Wednesday, 11 June 2025 Issue#035

Transition Smarter. Tech-Driven Guidance for What’s Next

Connections are key during a military transition, or any transition really. It can't be said enough, you can't go it alone. Odds are you'll need to lean into someone at some point during the transition period. When it comes to trying to figure out the post military landscape of corporate life, civilian healthcare, home ownership, career training, or a number of other new and exciting challenges; those connections become crucial. This week we'll dive into some tools that can help you be a bit more effective and genuine when establishing, growing, and maintaining your network. Let's get to it!

Weekly Spotlight

Tool of the Week: Connection Fox​

Any worthwhile transition program or advice should cover the importance of networking. Many opportunities post military present themselves through networking efforts. It should stand to reason then that there would be a lot of available tools to help manage and improve your networking...right?

You'd think that if there are 1001 "tools" to help you craft your resume that there would be just as many to help you network effectively. Sorry to say, that really isn't the case. At least in my experience I haven't seen very many practical tools. As my network grew I began to realize that managing it properly was becoming cumbersome through Excel and hand written notes. I started to feel like I was dropping things and that I was missing obvious connections.

I more or less gave up on finding something useful and just brute forced my way through it. Well, as I was listening to one of my go-to podcasts, The Jordan Harbinger Show, he mentioned his free course on networking. I gave it a go one night and through that course, 6 Min Networking, I discovered Connection Fox.

Technically, Connection Fox is a streamlined CRM that automates relationship-building through intelligent reminders, context-aware suggestions, and security-minded message scheduling—making it easier to stay top-of-mind without losing the personal touch.

In reality, it sees your fancy Excel sheet and raises it tenfold. The most useful part of this tool for me during my transition was the ability to add personal notes after meeting a connection and this tool helped me follow up automatically with some personal touches. A crucial concept that many Veterans misunderstand about networking in a transition is that quality is so much more effective than quantity. I've have seen so many Veterans just try to "speed network" and collect as many contacts as possible at an event. Do you really think any of those people are going to answer your call 6 months later when you obviously are going to ask something from them...fat chance.

However, if you take the time to learn a bit about them beyond their professional role like their kids or spouses name, hometown, alma mater, etc. and then actively follow-up by working that fact into the conversation like "Hey, just saw Wisconsin won the Big-10, made me think of our conversation", it lands so much better than "What jobs do you have open"? You're goal in networking should be to create meaningful connections, not collect the most business cards.

This tool helps you do that and keeps it authentic and genuine. Bottomline, it can really help keep things straight and turn your network into something that works for you passively as well.

What We Are Tracking

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference Highlights

Apple Plays It Safe at WWDC No moonshots, just meaningful upgrades.

Apple’s annual WWDC conference wrapped up this week, and while there were no jaw-dropping reveals, the company leaned into utility over dazzle. Here’s what made the cut:

• Apple Intelligence just got smarter — it can now “see” your screen, letting you ask context-aware questions (like what’s going on in that Google Images tab you forgot was open).
• iOS gets a makeover — Apple is rolling out a sleek, glassy design refresh, its biggest since the iPhone 4 era. Critics say it feels a little too nostalgic — think 2007’s Windows Vista, but shinier.
• Meet your new AI gym buddy — Apple Watch is getting an AI-powered Workout Companion that offers personalized health insights.
• Lost in translation? Not anymore — Messages, calls, even song lyrics can now be translated in real time, thanks to on-device AI.
• Apple Maps learns your commute — The app can now anticipate your route preferences and adjust accordingly.
• ChatGPT is moving in — Integrated into Image Playground, it’ll help fine-tune your creative generations.

So… revolutionary? Not quite. Even Apple admitted this year’s event was more about polish than pioneering. With Siri’s long-teased AI upgrade still MIA, and competitors already deep into next-gen reasoning models, some tech-watchers left feeling a bit underwhelmed.

But Apple’s playing the long game. Incremental doesn’t mean insignificant — it just means we may not appreciate the impact until later.

Bonus Feature

Keeping with the networking theme this week, the bonus feature is a tool that can help you initiate a potential network connection. Hunter IO helps you find professional email addresses for people you may want to reach out to, in order to establish a connection. While cold email networking is very challenging, it can be effective in certain cases. If you don't have anyone in your current network that can make a connection to your target for you, than this is a viable option. Problem is most professionals don't publicize their contact info.

Hunter includes some templates to help you with cold email outreach too and it does include a free tier that should satisfy typical use by most individuals.

Hunter.io streamlines contact discovery and outreach by combining domain-based email lookups, individual email search, bulk validation, campaign management, browser integrations, and automation. It also uses various forms of validation so you can be more confident that your email is actually reaching your audience.

Productivity Spotlight

Tools that help you stay, or get, productive

✅ Placed - Combines job search, tailored resume building, and interview prep into one app. Free to use for now.

✅ Jots - AI powered journaling app that can accelerate your growth and help you reach goals.

✅ ToolSmart - Toolsmart offers 50+ free AI tools that are useful and practical to boost your productivity—all in one place.

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