I only had my cell phone with me so the lighting and quality were not the best.  He bears a striking resemblance to the real Sean Connery, and does the accent very well.  He would crack jokes with the accent, and made me laugh. I’ve got to start taking my digital camera to these events to get better pictures.

He quoted several movie lines, including one of my favorites, from “The Hunt for Red October“, as Captain Marko Ramius, “Hey, Ryan, be careful what you shoot at. Most things in here don’t react too well to bullets.” His real name is Dennis Keogh, and his website is www.denniskeogh007.com, he talked about some upcoming things he was working on, and is a very friendly, outgoing guy.

At this networking event, I did run into a few people I’d met before, but there is always someone new, and Austin knows people by name, it’s one of the things that really impresses me about him, he can walk right up to someone and say “Hi James, how are you tonight?” and get the same in return.

Of course with Austin being the tallest guy in the room, it’s hard not to miss him too.  I initially met him at another network event back in the beginning of January, hosted by Integrated Alliances, with Mike O’Neil, and Rob Gibbs of Bleedingedgetech.com, a LinkedIn Live event, where people in the valley that are connected on LinkedIn, can meet face to face, and someone said “Just look for the tallest guy here.”

This was the third time I’d attended this event since hearing about it back at the beginning of January, and it is held every Tuesday evening at Barcelona in Scottsdale.  I have made some great contacts at this event and would recommend anyone that wants to meet people in a relaxed atmosphere, to come out to this event.  You can find out more about it on Austin’s website here.

That same evening I was also introduced to Jason Bressler who is the Executive Director of the North Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce, and he sent me an email after the event, and I have some leads to follow up on in the next day or so.

The other picture was snapped sometime that night and I just turned the camera toward the bar, again not the best, but it was a very good event. I don’t know exact numbers but when I talked to Austin about an hour after I got there he said that it looked like approximately 150 people had turned out for the event at that time.  These events are huge, the audience is huge.  I enjoyed getting out and meeting people, and I myself would love to host an event sometime where there is this kind of turn-out.

For those of you who are seeking work, or other business opportunities, I recommend finding events like this to attend.  For those of you who are local to North Phoenix/Scottsdale area, if you see me at an event, come up and say hello.  I’ve mainly attended events in North Phoenix, Scottsdale and a couple in  East Valley area, but if you know of an event on the west side of town, let me know about it.

I will continue to post information about events I find that I will attend, and do have some other posts I’m working on about the Job Fair on went to Monday, and the Interview Workshop I went to Tuesday morning at SJN and will be posting those soon. I’ve had many more things come my way since stepping up my face to face networking, and I can’t stress the importance of building those relationships.

The saying is,  “build your network before you need it.”  Well, I wasn’t expecting the layoff last September, so I am building my network now.  When I am working in that next great career opportunity of mine, even if it is running my own business, I want to keep active in my networking efforts and give back, or  ‘pay it forward’ with a connection that needs my help  someday.

Happy Reading!

-Martin