Growing Your Social Capital

The person who is the domain expert in the industry is Binh Ma. 

Binh Ma is an immigrant from Vietnam who is the founder, head sushi chef, and owner of Sushi Matsuri in Gainesville, a higher-end sushi restaurant that serves authentic Japanese sushi and kitchen food. He fits into this slot because he has over 20 years of experience and is a well-known entrepreneur in Gainesville for the restaurant industry. I used to work at Sushi Matsuri and that is how I met Binh and got to know him. He trained and mentored me in the importance of building a network and customer base, how to run a restaurant on a day-to-day basis as well as in the lenses of the big-picture, and how to set forward with an entrepreneurial, go-getting spirit. In return, I work for him as a waitress and also help with book-keeping and other various duties. Including him in my network will help me exploit this opportunity because he has many connections within the restaurant industry (ranging from inventory providers to marketing to other restaurant owners) and also has been trained in serving authentic cultural cuisine and how to market it to the general American population.

The person who is the market expert is Victor Lufting. Dr. Luftig is the Dean of Students at the University of Virginia and was also the Dean of Students for the Spring 2016 Semester at Sea voyage. He is filling in the spot of market expert because he has numerous years of experience working with the student population as well as the hospitality and tourism industries - two of the biggest parts of my intended market. I met him when I was a student on Semester at Sea. He taught me how to identify and target the market in each new city we were in and also how to relate to the customer experience. In exchange, I helped him with meeting representatives from different countries who would be educators for the voyage. Including this person in my network helps me to exploit this opportunity because of his extensive network of different leaders in the international community and of his experience working with various populations in providing services. 

3) The person who will be an important supplier for the industry is Keren Dang. Keren is a marketing and international studies major at the University of Florida. She fills this slot because she will be in touch with entertainers and educators from around the world which she can help schedule in to the restaurant. Additionally, her marketing knowledge could be used to reach the population. The favor she did for me was she looked at my business plan and made suggestions, generated ideas, and helped make connections between her line of work and mine. My return was helping to further the connection between our two goals. Including her in my network will enhance my ability to get in touch with international lecturers and educators (and chefs) to help make Journey the experience I intend it to be. 

Reflect. This experience will help shape how I participate in networking in the future by how it showed me new purposes for building relationships (such as establishing a mutually beneficial give-and-take connection). It showed me how to define relationships and look at the goals for why you have that relationship. Yes, this experience differed. In the past, I networked for the sake of building my network. However, this time I networked in order to generate new ideas and gain feedback.