Just out of curiosity, are you coming to the table with anything to barter, or just asking for a hand-out? I don't think it's useful to pretend that all us eng

Just out of curiosity, are you coming to the table with anything to barter, or just asking for a hand-out? I don't think it's useful to pretend that all us engineers are completely altruistic. Some are, sure...but a lot of us are self-interested "rational actors". When I help another engineer, or when they help me, there's sort of an implied quid-pro-quo. If you helped me out, I'm definitely going to take your call when you need me, etc. I'll gladly help you out without even knowing if I'll ever need your advice, because, as people who do the same work, it's very likely that you'll be useful to me in the future. If a designer, or a CEO, or an attorney approached me and asked for advice, would I be so open and available? Probably not. When you're reaching out to someone of a completely different skill-set, it might be harder for that person to conceptualize how it would be worth their time to help you. Back to your situation: When you reach out to a designer, ask yourself: Am I at-all useful to this person? Will they ever need my advice? If not, you're going to need to work extra hard off-the-bat to make sure they understand your value (and why helping you will pay dividends).