Davies and I today morning left kampala headed to Kasanje for ridding partly. We did 50kms in today.
Davies is an engineer with Uganda national Road authority(UNRA) and yes a key technical guy. I first met him along my advocacy route over years.
I have gotten so many inbox messages of young people asking me to write about the value of networking and how it’s actually done.
First you must have a reason for networking and it can vary from just meeting new people to lobbying like myself and learning new things along the way.
Everything in life rotates around human beings and no one grows alone. God created humans for many reasons including communing for all purposes.
Number two, you must have something to offer because people generally don’t like people who simply want to take and take. There are over 40m Ugandans, why should you network with me? Or why Shd I network with you?
Number 3, fight hard to develop a likeable character. People will easily gravitate towards likeable characters. Beyond being likeable, people should be able to trust you unless they are thugs.
Number 4, if you see someone you want to network with, find out what they love doing and learn how to do that. If he or she loves tennis, learn how to play, ridding, learn how to ride, jogs, find ways of doing that.
Number 5, before going for a networking event, eat something. People observe and if they see you over eating, they will assume you are taken up by basics. They assume you aren’t emotionally intelligent.
Number 6, make sure your knowledge base is rich( if it’s tourism, read alot in that line). Yes, reason many people listen to me when it comes to Tourism is because am relatively informed with facts and figures.
Number 7, form a platform where you can share information in line with what you are doing. There isn’t any government ministry in Uganda without people who follow me on these Facebook walls. They constantly read my thoughts. Don’t be a scatter brain on Facebook.
Number 8, make sure you can afford your basics and you can invite that person to a meal and you are able to pay. Reason I have helped in advocacy for tourism, I will once in a while invite decision makers to lunch at my cost but discuss what helps the sector.
Anyways, today I took Davies to kasajje a place he already knows but I wanted to show him how important a road leading to Mabamba( best place to see shoebill stocks in the world). Government will be tarmacking Buwaya Mpigi road soon after we put it under tourism roads.
Did you guys realise that we mainly had political roads until we pushed for tourism roads. Yes, I was on the frontline for that, then came Oil roads. Yes, you can push for ideas at a national level. Yes, I know Davies as a quiet intellegent guy in meetings but very important in decision making. He is a friend on facebook.
Now he knows why it’s important to include Mabamba road as they do Buwaya Kasajje road. He spoke to some young men there and he could see it. Never assume people know what you know.
Kale, Good nite
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