This is a great take on networking, which I also despise but is a necessary "evil" in this stage of my career. I feel this also applies to my personal volunteering, as that requires a lot of networking.
This is fantastic, Loleen! I am about to head into conference season and am excited to engage some new strategies for making connections. My best tips so far have been to make friends rather than network, and to start early & focus on the quality of connection over “what this person might do for me.” This doesn’t mean over share about your life, but rather to think about building a relationship with a person rather than pursuing a strategic objective.
Thank you Loleen, as always for your insights and sense of humour. Yours are the best emails of the week. I'd like to ask if you have any advice on course assignments in the era of ChatCPT and other AI technology at our (and our students') fingertips?
I admittedly need to get better at networking. I've been trying to spend time on low-pressure activities (writing articles and blog posts, etc.) To have a current body of work to direct people to my Substack. I'm always open to more suggestions!
And the Innuendo album always makes me a touch moist in the eye area. Brilliant album.
Just want to emphasize the importance of the external connections. This is front of mind for me as a recovering academic, since I'm simultaneously weighing entrepreneurship and an industry job search. But I'll admit that my LinkedIn community is really satisfying in intellectual ways, not just as a transactional means to a job. Part of this is because I've been interviewing people about their pivots from academe to industry. But part of it is just the conversations about work that can be had on LinkedIn. I don't know why I wasn't doing it before. And if I were to find my way back to a full-time faculty role, I'd stay active on LinkedIn. It's a good way to communicate with a broader audience.
I'm also finding that the broader business community is more generous, surprisingly, than my academic network ever was. This might be because, as a first-generation student, I always felt that I didn't belong to "the club" in academe. But there is a lot of arbitrary gatekeeping in higher ed and a lot of truly mystifying inequities when it comes to publishing, leadership, speaking, and a host of other opportunities. Sure, there is a kind of insider dynamic in business, too, and a formidable barrier to cross coming out of higher ed. But my sense is that once you're in an industry role, there are fewer turf-bound mindsets to overcome.
Long-winded way of saying that I wish I'd build a more robust external network even when I was in the Academy. It would have been good for me.
This is a great take on networking, which I also despise but is a necessary "evil" in this stage of my career. I feel this also applies to my personal volunteering, as that requires a lot of networking.
This is fantastic, Loleen! I am about to head into conference season and am excited to engage some new strategies for making connections. My best tips so far have been to make friends rather than network, and to start early & focus on the quality of connection over “what this person might do for me.” This doesn’t mean over share about your life, but rather to think about building a relationship with a person rather than pursuing a strategic objective.
Thank you Loleen, as always for your insights and sense of humour. Yours are the best emails of the week. I'd like to ask if you have any advice on course assignments in the era of ChatCPT and other AI technology at our (and our students') fingertips?
I admittedly need to get better at networking. I've been trying to spend time on low-pressure activities (writing articles and blog posts, etc.) To have a current body of work to direct people to my Substack. I'm always open to more suggestions!
And the Innuendo album always makes me a touch moist in the eye area. Brilliant album.
Just want to emphasize the importance of the external connections. This is front of mind for me as a recovering academic, since I'm simultaneously weighing entrepreneurship and an industry job search. But I'll admit that my LinkedIn community is really satisfying in intellectual ways, not just as a transactional means to a job. Part of this is because I've been interviewing people about their pivots from academe to industry. But part of it is just the conversations about work that can be had on LinkedIn. I don't know why I wasn't doing it before. And if I were to find my way back to a full-time faculty role, I'd stay active on LinkedIn. It's a good way to communicate with a broader audience.
I'm also finding that the broader business community is more generous, surprisingly, than my academic network ever was. This might be because, as a first-generation student, I always felt that I didn't belong to "the club" in academe. But there is a lot of arbitrary gatekeeping in higher ed and a lot of truly mystifying inequities when it comes to publishing, leadership, speaking, and a host of other opportunities. Sure, there is a kind of insider dynamic in business, too, and a formidable barrier to cross coming out of higher ed. But my sense is that once you're in an industry role, there are fewer turf-bound mindsets to overcome.
Long-winded way of saying that I wish I'd build a more robust external network even when I was in the Academy. It would have been good for me.