Scouting trips explained

Tuesday, 6 Feb 2007 | Work in Asia

All these trips I am planning to make to a lot of different countries in the course of this year, are mostly what I call ‘scouting trips’. The purpose of these trips is to scout out the county and meet some people. How do I do that? Easy, prepare as best I can and just go and see what happens.

• Start with researching the general economy of a country, read up on current affairs and news.
  
  
• Then I start looking for networking events. There are specific networking organisations in most cities that have monthly or even weekly events to attend. These are a little more difficult to find, because their name can be pretty much anything.
  
  
• Easier is the full range of events organised by many represented countries. Each country of origin pretty much has the same setup, an embassy or consulat, a chamber of commerce representation, a business association (sometimes these two are combined) and a social club. So it’s just a matter of looking for them on the web, locating the events calendar or sending an email to ask for events. I personally do this with the following range of countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Singapore, United Kingdom, United States and ofcourse the Netherlands. Criteria? My country of origin, its surrounding countries and English speaking countries with large groups of people in Asia.
  
  
• After that I look if there are some interesting organisations I might want to go and visit. They would typically be in my field or profession, such as for instance the Project Management Institute. Even if they don’t have any events, it might be worth to go and have a chat.
  
  
• Finally, I look at the conference calendar and see if there is anything worth attending.
  
  
• And finally, perhaps there are people in my current network who have some contacts for me to talk in the city I’m flying to?
• Based on all gathered data, I decide on a week for me to be somewhere. I try to find the cheapest flights available for that week and make a schedule based on those flights and the things I have to do. If need be, I change the flights.
  
• The hotel is picked by looking at the first destination of each day. Locate a hotel somewhere in the middle and you’re all set to go!
  

Please remember that if you decide to do it this way, there should always be space in the schedule to meet these people or have a coffee with people I meet while attending the scheduled events.