Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Networking/Donations = 99% Luck

I had a very interesting "networking" conversation with a very resourceful person at school today.

I am heading up Rotman Photography Association (RPA) this year. RPA is in its second-year of running - it is a constant challenge to live up to its members expectations and to diversify the activities/workshops. We have a great team - very artsy people, who are genuinely interested in photography. We had 35 members sign up for the club, which is absolutely awesome!

I have been trying to get my head around different ways I can make this club exciting enough so that the members think - "wow! I am glad I joined this club". The biggest challenge is that being a new club, we have yet to prove ourselves. The second challenge is getting funding for RPA.

A few weeks back, I mentioned to my resource (let's call this person - Windfall) that RPA needs some "aha" factor to engage its members. Windfall promised to do something about it. Today, I ran into Windfall and it was mentioned that Windfall can fly in last year's National Geographic Photography's winner to Rotman (at Windfall's expense) to give a workshop on landscape photography!

WOW! was my response and I could not stop jumping around :)

Then, there were two other options:

  1. Studio Photography from another reputed guest speaker.
  2. Lighting Techniques from yet another guest speaker.
Today's conversation was all about luck! I will be so very grateful to Windfall is I can get this National Geographic person to Rotman for RPA.

Not only does Windfall know this National Geographic person, but Windfall also knows this Rotman alumni whom I have been trying to connect with since last year! I know if Windfall sees a fit, I might get connected to this alumni for a full-time opportunity within the industry I want to work in.

Getting a job, getting a donation, and getting connected to National Discovery people is all about being at the right place at the right time. 99% of times it is about luck, remaining 1% of times it concerns voicing out what and why do you want something :)

1 comment:

kiran sawhney said...

U seem to be doing some great and interesting work. All the best dear.