Assignment 20A

Assignment 20A- Growing Your Social Capital 

1) One person must be a domain expert in your industry.

Andres Aleman has a start-up business called shake and share media. He works with photo booths and is constantly finding new innovative ways of appealing his product to the customer. He would be filling my domain expert position because he is constantly finding different ways to use the technology that he is given. He had to differentiate his product from all of the different photo booths that are in the market right now. He has had to prove to different companies that his product is different from others. He has worked with a lot of different major companies ranging from Google to Colgate. I found this person because he is my uncle and it was very easy to reach him. He told me that he liked my idea and that the thinks he would be able to help me show Disney that there is value in this product. He has worked with a lot of different companies so he knows how to navigate reaching and talking to higher-ups in companies. There were no favors exchanged for reaching out to him and he would help make this product come to fruition. 

2) One person must be an expert on your market.

Paola Guevara currently works for Disney World. She has been working for the company for a while now and is currently a manager of one of the hotels at Disney. Paola would be filling the market expert position, she would be filling it because she has been working for the company for a long time. She had to work hard for her current position, starting as working as a character for the park. She had to interact with people from the park and also had to work with people that were higher up in the company. Since she works as a hotel manager now she knows what people enjoy and what makes them tick. I found this person through one of my friends that goes to ucf, she was her sorority sister. I spoke to her about my idea of implementing the GPS tracker into the magic band and she said it would be a great idea. Since she works at the hotel she told me that they give out magic bands to the guests. This would help my product be spread around quicker since a lot of people stay on property when going to the parks. There were no favors exchanged with this idea and her help would be to promote the product to customers. 

3) One person must be an important supplier to your industry. 

The third person that I talked to, Stephanie was a current animator for Disney. She designs a lot of the products that Disney sells in stores. She would be filling my supplier position because she currently works for Disney in the design aspect of it. She has had to communicate with a lot of people in the product development area because she designs some of their products. This would be helpful when it comes to the distribution of the magic bands because she would be able to come in contact with the people who make the product. I found her through my aunt who is friends with her. I spoke to her about implementing the GPS into the magic bands and she thought it would be a great idea. She said that she would be able to put me in contact with people who would like to listen to the idea of this product. There were no favors exchanged but she said she would be able to help me come in contact with people who would probably want a favor in exchange. 

Reflect. 

This experience was out of my comfort zone because it pushed me to communicate with people that I had never talked to before on the phone and ask them for a favor. I am somewhat of an introverted person and I am very shy when it comes to meeting and talking to new people. This networking experience was different for me because I almost never have had to contact someone on a one on one basis.