Hasta La Gadget!

Professional networking isn’t a dying strategy–for most modern-day startups, it’s a necessary part of business development.

The landscape of entrepreneurship is changing. Because advancements in technology like crowdfunding websites and easy-to-use online CMS platforms have made it possible to build a structure and image for your company quicker than ever before, some of the fundamentals are getting overlooked.

Professional networking, both online and in person, is a necessary ongoing strategy for startup entrepreneurs. While every business is unique and has different needs, building the business through networking is always a beneficial plan:

1. You’ll meet investors. This is essential if you’re strapped for cash and trying to get your business off the ground. While crowdfunding sites make it easier to generate large amounts of capital, meeting an investor could put your cash worries to bed entirely. Plus, your investor can serve as a mentor and adviser, helping to guide your business through its formative years.

2. You’ll gain influential partners. Partnerships are invaluable, especially for budding startups, and you never know who you’re going to meet. The more connections you have, the more possibilities you’ll have for partnership and expansion.

3. You’ll expand your team. In the early stages of your business, your team is going to be the force that drives your company forward. Networking and building connections is one of the best ways to find new talent and build a perfect team from the ground up.

4. You’ll discover new clients and opportunities. Of course, networking is also a great sales tool, and in the first phase of your startup, you’ll need all the revenue you can get.

5. You’ll gain exposure for your personal brand. Most importantly, the more you show your face and the more you talk about your new business, the more exposure you’re going to get for yourself and your brand. Meeting people, sometimes multiple times and making your way into new forums will increase your brand recognition and reputation within the community.

When networking, be sure to use online platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter in addition to in-person meetings. Using both will open you up to more connections, more opportunities and more visibility for your personal brand.

Jose Vasquez is a serial entrepreneur and tech enthusiast dedicated to helping startup technology companies get the direction and momentum they need to succeed. As the founder of Build. Brand. Blast., Jose has established a collective resource for tech entrepreneurs to consult when brainstorming, creating, launching, or expanding a new business. Jose is also the founder and CEO of Quez Media Marketing, a marketing firm that combines technology and creativity to help new and growing companies get the results they need.

Jose graduated from Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses program. Goldman Sachs is a partner of the What Is Working: Small Businesses section.

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Co-authored by Brett Jenks

You know that hunger and the oceans are on a collision course when your 89-year-old mother phones you — as Safina’s mom did this morning — and says, “Did you see the article saying that we’re driving seafood extinct? We’d better go get some oysters and some blackfish before they’re all gone!” The irony wasn’t entirely lost on her (she was laughing), but she wasn’t entirely kidding, either. “Get ’em while supplies last” is most people’s first response to scarcity. And when billions of people have the same first thought, disaster is right around the corner.

The United Nations estimates that three billion people rely on fish as an important source of protein, while about 65 percent of the world’s fisheries are overfished. Worse, a new study in Science magazine concludes that humans have so profoundly depleted ocean life, we’re causing mass extinction in the sea. But that study also concludes that establishing protected areas could avert many sea-life extinctions.

Ocean fish depletion haunts the world’s coastal communities, where most people live. It’s as true of Jakarta as of Boston. But protecting specific areas — if done before collapse, and if the areas protected are sufficiently large — can allow fish populations to rebound. Fishing around those reserves can then ensure fish and food. Think of it simply: in order to have continued supply and demand, you need supply. You can’t just take from everywhere; you have to have some places reserved for production. It’s startling that with something as important as hunger, something so basic as food supply still isn’t universally understood.

If such a strategy as protecting ocean production is a clear win-win, why isn’t every coastline a mix of fishing and no-fishing areas? It’s difficult to convince fishermen to leave fish in the sea while it’s getting harder to catch enough to survive and feed a family. Yet leaving fish in the sea while their numbers are dwindling is precisely, now, the only hope.

As we see it, the three critical ingredients to sustaining coastal fish and the habitat on which they depend are: no-take reserves, exclusive-access areas where only local fishers can reap benefits of protecting their reserves, and community support. Once those conditions are in place, government support, monitoring and evaluation, local enforcement, and improved links to markets help solidify and institutionalize conservation.

Rarely have all of these elements been brought together. A unique collaboration with Rare’s major funder, Bloomberg Philanthropies‘ Vibrant Oceans Initiative, set the groundwork for this effort. Rare is partnering with Environmental Defense Fund and the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Sustainable Fisheries Group to bring these solutions together in coastal communities around the world.

Photo courtesy of Rare

The program is called Fish Forever because that’s what its founders aim to make possible. This year, 50 different fishing communities in the Philippines, Indonesia, Belize, Brazil, and Mozambique will launch the first Fish Forever projects. By 2019, thanks to brave local officials and fishermen desperate to recover local fish populations, Fish Forever aims to put 20% of these nations’ relevant coastlines on a path to sustainability.

Photo courtesy of Rare

News of the oceans need not bring despair to mothers worldwide. But it requires courage for communities to come together and forge a path through this ocean-hunger bottleneck. Fortunately, there’s a way.

Carl Safina founded Blue Ocean Institute in 2003. The conservation non-profit recently changed its name to The Safina Center at Stony Brook University.

Brett Jenks is CEO of Rare. Rare envisions a world in which all people and the planet flourish.

It started long before “Deflate-gate”, but that episode of alleged cheating by the New England Patriots — reportedly playing with under-inflated footballs during the AFC Championship game to give the quarterback better grip — only magnifies the hate.

Of course, most of the ire is born out of jealousy. Tom Brady is a Hall of Fame-bound quarterback with Hollywood good looks, a supermodel wife and three Super Bowl rings. I’m sure he wears your scorn as tacit recognition of his gridiron brilliance. Still, there’s something about him that sticks in people’s craw.

One of his defensive opponents once declared; “I don’t like him. He don’t like me. I don’t like his hair!”

Other teams believe the refs coddle Brady. The so-called “Tuck Rule” was used at a critical moment of a playoff game in his favor.

Compounding the problem is Brady’s coach. Bill Belichick is a football savant, who never smiles and when he does speak, barely opens his mouth. He’s got a bit of history of using whatever means necessary to gain an advantage on his opponents.

But at the core of Brady hating is every boyhood insecurity we mere mortals still carry with us into our psychiatrist’s office. We all grew up with a Tom Brady. While you were pining away for that cute girl, he was the handsome jock being fawned over by the object of your affection.

He was like Eddie Haskell, the sneaky friend of Beaver Cleaver’s older brother; “Wally, if your dumb brother tags along, I’m gonna — oh, good afternoon, Mrs. Cleaver. I was just telling Wallace how pleasant it would be for Theodore to accompany us to the movies.”

He was your accomplice in childhood pranks who was never around when the cops showed up. Your mother was convinced he was best behaved of all your friends. He was voted most likely to succeed.

And deep down inside, you secretly wished that one day, all that hubris would lead to the air being sucked right out of his balls!

Railroad tracks have been a constant presence in the ever-changing American landscape since the 1800s. Whether they are carrying cars of people and goods, or have fallen into disrepair, the site of train tracks is familiar site to all. For photographer John Michael Sanderson, the railroad and its surrounding landscape is an opportunity to to capture the beauty of these environments from a unique perspective.

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