How is it that I became a blogger for DOT429?

The quick answer: Networking.

The longer explanation is that four months ago, I was introduced to Richard Klein (the ceo of DOT429) who asked that I become a possible founding member and contributor to the site. This introduction was brought about by Ben Prosky, who is the Director of Special Events at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and also a business partner of mine on Architizer. Ben and I know one another through Marc Kushner, who I founded Architizer and HWKN with, who I met through my friend Juergen Mayer H - one of the most relevant architects in Germany - in whose office Marc was working in 2005. Juergen and I got introduced in 2000 by Bettina Visman, a colleague of mine at the ETH, where we both worked at that time. I was hired at the ETH in 1999 because my friend Anna Klingmann introduced me to the head of the department while he was taking students to Rotterdam, where I was living at the time, and I gave the students a tour through the Kunsthal, a project by OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), which is the firm I was working for from 1996 to 2000. Peter Eisenman, in whose studio I worked in 1995, was instrumental in getting me the job at OMA since he put in a personal phone call to Rem Koolhaas, the brain behind OMA, after which I received an interview. /articles/2010/03/02/interviewing-my-mentor-network-umbauhaus-updating-modernism So, I became a blogger by networking.

Of course, this did not just happen by knowing and meeting the right people. Networking potential grows when it is backed with ambition, knowledge, capability, and all the other things that are needed to deliver - but networking is a crucial first step in unfolding all that potential. Keep in mind that networking is also a give and take - matching other people with each other is equally important as being matched yourself.