Networking

My "work" week ends here, on Thursday! This week has been very productive and I'm liking the way that things are going right now, I'm very optimistic.

I've decided to take in as much of what my "mentor", I'm not sure if I can call him that, or if he knows, Preston Green has said to me. If I want to become this super amazing publicist, I need to network: build and maintain relationships. Preston suggested that I go to Twitter and reach out to people. So I go on Twitter and start following all these random people!

I reach out to some people and people reach out to me. Turns out this intern from GIANT magazine and he's Funk Master Flex's P.A, is following me on Twitter! YAY a friend, finally! Turns out he know's Preston Green too-- small world, even on Twitter!

But the real issue that I'm having with networking, is: I reach out to all these people, they reply to my posts, I know they're well connected, but how do I ask them for anything? Do I say to the E in C of VIBE, "Hey D, I'm here in New York for the summer, I have nothing to do, can I be your friend and come with you to industry parties?" Is there a proper way to network? Or is it as simple as just reaching out to someone and making a connection. If there's a formality to networking, I don't know it!

Its like going up to Jay-Z and giving him your demo. I feel like I'm using them, which is what networking technically is, but "networking" is the formal name. I guess I feel bad for asking them to do things for me cause as an intern, in a new city without a job, I have nothing to offer them.

I need to figure out, how to reach out to people, without feeling guilty, I just hope I'm doing this right...