its all about who you know...and how well you know them.

networking. the single most important thing to do in business.

benefits of networking:
finding:
- customers
- clients
- partners
- employees
- manufacturers
- investors
- babysitters
- internships
- jobs
- opportunities
- a wife/husband
...and the list goes on.

bottom line is that networking is the way you meet people. whether you're at the campus cafeteria and you meet a friend through another friend, or you're at one of those Kogod sponsored networking receptions....the person you meet in Terrace Dining Room may be more, less, or un-important as the big business man you met at the reception. personally, i feel that there is no harm in meeting people and from everybody you meet, chances are that you'll grasp or think about at least one thing they did or said...or get one internship, or meet one person they know which will change your life in some way.

as far back as I can remember....every job i've ever had was because of a connection i've made, most times, somebody i knew who knew somebody else passed my resume along...or somebody my parents knew had some tie to something.

"It's not what you know, but who you know." (Don't know who said that..its just a cliche, but a true one at that.)

story time:
so remember that flight i was on last week from Madrid to JFK? yea--the one that caught on fire. well, i was sitting next to women who was an IT major at University of Michigan and now works for Nokia in the technology department. She basically talks to third party vendors and finds software for nokia to use with their phones....well yea, we schmoozed. And I got her card and emailed her and....lets hope I have an internship with Nokia next summer!
(no bull)

to conclude my argument on the importance of making connections and networking.....no matter who is or where you are, we all have something to gain from one and other, whether it be one of those things i listed in the beginning...or even finding out something you don't want to do or somewhere you don't want to work. I interned last fall at Simon Property Group in Arlington, VA....and though the stuff they had me doing was tedious (I was a marketing specialization at the time)....the internship was successful. It was successful because I was able to realize what i didn't want to do...marketing. therefore, even if what you get from meeting somebody is not a positive experience, chances are you'll benefit in some way.

linked here is an article I found which is relevant to my discussion and this week's reading entitled "It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know: Work in The Information Age"

blogging for a purpose

rather than reflecting on blogging and its connection and effect on politics this post is an experiment. Over spring break five of my friends and I decided to do an alternate spring break trip and venture to Spain with nothing but airline tickets and apartment and hostel reservations. Surprisingly, we made great use of all our days abroad and saw what there was to see in the cities as far as official tourism as well as a fair share of things that the Spanish government doesn’t support nor seem to prosecute – like hookers, beer vendors, and drug dealers who line “Las Ramblas” any night after about 1AM. Needless to say, with six best friends in Spain for eight days we had an awesome trip, however, the airline was the only damper. Anyway—the experiment I was going for in this blog was to post about my horrible experience on Iberia Airlines with a picture and see what kind of out-of-class reaction this can/ or will stir up.

on the way to Barcelona, other than about four gate changes connecting in Madrid to reach Barcelona and rude flight attendants – everything went fairly smoothly, that is, other than the landing in Barcelona. The only time I feel Iberia really screwed up was with the flight from Madrid back to JFK. After arriving at the airport we all check in at the ticket counter and are told that since the flight was oversold we don’t have seats and had to take all of our luggage and standby vouchers to a customer service desk. The good news is—they were able to get us seats. Arriving at the gate the flight was delayed 30 minutes for maintenance reasons and then we were able to board the plane. Everything goes smoothly…we take off, and then about 8 minutes later the pilot comes over the P.A. telling us that one of our engines overheated and we need to make an emergency landing back in Madrid. As we touch the ground the aircraft was surrounded by emergency vehicles (fire, police, ambulance) and then we were asked to disembark the plane. Here’s a picture I took from the jet-bridge as we were going back into the airport:




As it turned out, one of the engines had overheated, caught on fire, and was sprayed down by the fire crew. I would think that if they knew it was a problem they wouldn’t put some duct take on and send us on our way across the Atlantic…maybe its just standard procedure. After two hours of sitting in the Airport we were finally able to board a new aircraft and make our way to New York. My friends and I are still trying to come up with an acronym for I B E R I A. Any ideas?

Incompetently
Bringing
Everybody
Roughly
Into
Airports

Hopefully this will let the company know that they really need to get their act together, and possibly some free tickets to Spain for myself? Come on Iberia ....challenge my blog!

tom kyte & his second life/(job)

tom's presentation to the class was great in that we spoke to and met first hand one of the largest bloggers on the web. it was interesting to hear blogging from his point of view and hear about his beginnings in blogging on cnet news groups.

one of my favorite parts of the lecture was when he showed us a few of the websites that he gets his news from including FARK.COM which I thought was hilarious and read it on a daily basis now.

Aside from tom kyte, tomorrow I will be giving a presentation on Second Life. after spending a lot of time playing the game and becoming familiar with it, it is really impressive all that can be done in the game. With Dell Island, American Apparall Store, and millions of users, business, and services available there is so much to be done, learned, and profited on.

....i can't believe that in this day in age it is possible for one to profit off of a virtual reality. Sim city was one thing where users throughout the world had the ability to interact with each other and live together in another life. I was reading an article about Anshe Chung who was the first man to make $1,000,000 on Second Life. Check out the article from "Business Week"

let me know what you guys think about this new ability to make money in second life.