Growing My Social Capital

Zack Scott

1) Who they are and what their background is.

University of Florida Graduate in computer science. Now works for microsoft.

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot.

Domain expert. In the sense that he is more knowledgeable when it comes to software development

3) A description of how you found the person and contacted the person.

He was a buddy of mine, because we were both on the UF drumline together

4) The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation?

He didn’t expect anything in return, just did me a favor by answering a few questions I had about the software.

5) How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?

He explained that it's definitely possible to create a product like my concept (youtube and google are currently working on copyright protection software), however youtube and google have almost infinite resources. When it comes to audio recognition and holding a mass database of all those songs, my best chance of success is to patent the idea and sell it to a major developer with the funds to make it.

Sheryl Paige

1) Sheryl is a songwriter/Musician from orlando. She writes and sells her own music, as well as knows a lot of people that write songs for artists.

2)

Market expert. This is because she is a part of the market

3) I used an contact list of songwriters that I found online.

4)

They provided me with information on the usefulness of my product, and what aspects of it I should focus on. The return is that she wanted me to let her know how my product turns out.

5)

I believe that I will have a direct link towards potential customers after including her in my network. She’ll be able to tell others in the songwriters association about my product.

1)I couldn’t think of a supplier that would go towards software companies, so instead I contacted a company called “savvy apps” which can be hired to help the development and sale of your app in many ways.

2) Supplier

3) found by googling

4) the return for them is that they would charge me money in return for help with creating my app

5)According to Savvy Apps the cost of making an application depends greatly on how complex it is. Mine would be on the more complex side which would cost a ridiculous amount to make.

Reflection: This differed from previous networking experiences, because I usually don’t actively seek connections for a singular purpose. I normally meet people through activities or school, which leads to an unrelated connection. In this case I found myself going on google and having to find and call people to achieve more direct results. It was more work than just casually meeting people, but it did prove effective.