Business Networking - You never know where it will lead.

25 December 2016

“When I was asked to speak in the USA last year to help Jonathan Salem Baskin launch Arcadia Communications Lab I had no idea it would lead to brushing shoulders with Charlie Duke, the 10th man to walk on the moon!”

When I met Jonathan in 2006, I told him about my research
I first met my good friend Jonathan when I pitched to him as global brand manager for Soda Stream (remember, ‘Get busy with the fizzy’?). The business owners didn’t select Quiet Storm on that occasion, however Jonathan dropped me an email to meet up next time he was in the country. We met up and hit it off. I told him about my four year personal research project undertaken to determine what made marketing and sales work.

Jonathan helped co-edit it and then launch it
SatNavMarketing, now renamed Storming® Growth Programme, sets out a 7 step process to systematically grow sales. Jonathan helped co-edit it following a four year research process. Then he kindly helped me launch the programme through a series of events early 2008.

Reciprocity - responding to a positive action
Reciprocity and influence was one of the topics we talked about when discussing psychological marketing scientific advertising. So it was only fair when he made the call in 2015 I returned the favour, and joined Jonathan in the launch of his new venture, Arcadia Communications Lab (of which Quiet Storm is a UK partner). Arcadia Communications Lab global collaborative solely focused on helping established businesses get value from communicating about innovation.

		And that’s the thing, when networking you never know where it will lead Through this trip I met with Scott Parazynski, a very nice guy, we’d arranged to meet again in Pheonix Arizona, when I learnt about his previous life. Scott had introduced himself and Mini, his wife as Professors at Arizona State University. Having spent dinner discussing various topics we retired to the bar. Then he accidently dropped the bombshell....

People are rarely what you see at first glance
It was then I introduced Scott to a designer from Nike who I’d spoken to earlier in the evening. The conversation quickly got on to NASA, where the Nike designer had worked. When Scott said he worked there too, it came out he was an Astronaut. Well, I’d spent the night talking to him and Mini without this being revealed!

Invitation to attend his ‘Induction into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame’
Having met socially again when we were next in Phoenix, and keeping in touch through email and Facebook, I received an email out of the blue. Scott had found out Christmas 2015 that he was to be inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame at an Induction at the Kennedy Space Centre on Saturday May 14th. His email was to invite Kathy and I as his guests to the Gala Dinner on the Friday evening (below the Saturn V rocket his father had worked on as an engineer when Scott was a boy). The inauguration ceremony on the Saturday, was below the Altantis space shuttle. On both occasions the majority of the guests apart from friends and family were past and present astronauts - a truly humbling experience.