Growing My Social Capital

1) One person must be a domain expert in your industry. 

     For this section I emailed Tom Gill, the Deputy Chief of Virginia Beach Lifesaving Service.  Tom Gill has been looking to incorporate the use of a lifeguarding drone into his private lifesaving corporation in Virginia Beach, VA.  Tom Gill has been my employer for the past four summers.  I emailed Tom to introduce him to my vision of using a lifeguarding drone during ocean rescues.  Tom responded saying, "This is an excellent opportunity that will help facilitate ocean rescues and advance the reaction time to reaching a distressed patron."  Tom is interested in working towards creating a product to use in his service industry.  Contacting Tom was very beneficial as he was enthused with the idea and interested in applying it to his rescue services.  

2) One person must be an expert on your market. 

     I contacted the United States Lifeguarding Association (USLA) as my market expert through the link on their website.  USLA is America's nonprofit professional association on beach lifeguards and open water rescuers.  The USLA works to reduce the incidence of death and injury in the aquatic environment through public education, national lifeguard standards, training programs, promotion of high levels of lifeguard readiness, and other means.  USLA oversees lifeguarding practices in the United States and has the power to create a market for lifeguarding drones to advance lifesaving technology to improve on reaction time to drowning victims.      

3) One person must be an important supplier to your industry.      

     RTS Ideas is a British company that launched the practicality of using drones in service industries.  RTS Ideas invented a drone to rescue holiday makers in trouble.  The company then developed the idea of using a drone during ocean rescues to help pull drowning victims in to shore.  RTS Ideas is developing a new areal drone technology, called Roboguard, which could actually save lives by decreasing the time needed to reach drowning people and that could also save more than one sinking person at a time.  Lifeguards or rescue team members can fly the drone over the victims with a radio control.  The drone, carrying cameras and three rubber life tubes, can be sent out from the shore.  The victim can then catch the life tube that the robot dropped onto the water to stay afloat whilst waiting for a lifeguard or rescue team to bring him/her back to a safe location.  

     I called RTS Ideas and spoke with Sarah, the company's manager on duty.  I had a difficult time trying to come in contact with a floor manager or higher up at RTS Ideas.  They did not respond to my emails and Sarah was rather short on the phone call discussion.  RTS Ideas would be the market expert in my field as they have already begun to use lifeguarding drones in the UK.  The company is currently looking to expand its study to how its drones could help humanitarian disaster relief efforts.  I would like to try to pair with RTS Ideas to expand the use of lifeguarding drones to United States beaches.  

Reflection

    I think my exchanges with these various experts in their respective industries was very beneficial as I received promising feedback in support of my opportunity of introducing a lifeguarding drone to ocean rescue emergencies.  With each exchange I presented the expert with my idea napkin.  I received positive feedback on my idea after either the exchange via email or reading it to the expert over the phone.  Targeting domain, market, and supplier experts was more beneficial than a random survey like the past as these experts had also put significant research and thought into the idea and possibility as well.  I believe after my interactions with these experts that the lifeguarding drone soon can be a helpful technological advancement to be used on US beaches during ocean rescues and emergencies.