COVID and Life Have Me Rethinking My Connections

Of all the things I expected to add to my calendar filled with tradeshows and business travel this fall, meeting with my sister-in-law Susan to discuss how to install a fidget spinner in a hoodie was probably the least expected.

And the most exciting.

Susan was happy to lend her talents to a woman I’d just met because of the compounding power of networking and shared purpose with a stranger.

Over drinks at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) annual meeting with friend and colleague Andy Fauth, our conversation quickly turned from mechanical testing to family. He mentioned a friend had recently quit her job and launched a business to craft clothing designed to soothe kids with anxiety and sensory processing issues. Anyone who is willing to make such a risky career move to benefit her own child and the thousands of other neuro-diverse kids is someone I want to know. I asked him to introduce me to Chelsey Sanders of Yobbo Apparel.

“A couple of years ago, [my son] wanted to take his blanket to school. He just really needed that to calm down and for processing things in general,” she said. “I thought, ‘There’s got to be something on the market that has these sensory things in a hoodie.’ Nothing existed, so basically I set out to create it.”

Sanders had seen weighted vests and blankets, but neither was a practical option.

“But, even the weighted vests available online are hideous. This is so sad. The poor kid would stand out as if he were wearing a sleeping bag to school,” she said. “I wanted to create something more discreet. We also wanted to create a brand that people could relate to—one that says it’s OK to have these needs; like the need to feel grounded and secure, or to talk about your feelings and emotions.”

I knew minutes into my conversation with Sanders that she was a kindred spirit—an entrepreneur committed to finding ways to ease challenges for a child who doesn’t fit into the mainstream. My conversation with her inspired me to consider my connections for others who might also appreciate this undertaking.

I remembered my friend Jude Paganelli, one of my most trusted medtech experts. His son works for a major clothing designer. I asked him if we could introduce his son to Sanders. I offered my sister-in-law’s clothing design talents and my 16-year-old son to test what Aunt Sue came up with.

All of this because early in my career I learned the value of following up on handshakes and intros, even if there was no obvious short-term benefit.

I’ve been fastidious about logging business cards. It started with a rolodex in the mid-1990s—by 1999 I’d begun entering data into Outlook contacts because I could search under a wide range of parameters. I’ve taught my sales team to do the same so our client relationship management tools stay up to date. My entries at times read like mini Wikipedia pages: kids’ names, teams they root for, mutual contacts, who introduced us, where we met, and any other personal information to help me remember that person’s story.

Those stories connect us. I may not remember a name, but I’ll remember if someone’s a Browns fan. And more often than not, those seemingly small details bring us together for big ideas.

LinkedIn is another great tool for connecting. I’m not a devotee of social media, but this platform has won me over. I used to hop on sporadically and only accept invitations from people I knew I’d met, but COVID has forced me to reconsider my online networking. With such a long break from conferences and how variable the health protocols have been around in-person meetings, I’ve opened up my mind and my connections considerably. Now I take the time to see what someone’s background is and if they sent me a personal note. I realize there’s a reason they’re reaching out to me and we might somehow help each other.

You also never know who might be listening when you speak. I recently gave a talk about quality and regulatory issues in the additive manufacturing space for a company’s grand opening. A woman in the audience told me she’d love to hear more about how that applies to additive manufacturing, which led me to numerous sessions at the first Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) annual meeting I’d ever attended. I’ve received my first offer to author a chapter in a book from that conference.

Sometimes my head spins when I try to follow the bouncing ball of who leads to what and how. Every time I ask myself if I can pack one more speaking engagement into my schedule or if I should confirm a connection on LinkedIn that seems random, I consider what I might miss out on if I don’t.

When you pay something forward far enough, it eventually gets back to you.

“When you step outside your space, new opportunities come,” Sanders said. “It’s all about helping each other, collaborating, and cheering each other on.”

So in my very little free time, I’m working on how to get a fidget spinner into a hoodie. I’m also wondering if such apparel might be classified as a Class I medical device. But even if there’s no clear overlap with my family of companies, I’m inspired by this unexpected turn of events. It’s proof of the power of networking, and a project that is expanding my village of professionals who share my commitment to paying forward good deeds that inevitably find their way back to us. 

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Dawn Lissy is a biomedical engineer, entrepreneur, and innovator. Since 1998, the Empirical family of companies (Empirical Testing Corp., Empirical Consulting LLC, and Empirical Machine LLC) has operated under Lissy’s direction. Empirical offers the full range of regulatory and quality systems consulting, testing, small batch and prototype manufacturing, and validations services to bring a medical device to market. Empirical is very active within standards development organization ASTM International and has one of the widest scopes of test methods of any accredited independent lab in the United States. Because Lissy was a member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence program, she has first-hand, in-depth knowledge of the regulatory landscape. Lissy holds an inventor patent for the Stackable Cage System for corpectomy and vertebrectomy. Her M.S. in biomedical engineering is from The University of Akron, Ohio.