
So Steve Gonzalez, John Warner, Phil Yanov, Trey Pennington and I spent the latter part of the afternoon chatting with Clemson University students and faculty about the power of networking. The premise (eloquently framed by John Warner and Trey Pennington) was basically this: “Build Dig your well before you get thirsty.” In other words, don’t wait until you graduate. Start building your future professional network now, while you still have a year or two of school ahead of you. Do this right, and you may never need to even draft a resume or go through a formal interview process.
The panel was pretty stacked with talent (between Steve, John, Phil and Trey, we had some of South Carolina’s most influential and well connected movers and shakers) so I was basically just lucky to be there.
We could have easily spent half a day talking about building relationships, building communities, effective networking, and effective social media usage, so maybe we’ll be lucky enough to be invited back. Until then, rather than give you a written play by play of the discussion, I will post a link to the video from the event (Courtesy of View Digital) as soon as it is available. (Though you can already check Twitter coverage here and here.)
Speaking of coverage, Doug Cone came out to Clemson to hang out with us and take photos, so I have to give him props for doing a great job behind the camera. All of the photos you see here are his work.
Bringing this kind of discussion into an academic setting is invaluable, and the engagement from the audience was kind of infectious. I could get used to this. (Let’s hope this was one of many such events.) 🙂
Thanks again to my fellow panelists for quietly enduring my loquacious answers, to Bobby Rettew for putting this on and asking me to join such an A-list bunch of folks on the panel, to Clemson University for taking such good care of us today (minus the parking ticket), and especially to our audience for being a great crowd and asking us some pretty smart questions. Let’s do it again soon. 🙂
Looks like a good time.
Your sweater is a striking resemblance to…
https://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/photos-from-todays-business-jumpstart-workshop/
🙂
“…build your well…” ???
I can see none of you nerds have ever worked on a shovel-ready project. You DIG a well.
But I’m impressed on the amount of social media chutzpah that was located in one place for this event. That many big brains must have really raised the temperature in the room.
And it is nice to see that the curl is still there, and getting larger. Have you had anyone look at that to see if it should be removed?
That’s it, im getting all of you missdestructo.com t-shirts. 😛
I have a whole stable of these sweaters. The other one was black. This one was brown. I’m wearing the gray one today. Dave Armano has cowboy hats… I have V-neck argyle sweaters. ;D
Destructo: I’l take mine in an Adult S please,so I can show off my guns.
Dick, I may have misquoted that one. Changing it now. And we’re proud to be nerds. (At least, I am.) 😉
How was the turn out? I’m a Clemson student who very much wanted to be there to meet some of my favorite Twitter friends (i.e. you) face to face! Unfortunately I working in Greenville. Do you think this kind of connection with Clemson might be continued in the future?
Tiffany
P.S. There’s nothing wrong with a little argyle… 🙂
What a fun time! I am just honored that the fine panelist (including the esteemed Oliver) could take part in Empowering Our Future using Social Networking tools for networking for careers. What a kick-butt panel…smart successful people!
It is my goal to do this again, and with such impressive feedback…I will make sure this is planned again, SOON! Great conversation, great minds, great feedback…powerful! And it was for a good cause!
Olivier: “We had some of South Carolina’s most influential and well connected movers and shakers, so I was basically just lucky to be there.” Yea right. Mr. Social Media himself. The pacesetter of the panel. It was lots of fun. I hope we do it again.
Dick: “None of you nerds have ever worked on a shovel-ready project.” I make it a point to do as little real work as possible 🙂
Tiffany: “Unfortunately I working in Greenville.” There you go. See comment above.
Hey Tiffany! Sorry I missed your comment until now. ;D
Sounds like Bobby will be repeating the event. Keep an eye out for the next one either this summer or in the fall.
dry cleaners come in handy specially if you need your precious clothes to get cleaned very fast -;”