Skills=Connections

My friend David Trisel, owner of Graf-x-cape and Grab Bag Marketer, led a networking exercise at the GreaterFindlayInc. morning meeting last week that was ingenious.

With a very creatively developed worksheet, he asked each of us to quickly list five skills that we possess. We then had to trade our worksheet with someone else at our table. That person had to write suggestions of how we could reach out into the community to share out skills.

I quickly wrote five skills: Listening, Making Eggplant Parmesan, Gardening, Assembling Teams and Reading.

My partner was our featured speaker for the day, Hiroaki Kawamura, Ph.D. the chair of the Department of Language and Culture at the University of Findlay. The voices inside my head were nay-saying the value of this exercise. "How in the work would my skills equate to anything in Dr. Kawamura's world."


The voices have been silenced.

When I got my paper back, his suggestions were:

1) Organize a cooking group for internationals (especially housewives.)

2) Organize a conversation table for international wives.

3) (This one made me laugh!) Please feed me with your delicious eggplant parmesan!

I am interested in talking with Dr Kawamura, to discuss further the idea of a conversation table. I can tell you that I would NEVER have thought of it myself.

I suggest you try this at your next event where you want people to get to know each other better. It will also begin to weave those skills into the community fabric.

If you try it, come back to this post and tell your experience in a comment. Also, if you want a copy of David's worksheet, I can introduce you to David.