Hello! A 2009 Kodak Moment.
Talking to a friend about the experience of ringing the Closing Bell on NASDAQ on the 12th January 2009, and how it had been a great start to last year and in fact a rather cool event all round. We discussed the fact that the event only came into being because of a series of introductions made by people through networking. As the conversation progressed my friend thought that by keeping a journal and sharing some of these experiences would not only be entertaining for people to read but perhaps give others some insights into business practices we encounter along the way as we launch into 2010 and get up and running a few new business ideas.
It’s funny how one story leads to another…………a few years back Milverton Wallace – a friend and colleague – reached out to Seth Godin and Seth introduced us to Imal Wagner – a brilliant US book and on-line PR lady. Imal for the last few years had been handling our PR for the first ‘Lessons Learned’ book series and she had managed to secure this amazing event to ‘Ring the Closing Bell at NASDAQ’ to celebrate the announcement of us signing a second 12 book deal with Harvard Business School Press.
For more information about the event you can find at: http://www.nasdaq.com/reference/200901/market_close_011209.stm
Ringing the Closing Bell at NASDAQ!
Jeff Hayzlett the CMO of Eastman Kodak joined us to give support and some business celebrity clout and the result – we got picked up by various news feeds and even got our logo branded in Times Square! I can’t resist but this really was a KODAK moment!
Damian, Jennifer, Andy and Jeff at Times Square!
The point of this story however, is that through a little networking a whole string of new experiences and stories have materialised. Some happen quickly for example Imal secured the slot at NASDAQ and we had literally days to organise, others take time and need nurturing.
During September 2009 I began working with Virginia Raemy of Talent Puzzle (http://press.talentpuzzle.com/) and we started playing around with various Social Networking sites, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook etc. We hired a 24 year old intern to play with them and within a few days she started getting connections to people and spreading the word of this new innovative recruitment model that no one had heard of called Talent Puzzle. The results were immediate – people started posting jobs on the Talent Puzzle web site, and already we have found that the ‘networking effect’ is far more effective than traditional ‘cold calling’.
The power of networking!
