Growing Your Social Capital

Domain Expert:

Roger Austen is a political consultant in the local Gainesville area. He works independently of any and all firms and has a lot of insight into the political climate of North-Central Florida. I found him through some political science major friends as well as through the local Republican Party on campus. Our exchange was mostly us talking about how people were so ecstatic at Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. His answer to this phenomenon was that people were fed up with the mainstream media and their party patrons. With that, I told him about my application and he thought it was a good idea. He definitely wants me to refine it some more to help end bias. A connection like this gives me some important background information to work with to better improve “Power2U.”

Market Expert: 

Jerrit Gorman is affiliated with Young Americans for Liberty and occasionally surveys students throughout campus on their opinion on certain political issues. This is actually how we met each other as he approached me for a survey and while I filled it out, we spoke about politics. I asked him about what he thought about my idea for an application that removes bias from the political equation. He told me that it would be a fanciful application unless public records are used for most of the information. He offered if I ever needed help looking for someone to do a survey, he would be willing to do it. 

Supplier:

Andrew Sexton calls himself a professional politician-in-training since he jets around the country talking with Republican Party officers.  Drew was a connection I made through my friends at the Delta Upsilon fraternity. Drew is never in town except on very special occasions and I ran into him quite accidentally while visiting a friend of mine at the house. We got to speaking about bias in politics and I mentioned “Power2U” to him and he reviewed the idea a bit. He gave me some feedback and told me to work on it and add a feature that allows politicians to input some explanations onto why they voted or acted in a certain way on some bills. This connection will allow for more of an institutional opinion on this to prevent outright conflict with the political parties. 

Conclusion: 

This experience has taught me that when I wish to network with people that I should in general just see where they stand on certain issues and offer to contribute my help to make that issue non-existent. In that way, I can garner support from people that I met to meet both of our ends while ever-expanding my network in support of a solution. This differed from my previous experiences as I always introduced myself instead of what I can offer potential connections.