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03102015 ssp webinar_ohtheplaceswe'llgo_careermanagementinthescholarlypublishingfield_barbaraford
- 1. MENTORING & NETWORKING: A PROFESSIONAL PAIRINGBarbara M. Ford President, Meyers Consulting Services SSP Webinar March 10, 2015 “Oh, the places you’ll go!”
- 2. Take from the Land . . . • A few early career personal experiences: – Disseminating Scientific & Technical Information: A Practitioner’s Guide to Innovation ~ NSF Grant ~ I interviewed the Golden 100 & Advisory Board – Dr. Seldon Terrant (Head, R&D Department, American Chemical Society) asked me to develop the User Studies Program – Society for Scholarly Publishing: One of 16 Founding Members – Key women role models: Dr. Sarah Rhodes, Ethel Langlois, Connie Greaser, Lois Granick, Linda Beebe
- 3. Give back to the Land . . . • My experiences: – Society for Scholarly Publishing (1978-present) – Council of Science Editors (1983-present) – Washington Women’s Information Network (WWIN) (1983-present) – George Washington University, Masters in Publishing Program, Adjunct Faculty (2005-present) – Other Organizations: ADA, AIBS, ASIS&T, AAP/PSP, NFAIS, NISO, WNBA – Meyers Consulting Services (MCS) ~ assists clients to: develop effective strategies/plans, increase staff knowledge/expertise, research audience needs/preferences, develop new products/services, “thrive & survive.”
- 4. Mentoring
- 5. Types of Mentoring • FORMAL • Organization-based • Mentors & mentees selected/match assessed • Planned goals/objectives • Includes training • Monitored & measured • INFORMAL – Flash Mentoring – E-mentoring – Reverse
- 6. Stages of a Mentoring Relationship Getting Acquainted Setting Goals & Expectations Achieving Goals Ending the Relationship
- 7. Networking
- 8. Types of Networking • ALLIES – Few – Years – Explicitly Honest • ACQUAINTANCES – Many – Diverse – Not a brief encounter
- 9. Summary • Recognize opportunities. • Set realistic expectations. • Keep your eye on the goal. • Enjoy each experience. Best wishes for success! Be in touch: MCSone@verizon.net
- 10. Summary • Recognize opportunities. • Set realistic expectations. • Keep your eye on the goal. • Enjoy each experience. Best wishes for success! Be in touch: MCSone@verizon.net
Editor's Notes
- I have been serving the professional & scholarly information communities for over 40 years in a career I hadn’t planned on. My undergraduate degree was in science journalism at a time when few writers had any real understanding of scientific issues and research. And my masters degree was in science policy analysis and technology assessment at a time when the position of science advisor at the state level was just coming into vogue (I believe there were 2 or 3 when I received my degree). But as you can see, those careers did not materialize because other opportunities popped up along the way. I learned that one will never regret having said yes to a new opportunity, one only regrets having said no and not knowing whether that new path should have been taken. Over my decades in publishing I have found that mentoring & networking can best be viewed as symbiotic in how one should approach using them throughout one’s career.
- Throughout my career I have had the personal philosophy of: “You take from the land … you give to the land.” After the webinar, please download my slide set to read the notes on this slide and the next. If I go through them that will be the end of my time on the panel. But they are at the crux of what has been a wonderful time in publishing. Or drop me an email and I’ll be happy to share my experiences personally. The first personal experience I want to share with you came about through my second job after graduate school. It was not my first job in publishing but it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for an early-career professional to meet many of the leaders in all segments of the industry. That was the NSF-funded contract to produce a loose-leaf publication based on research into publishing innovations happening about a decade after we had started the transition from hot metal to cold type. For first project staff had already made initial interviews 2 years prior to my joining what was affectionately known as The Guide or The Blue Book. Not surprising because the full title is given on the screen and I’m convinced that one of the tests I passed in my interview was being able to say it the very first time without a mistake. My task was to update our information from the Golden 100 and so I began interviewing directors of university presses, directors of publications in societies, presidents and vice presidents of printers, typesetters, and subscription agencies. It was a dream job. I was able to learn from the best the entire process of moving information from author to reader. And I was lucky enough to have many offer me career advice along with way. Some became mentors for years while with others it was flash mentoring. The next special experience was having Dr. Seldon Terrant, one of the Advisory Board members to the Innovation Guide, hire me to develop a new program in the R&D Department of the American Chemical Society. At that time, very little new product research was being done by society publishers. But it was the late 1970s by then and the ACS was moving forward with its developments in computerized photocomposition (the precursor to electronic publishing) and Seldon wanted to learn from the ACS members (aka chemists of all types) how best to move forward as each innovation came to pass. In essence, he established the first full-time market research effort in a scientific society and dubbed it the User Studies Program. My job was to build it. Having the opportunity to create your own job wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is now so I put my full energies into the task and am proud to say that the next five years were some of the most pleasant and productive in my early years. Getting the catch to work with Seldon and Dr. Lorrin Garson as the third member of our R&D team was a job of a lifetime. Seldon was boss, mentor, colleague and professional friend. Supporting me when few men were willing to hire many women professionals (especially in the sciences) no less mentor them. He and Dr. Mike Bowen, then Director of the Publishing Division, encouraged me to go faster and farther than even I thought possible. I admire, appreciate, and miss not having them in my life any longer. The last experience I’ll share is one that started me on the path to realizing how mentoring and networking go hand in hand. That is my good luck for being in the right place at the right time. In 1978, I was truly fortunate to be a part of the group that founded the Society for Scholarly Publishing. With my colleagues on the Board as mentors I learned much about organizational development, parliamentary proceedings, policy development and society operations, such as finances and management, membership promotion and retention, meeting logistics from program planning to site selection to session scheduling, publishing programming, and so much more. As I worked side-by-side with so many accomplished colleagues I was able to learn by doing and enjoy the company of some of the most interesting individuals one could hope to meet. At a recent SSP meeting I was called out as “the” founder but there are many others who should be receiving accolades, I was only one of 16 and the junior member at that, yet my colleagues always treated me as a peer. My time with each of them has given me a very special skill set and an even more special set of memories. Over the years I have also gained immensely from several women (I’ve listed here but a few) and still gain much from my friendships with many special women throughout the continuum of author through reader. They all have my admiration and appreciation for what they have added to my life.
- Having been given so much by so many, I have tried to give to others at least a modicum in return. Through my service to industry organizations, through my work with colleagues to create, develop, and maintain WWIN, a true informal network, and through my years as an adjunct for my alma mater’s Masters in Publishing degree program, I have attempted to give back my support to the generations of publishing professionals who have followed me as a small token of my appreciation for such a wonderful career. In 1983 I started a solo consulting practice , Meyers Consulting Services, and over the years have served a diversity of clients: Not-for-Profit Organizations Professional Societies Research Institutes, Federations, Foundations & Government Agencies Trade Associations University Presses Commercial Organizations Consulting Companies Information, Internet & Library-Related Corporations Publishing Services Publishers If interested, I invite you to visit my website: www.bmeyersconsulting.com or my LinkedIn profile: www.linkedin/in/barbarameyersford
- To start, the important thing is to make mentoring and networking a part of your professional life, not just occasional activities. Unless you incorporate them into how you go about interacting with people at all levels on basically a daily basis when you do have opportunities your efforts may seem forced and awkward versus comfortable and natural.
- Many organizations have formal mentoring programs. One mentoring guru, Bonnie McKenzie (author of the book FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES), outlines such a program as being planned by an employer to match a mentor and mentee with the goal of accelerating a mentee’s career. [The mentoring activity is measured and monitored with training provided as part of the program. There is usually a 1-2 year commitment written into a formal agreement that specifies several details such as the frequency and location of meetings, timeframes, and focus. The respective departments of the mentor and mentee cover the cost of the time allotted to the mentoring activity. ] Flash mentoring is a recent concept that involved brief or one-time encounters between a junior and senior professional. Such encounters are considered coaching sessions where the junior professional gains leadership development skills from the senior. Amanda Harrington, a researcher based in the UK, is known for her examination of informal networking. She defines one of the types quite succinctly, and I quote: “The use of e-mentoring and e-coaching, that is mentoring or coaching via email, is increasing in an environment where many forms of computer-assisted learning are becoming widespread. Computer-based training, interactive training programmes and materials that can be downloaded from the internet - the forms of computer-assisted learning are many.” One final example of informal mentoring began at the turn of this century. First popularized by former GE Chairman Jack Welsh, reverse mentoring, as explained by Alan Webber, co-founder of the magazine Fast Company is “a situation where the old fogies in an organization realize that by the time you’re in your forties and fifties, you’re not in touch with the future the same way [as] the young twenty-something’s. They come with fresh eyes, open minds, and instant links to the technology of our future”. We already see much of this going on all around us and like the pace of technological change, I expect reverse mentoring to increase exponentially as well.
- No these aren’t the rules of some dating service. But there is no question that any relationship certainly goes through various stages from beginning to end. But like any special relationship there are a few things one should keep in mind. Because you wouldn’t have anyone in your organization to fall back on, I’m going to look at the 4 stages from the perspective of informal mentoring. In the beginning, mentors and mentees usually come together either because the mentees are searching for individuals they respect and think of as good role models or the mentors are looking for people with potential or both and if the stars align they meet. I think of this as a true serendipitous life experience as both of you are seeking a positive relationship worth the energy required by good mentoring. Goals and expectations aren’t articulated formally but come about as a result of the learning and development that is part of the act of mentoring. A good mentor from outside an organization helps a mentee to “thrive and survive” based on the interpersonal bond they have achieved. And so the achievement of goals comes about from the mentee’s absorption of lessons learned through the mentor’s experience and expertise. Ending a mentoring relationship isn’t as final as one might presume. There are reasons for the mentor-mentee connection to dissolve. Usually it is the mentee who has nothing left to learn or wants to flex new muscles. Sometimes the mentor thinks its time for the mentee to progress more independently. One hopes that the two agree so as to avoid a stressful situation. What would be the best of all worlds is for the mentoring relationship to evolve into one of peer-to-peer or perhaps even a professional or social friendship if appropriate. The initial focus of the relationship has moved on. Mentor and mentee are now unique individuals in each other’s networks.
- I’ve taken the definition of networking from www.yourdictionary.com, mainly because I liked the examples provided for people versus computers. networking [-wʉr′kiŋ]Use networking in a sentence noun Networking is defined as the act of making contact and exchanging information with other people, groups and institutions to develop mutually beneficial relationships….. handing out your business card in a social event which is designed to provide opportunities for new business collaborations exchanging contact information with people who have [similar] interests sharing and acquiring information between different [company] divisions to …solve business problems. YourDictionary definition and usage example. Copyright © 2015 by LoveToKnow Corp Let’s take a slightly closer look at people networking.
- The concepts of how people interact have been evolving with the new communication technologies. But at the very heart of our communications and connections lies a concept that we learned as children: that of friendship. My husband and I have both had careers which brought us into contact with thousands of people. But the lion’s share of these individuals didn’t even make the cut to be considered acquaintances. Those thousands are not our network. Our networks are made up of allies and acquaintances. When I thought about my network for this webinar I could easily name the few true allies I’ve made over the years. They are like professional best friends who care about you enough to tell you the truth. And the rest are acquaintances to varying degrees to be sure, but while many, they are far more special and important than the thousands of others I’ve met in my life. The strength to this group is that they are diverse and our connection is more than just a casual conference conversation. Just like friendship, we have the few with a capital “F” that are our true allies but we have many other friends who are also important in our lives. When you consider your network, how would you describe the individuals who comprise it?
- What this brief look at mentoring and networking set out to give you was some basic concepts to guide you along your way to all the new places you’ll go. Learn to notice that opportunity to do something you’d never have expected or hoped to do. As you plan, so shall you succeed. But don’t set yourself up for failure. Know your strengths and weaknesses so you’ll be focused on the right goal. But most of all, enjoy! My Dad gave me the best piece of career advice: “When you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning, ask yourself why.” I followed his advice. When I overslept my alarm for too long I would start looking for another job. And each one took me places I’d never dreamed I would go.