Networking Strategies and Theory Vol. 1

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Networking Strategies and Theory Vol. 1

    It should be no secret that I am using this blog to catalogue my journey through business and entrepreneurship as well as being a leader.  I have currently tasked myself with growing my network of connections and contacts to create an environment conducive of easily reaching people that could help me along the journey. 

    One problem that I have ran into recently is the actual implementation of actively networking with others.  It is an easy idea to ponder but grows more difficult the more you think and the less you do.  It seems that I have found myself in a rut of complacency regarding where I am currently at with networking and due to this, I am experiencing some troubles growing my span of influence.  This exists on my personal blog as well as various social media platforms that I use.  I plan to actively shift this by implementing new strategies that I have researched and plan on discussing here.

    One of my end-game goals is to create an entrepreneurial network capable of supporting various ideas and ventures that I may want to pursue either currently or later in life.  In order to accomplish this, I need a pretty broad network of individuals across various fields with various specific and general interests that mesh with my own.  It goes without questioning that convincing people to network with you is a difficult task, as once you exhaust personal contacts the efforts grow rather cold.

The Limited-Platform Approach

    In the beginning, I began looking to network across many different platforms.  I distributed my time evenly across all these platforms, thereby restricting my success on all of them due to my time constraints.  I believe instead of being active on many platforms I should focus on just a few and integrate them with one another.  The downside to this is the potential to miss the big fish because I failed to cast the line into the water.  Unfortunately, I’m afraid that this is an acceptable risk due to the time constraints of not being able to monitor and manage accounts myself with consistency.  If the neglect of certain platforms to maintain others results in the missing of a big fish, then all other things aside, this approach may end up being less risky.

    My action in this is to throw away Instagram and any other platforms that I haven’t currently invested a good deal of time in developing.  I intend to keep what I would call my big three: Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.  I also believe that it is necessary to keep my Google based platforms, as I am publishing this content on one of Google’s programs.  I believe that the time spent in developing the Facebook Group associated with this blog is enough to justify keeping it as well, if for nothing else, to reverberate content that I publish elsewhere.  I will suspend growing across other platforms for the immediate future and continue to develop these.

Experience with Blogging Circles and Their Exclusion

    In the past months I have become a part of many groups of bloggers promoting their blog.  These are excellent communities to join and they all provide such great tips and learning experience.  My biggest problem with these now is that they are all other bloggers wanting to publish content and have it recognized.  Inherently publishing content and operating a website is a very time-consuming thing.  When I run the math in my head, an active blog manager only has a limited number of hours left in their day.  This led me to the realization that if you intend to produce substantial results from content, you may have to look for horizons outside of others looking to attract people to join their purpose.

    This poses a challenging problem for an entrepreneur with a currently limited network with a low capacity to grow due to time constraints stretched across multiple platforms.  I believe the problem lies in direct relevant engagement and then confirmatory engagement.  Neither of these happen when you are a part of circles or groups searching for something of their own.  I am now going to actively practice limiting my participation in circles of other content creates and try to expand my network in the direction of those actually interested in the subjects that I intend to create a network from.

Defining a Member of My Network

    So far before I officially add a contact to my network, I have declared two requirements.  The first is that I have had a direct relevant engagement with that person.  This would mean that we had an exchange where the basis was topically related to a subject that I am interested in including in my professional network.  The two key factors are engagement and topically related.  The subject of interest must be present as well as enough interest from the other party to engage in discussion.  If these criteria are not present, as I often found, I had a one-sided conversation that resulted in boredom and frustration.  I made it a habit to try to achieve this relatively quickly or try to forecast whether that an engagement would be present.

    I believe once a direct relevant engagement has happened, you can tentatively include that person in your professional network.  I believe full inclusion depends on whether a follow-up engagement happens which proves that they were not just committing a nicety and were good conversationalists.

    Since I have defined these criteria for building my network, I have found that I have a lot of potential networking partners to re-evaluate and categorize.  I found that I had thought a lot of people were a part of my professional network related to my desire to become an entrepreneur, but were friends appeasing me for conversation. (Which are good to have, and I consider myself lucky to have them all!)

Conclusion and Key to Success

    I believe these and many other strategies and networking theories are the key to succeeding with delivering entrepreneurial visions to the world.   None of us is as strong as all of us.  In believing this I truly believe that teams, teamwork, and team building are key to succeeding in a lot of projects.  I believe that especially for entrepreneurs, the secret sauce here is in the quality of networks of people that are built and relied on.  It is for this reason that I will continuing publishing content and progress of my personal networking journey to outline the knowledge that I have gained and demonstrate to myself and others how I intend to apply it.

A Call to Network: an Entrepreneurial Venture

A Call To Network: An Entrepreneurial Venture

    At the turn of the year I decided to take a hiatus and re-think a lot of what I was doing in my spare time.  I had decided that I would begin networking for future entrepreneurial ventures and begin building teams with people interested in various areas of study.  I knew that this would require a break from my writing and networking here, however, I have begun further reconstruction of this website and began implementing steps into tying it into my evolving project regarding leadership and business.

    I frequently conjure up ideas of business models in my head.  I fancy imagining technologies and inventions that could potentially change the world for the better.  I have made a commitment to at least construct a complete model and framework for a business that is focused on research and intellectual property licensing.

My Current Interest: Networking

    At this stage I am really seeking to expand my network of peers to include students of business, law, chemistry, accounting, economics, marketing, and physics.  I would not be opposed to expanding my network into the realm of professionals.  My only concern with that is much this would initially be in theory.  I am wanting to network with individuals who stand to benefit from the networking itself, as compensation for time spent networking isn’t feasible.  Future environments resulting from networking producing future compensation is hopeful based on my success with networking and finding like-minded people.

The Current Project: Clean Energy

    In maturity the entrepreneurial venture would be to support research and development of various scientific theories that may or may not be in practice.  Revenue would be generated initially from corporate start-up business strategy outside of substantial initial direct investment.  After infancy revenue will be generated by the licensing, selling, or further developing novel technologies through self-licensing followed by marketing.

Areas of Research

    This is the area that initially sparked my thought that I believe to have a lot of opportunity for growth.  Areas of research would include thermal electric generators and their amplification, the Lorentz Force and it’s affect on various elements and ionic solutions, photogeneration via manipulation of excitable electrons, and many others.  Obviously, these subjects are not exclusive, and I intend to continue exploring other subjects and areas of research, but these are the ones that have for a long time fascinated me.

    At this point I believe the knowledge discovered itself will be valuable and the methodology used to obtain results equally valuable. 

Following Insights

    It is widely accepted that the forces that hold the building blocks of our universe together do so with much energy hanging in the balance.  Look at the different of energy released by say 100 kilograms of refined petrol next to 100 kilograms of refined uranium when approached a little differently.  Imagine if we could take that 100-kilogram explosion of uranium in a trickling, controlled way.  I am not suggested that uranium is an element of interest, I am interested in moving away from dangerous elements and into a safer era of clean and green energy.  My reference to this is merely to point to looking for energy in areas where it may be hidden, such as within the strong force exerted between protons and neutrons, or the electromagnetic force that holds electrons in orbit around their nuclei, and ways to experimentally determine if we are able to harvest that energy in a way much more useful than that of chaotic nuclear fission.  In the event something like this was successful, it may result in batteries for many of modern-day devices that would last for not days, but years or decades.  Imagine a car that would not need to run on fuel, because the energy generation within its battery would be enough to power it for 10 years?  I am not interested in the fluff, so to speak, but rather in the journey of learning that could happen as a result of curiosity.

    I am not opposed to publishing findings via scholarly articles or submitting them to journals, so long as it does not undermine the due course of success for the organization.

Feel free to contact me on any of the platforms that I have listed on my CONTACTS page, preferable via email Jglennsturgell@Gmail.com or Josh@Joshuasturgell.com .