Don't Stop Networking

When I ask an audience, “How many of you are here hoping to possibly sell something?” almost everyone raises their hands. When I ask that same audience, “How many of you are here to possibly buy something?” nobody raises their hands. 

Ever. Not one person. 

This is what I call the networking disconnect. Too often, people show up at networking events wanting to sell something but nobody ever goes wanting to buy something. This is how networking can be done badly.

So, it didn’t surprise me when I recently read an article entitled “Stop Networking.” It went on to explain how the process of networking is so “mercenary.” The problem is that every example the author gave about how networking doesn’t work was an example of really bad networking! The conclusion was to stop networking. Instead of networking, the author said you should do these five things:

1. Focus on relationships, not transactions.

2. Don’t ask for something before you give something.

3. Don’t make the process about you.

4. Strive for quality, not quantity, in your relationships.

5. Volunteer for leadership roles in organizations you belong to.

Relationships, not transactions. 

The key for networking events is to make solid connections with individuals so they will remember who you are when you do follow up with them. You want them to be interested to meet with you for coffee or lunch. If you go to networking events with the intention of just trying to sell to people, they won’t want to meet with you later because they know you’re going to pitch to them.

Invest in some social capital. 

If you want people to be eager to meet with you after networking events, the key is to find ways to help them. Think back to the people in my audience. Think about all the relationships that had the possibility of forming and how many of them most likely didn’t. If everyone focused on learning who they could help, as opposed to who they could sell to, imagine the relationships that might have been. Good networking is all about investing in some social capital before asking for a withdrawal.

Be interested, not interesting.  

It’s not all about you. Do you want to make a connection (especially if you are networking up to someone more successful than you)? If so, be interested in what they are doing.  Don’t pitch them the moment you meet them. But wait, it never hurts to ask, right? Wrong!  Contrary to popular belief, it is does hurt to ask for business before there’s any kind of relationship.

Quality over quantity. 

The only thing more important than the size of your network is the quality of your network. It’s a people puzzle, not a numbers game. It’s about finding out about the people you’re meeting with. It’s not about collecting as many cards as you can. If your network is a mile wide and an inch deep, you’ll never have a powerful personal network at your disposal.

Become engaged in the groups you belong to. 

If you really want to stand out in a network, volunteer and become a leader in it. It is amazing how much exposure you can receive when you are helping to run a group that you are active in. However, remember two things. First, just being a leader doesn’t mean you’ll get business. At some point, when you have developed a relationship, you do have to let people know that you’d like to do business with them. Second, whatever you do, don’t step down from a leadership role and then immediately quit the group. That really makes it look like you were there for only one reason (and the wrong one at that). Being a leader in a group is about giving back. The secondary benefit is that you can build great credibility.

Source: entrepreneur.com

Contributor: Ivan Misner

Use Technology to Foster Collaboration in Your Office

Avoiding a generational divide in the workplace requires a systemic approach to collaboration, one that values inputs from all, appreciates and respects the contributions of everyone, is seamless to the business and is easy to use.

The processes needed to build out a more collaborative office don’t necessarily change from what you have experienced in the past, but the tools and technology that enable collaboration certainly have.  

Make use of new -- and old -- interfaces.

The advent of new technologies has opened the office up to collaboration that extends beyond a simple phone call or email. New interfaces allow for instant video chat. Twitter feeds and hash tags can be built in support of new projects or products. Interactive and cloud-based guides can allow planners to adjust in the moment and send out instantaneous updates to all affected parties.

As technologies continue to advance, so does the opportunity to collaborate more effectively in the workplace. That said, there’s still nothing better than true, face-to-face communication. The new technologies shouldn’t be seen as tools that subvert traditional communication patterns, but rather as ways to complement them. 

You don't have to be a tech wizard.

Less technical employees need not to worry. Technologies available to us that can help extend collaboration efforts are fairly intuitive. The idea of the millennial as a technical wizard, in most cases, is really less about them being highly technical and more about the technologies being highly intuitive. The interfaces have become simple. It’s just a matter of practice. Hand a 3-year-old an iPad and watch with amazement how easily they can navigate the device.

The new collaboration tools in the market make using their technology simple. Take the new start-up, High Five. They promise to simplify the way we interact with one another at work. Still in beta-testing, High Five promises to disrupt the existing collaboration tool set in our workplace. Imagine emails, instant messaging and video conferencing all in one easy-to-use interface that requires little more than knowing a URL and having an understanding of how to plug in a USB cord.  

This type of technology is simple and easy to use. It’s a way to bring collaboration to the forefront of all that you do in the workplace, and it’s critical to how we can collaborate across generations, in a seamless, easy-to-use way. Technology continues to change our landscape, but it’s not enough to just implement the tools and walk away.  

Establish protocol to embed new technology.

Building a collaborative work environment requires the right processes and the right people. It’s easy to make assumptions about technology as the saving grace and in many cases it can be, but it’s not simply enough to put technology in place and walk away from the structural support needed to embed the technology into the culture of the organization. 

Establishing clear processes and protocol for how interactions happen and encouraging employees to set ground rules for one another about how they prefer to collaborate is a first step. As you certainly know, not everyone chooses to collaborate in the same manner. Some people prefer face-to-face meetings to discuss any relevant issues, and others would prefer to be left alone and handle all communications through email and / or text messaging. 

Evaluate performance expectations and rewards

Looking at your policies in regards to performance expectations and rewards can also help foster collaboration across generations. There’s a lot of wisdom and knowledge embedded in organizations, only most of it is hidden from view. Most of it becomes tribal knowledge, learned by doing, failing, and doing again.

When the boomer generation walks out the door for retirement, how much of their tribal knowledge has been passed down to the younger generations? Are you actively working to collect what they know, are you encouraging them to share it? There are tools that can help you do this. 

Collaboration is key to working across generations, and new intuitive technologies can simplify how we collaborate with one another, but they’re only effective if you have the policies, processes and people in place to make them work. Buying new technology in the hopes of making your workplace more collaborative without appropriate structural support is like flushing money down a toilet.

Put the right support in place and watch the collaboration grow. It’s not rocket science, but it certainly takes time and effort to make it happen.  

Contributor: Curtis Odom

Source: Entrepreneur.com

InspireIT Dilapidated Lab Project:Help Raise Funds on GoFundMe Website

Many secondary school science labs in Africa are in very bad conditions. 

Let us help and renovate these science labs including getting new science equipment.

Please donate, no matter how little. I will be very grateful.

I'm raising money for InspireIT Dilapidated Lab Project. Click to Donate: https://gofund.me/9jbobw?pc=tw_cr_n … via @gofundme

Airbnb Co-Founder: If Rejection Slows You Down, Entrepreneurship Isn't For You

When Airbnb was first shopping its idea to investors five years ago, it faced a lot of skepticism. Today, even as valuations of the apartment-sharing company hover around $10 billion, Airbnb is still pushing against a wall of naysayers. The San Francisco-based startup is in the midst of legal battles with the State of New York and its CEO has recently had to answer for wild orgies happening in rented apartments.

If Airbnb's founders had perfectly thought through every single scenario and unintended consequence of having strangers rent accommodations from each other, they probably wouldn't have entertained the business idea for more than half a beer. But determination is what makes a successful entrepreneur, above all else, says Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk. If you wait for perfection, you will miss some epic opportunities.

Success as an entrepreneur is “less about the idea and more about the person,” Blecharczyk told an audience at a conference on the sharing economy at New York University’s Stern School of Business last week. “All along the way, people said, ‘No, this isn’t going to work, don’t do this.’”

Some investors that Blecharczyk and his partners Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia approached in their early days walked out halfway through the meeting. “I remember going to somebody who we respected, pitching them about what we were doing, and he said, ‘Ah, I hope that’s not the only thing you are working on.’”

Five years later, Airbnb – for all its controversy – is seen as a missed opportunity by some investors. One of the premier venture capital firms in the U.S., Union Square Ventures in New York City, was approached by Airbnb when the founders had graduated from the Y Combinator accelerator program. The founders had run short on cash and were desperately searching for backers. Unable to come up with any funds from investors, the Airbnb cofounders bought a bulk supply of generic Cheerios, put the cereal in boxes labeled “Obama-Os” and “Cap’n McCains” in honor of the presidential election happening at the time and charged $40 a box. The Obama-Os were more popular and so the co-founders ate the remaining Cap’n McCains to save on food money.

Fred Wilson, co-founder of Union Square Ventures, still has a box of the Obama-Os sitting on a mantle in his conference room. “We couldn't wrap our heads around air mattresses on the living room floors as the next hotel room and did not chase the deal. Others saw the amazing team that we saw, funded them, and the rest is history,” wrote Wilson of his investing blunder. “We missed Airbnb even though we loved the team. Big mistake. The cereal box will remain in our conference room as a warning not to make that mistake again.”  

Wilson wasn’t the only investor to miss the Airbnb boat. Luke Williams, the executive director at the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at NYU Stern, said that 15 A-list venture capitalists all listened to Airbnb's pitch and declined to invest.

Since those early days of constant rejection, Airbnb’s growth has been exponential. In the first four years, Airbnb served 4 million guests. In its fifth year alone, it served 7 million guests.

Still, despite Airbnb’s international success, there are still loads of doubters and countless hurdles for the company to navigate. Regulators struggle to define how to classify Airbnb guests and income for tax and rental purposes. Blecharczyk recognizes that there are issues to be worked out, but says that if they had waited to have all of the pitfalls bridged over before launch, a tremendous amount of benefit would have been forfeited at the feet of hesitation.

“Sometimes there is an expectation that all these problems should already be solved, and you just can’t do everything at once. We are certainly very eager to address them as quickly as possible,” said Blecharczyk.

Rather than a “No, don’t do that” attitude, entrepreneurs need to have a “Yes, but please come up with a solution” attitude, he says. And he argues that regulators and city officials should, too. “We should be looking forward and asking ourselves what kind of future do we want to create.”

Blecharczyk is determined to create a future that he himself wants to live in. Even as the co-founder of a company with a valuation in the billions, NYU's staff was unable to convince Blecharczyk to let them book him a hotel for the conference; he only makes arrangements through Airbnb. “I have spent most nights this year living on Airbnb," he says.

Source: entrepreneur.com

The Indigenous Game: Sango Run

Sango Run is a 3D runner game, developed by 24 year old Emmanuel Omene. The game is Nigeria's first infinite runner.

The game can be found on Google Play Store, MTN App Store and Airtel App Store.

Nigerian Student Builds Fully Functional Artificial Intelligence Robot In Sri Lanka

A twenty-four year old Nigerian, Bobai Ephraim Kato, has built a fully functional artificial intelligence robot for his final year project at the International College of Business and Technology (ICBT) in Sri Lanka. While he developed an interest in computing and technology early,  initially he wanted to be a doctor.

After his secondary school education in 2009, he wrote JAMB exams twice trying to get into Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria to study medicine, but was not admitted. He couldn’t get into the remedial school at ABU, and Kaduna State University (KASU) did not accept him either. It was not until he started a program at KASU’s remedial school that opportunity presented itself through the NIIT (National Institute of Information Technology) scholarship exam. Kato’s success story took shape over the next four years as he eventually ended up in Sri Lanka and studied Software Engineering.

Kato admits that the idea of artificial intelligence was random. The knowledge he gained from previous classes on Artificial Intelligence Systems set the pace for his work with the robot. His first work with Artificial Intelligence was “Wine Quality Test”, a piece of software which uses artificial intelligence to determine the quality of wine. When the directive came to his class to create software that uses Artificial Intelligence for predictions and solutions, he couldn’t think of anything. It was not until he did some research that the idea of a robot, which could solve puzzles struck him.

A Nigerian Software Engineering student, Kato personally built and developed the algorithm that enabled the robot to solve a Rubik’s Cube in a matter of minutes – a feat he admits to have never achieved himself. Kato, who hails from the Atyap tribe in Kaduna claims that his journey to success was not smooth, as he had to deal with a lot of failures in the course of his project and an unimpressed supervisor.

“My first 5 tests were a failure. The robot always shot a scanning error, and this was a week to my final submission. All I could do was pray. I didn’t know what to do again. I was confused and restless. I kept grinding and it finally started working. At that stage, the robot wasn’t intelligent enough and I had to train it to solve many puzzles to get more skills to save in the database.”

Kato spent two nights building the robot. After construction, he installed the software which served as the brain into a memory card for testing. A week to Kato’s final submission, the robot was still not functional. It took six tries to get the robot to work, and then a few days to increase its intelligence quotient. It was hard work for Kato, as he could not solve the Rubik’s Cube himself.

Kato claims that there isn’t a lot opportunity in Nigeria, but it is the responsibility of the populace to create opportunity. He also believes that the country can get rid of terrorism if they employ savvy and sincere individuals to man digital investigation, cyber security and forensic computing.

In the spirit of giving back, his new focus is on forensic computing, cyber security, and digital investigation, which he hopes to put to full use when he goes back to Nigeria.

“I’m happy to return back to Nigeria as a Cyber Security and Digital forensic Tech,” he says. “If anything, that’s what Nigeria needs more. We need people who are savvy and sincere in Digital Investigation, Cyber Security and Forensic computing.”

Source: Ventures Africa