Nature of exchange? I mentioned my business proposal to this supplier, and he was able to provide me some feedback on how I can market it better and maybe create some sort of database system that could help track membership. He’s always been like a father figure to me, so he was providing me constructive feedback and showing me my options.
5. Will they help exploit your opportunity? I believe including this person in my network will allow for a more structured format on the business and its services. He’s very techy; therefore, any sort of logistical issues that may arise can be handled by him.

Reflection:

I was very lucky in this “targeted networking” experience since a lot of the individuals who provided feedback on my business are all people I know well. In a way that avoids the need for icebreakers and goes straight into the networking. As for future networking experiences, my approach might have to be a bit more subtle and I should probably do my best in easing into my business proposal rather than presenting it right off the bat.