ENT 20 A

Amy is a biologist who works in animal care at a turtle education center in South Florida. Her primary role is taking care of the green sea turtle they have on site, but she also does outreach with the general public. She coordinates groups coming through and plans activities for them. She is filling the ‘domain expert’ slot because she is working at a similar business to what I am trying to create. We chatted about challenges and ideas for marketing, which was really helpful. I am actually attending an event with her at the center next week. This will give me an opportunity to speak to her in person. We are going to network and discuss contacts for bringing groups in. I can connect her with groups we already have and she can help us connect with more teachers. The event on Tuesday is actually with over 100 teachers. Amy has a similar background of science and is now working in education. It can be challenging to make that transition with no formal education background. This is exactly my situation. She has learned a lot from working with people and coordinating programs, so I think we are building a long term collaboration. This will help each of us grow our audience and be better educators.


Krissy is a middle school STEM teacher who I briefly met at a shark event. We exchanged emails, but didn’t really speak. I reached out to connect to her about creating better curriculum to align with standards schools and teachers are using across the US. She has developed a lot of curriculum and is a certified STEM curriculum developer. She also loves sharks and diving! I worked on the grade K-5 curriculum and it was fairly easy to update to meet NGSS, but middle school is really tough. She is going to help us create lesson plans and activities to align with middle school expectations and standards. This will really set us apart and give us even more credibility. She lives in California so we are going to continue to have Skype calls and exchange emails. She fills the “expert on your market,” slot. In return she will be listed on our website as a curriculum developer and being given access to some of our media content to use for her own projects.

We do not regularly buy items, other than marketing merchandise, but we do offer students in field opportunities. In order to do this we need access to boats. Neal owns a diving company and is keen to take students out on field trips to see marine life. He is filling the "supplier" role. This is not a supply we need daily or even weekly, but it is a supply or resource we use and want to do more of. Neal’s boats are registered and insured and his crew have all the required safety training and permits to take guests ( including students) out. I’ve known Neal for a while, but have not really thought of a dive boat and snorkeling gear as supplies we need, but they are. Neal and I discussed the desire to bring more local students out on the water and even bring in students from other islands, offering them the experience. We also discussed creating a special shark program for kids ( open to any kids) in the summer, which would essentially be a 2 camp. We are going to speak again in person and come up with a schedule and itinerary for some activities. This will allow us to teach a lot of kids about sharks and the ocean and help connect them first hand with what we teach. Having your own personal experience is more valuable than any video you can watch or book you can read. In turn, the dive shop gets some images and video they can use for PR and marketing, but it also shows their involvement with the community.


I actually took this opportunity to reach out to people who I had thought of in the past, but had not really taken the time to connect with on a professional level. When you stop and think about people you have met or know through a mutual contact, you might be surprised at the knowledge and resources you will find. I think I definitely need to network more in education groups. We’ve been very shark focused, but educators are the ones who will help us create better programs and then bring their students to participate in those programs. I’ve only attended one education conference and it was extremely valuable. I will attend two more in 2019 and I am really looking forward to seeing what we can gain from this networking. This networking exercise was different because I approached people with a specific goal rather than coincidence of meeting. Going in with a specific ask also helped me understand what I could offer in return. It’s a far more targeted and efficient approach. It’s like having a very specific ‘To Do’ list.