The #1 Lesson in Constructive Communication

When I signed up for the course, Basic Skills in Constructive Communication, I have to admit that I was initially judgmental about what I thought the quality of the course would be. A few things I noticed about this course made it seem different from the many courses I’ve taken online.

It was from a university I had never heard of and didn’t know the reputation. Also the instructor had a strong accent and sometimes chose strange words to convey his points. I questioned whether this class would provide high-quality information.

Despite my initial impressions, I eventually did come to appreciate the lessons as having high-value when it comes to improving my ability to verbally communicate.


#1 Communication Advice: Ask Clarifying Questions

To distill this course down to a single lesson, it would be this: ask clarifying questions. You will not get better advice when it comes to verbal communication.

The reason why this is such good advice is because we have a tendency to misunderstand and miscommunicate. There can be a substantial gap in understanding between what we think we’ve heard another person say and what they actually meant for us to understand.

Sources of Misunderstanding

Here are four reasons why we might misunderstand:

1. Presumption

Assuming we know what someone else means to say before they’ve finished their message. This may result in interrupting or trying to finish their sentence, because we think we know what they’re going to say. Not only could our assumptions be wrong, but the other person doesn’t get to finish their statement.

2. Move Too Quickly to Judgment

Making a judgement on someone’s statement before we’ve fully understood what they mean. We don’t like what they’re saying and want to argue against it. Instead of listening to the meaning of their message, we start thinking about how we’re going to respond.

3. Rejection Based on Communication Style

We discount a person’s opinion because they’re expressing their opinion in a style that we wouldn’t choose for ourselves. Maybe they have an accent(!?), or they chose words we would not have selected.

4. Ego Stops Us from Listening

We simply believe our opinion is more important than theirs. We don’t listen because we think we don’t need to listen. Our opinion is already right, so what’s the point. A decision will be made, without even letting another person speak.


The Damage of Presumption, Judgment, Style, and Ego

There can be a few problems when we don’t listen or take the time to clear up potential misunderstandings. Imagine how a decision maker could miss out on potential opportunities or make poor decisions in the following scenarios:

  • Cutting someone off before they’re done speaking, because we assume we know what another person means.
  • Discounting a good idea because didn’t like how someone said it.
  • Making decisions without gathering enough information, because we haven’t given others an opportunity to speak.

For example, I initially judged the course based on style. If I had let my judgement prevail, I would’ve missed out on very good information.

In addition, miscommunication can be seen as rude and lead to interpersonal conflict. A conversation can easily become derailed, as the communicator responds to the response, rather than the substance of the conversation.


Asking Clarifying Questions is a Sign of Emotional and Social Intelligence

When we ask clarifying questions, we get away from our assumptions and our ego. We listen to what another person has to say. We take their message for what it is and we try to understand. Only after we’ve fully understood, do we decide how we want to respond based on our own values and judgements.

You may think that asking someone to explain themselves could be seen as annoying. However, making an effort to show that you’re interested in understanding another person’s point of view, whether you agree with it or not, can deepen relationships and is a sign of emotional and social intelligence.


Types of Clarifying Questions

It just requires a little imagination to come up with clarifying questions. These are a few questions I’ve found useful:

  • I’m not sure I fully understand what you mean by ____. Can you explain a little more?
  • I’m not sure I fully understand what you mean by ____. Could you describe an example of what you mean?
  • Thank you for sharing that feedback. I want to fully understand you, but I’m not exactly sure I do. Can you elaborate a little bit?
  • Thanks for that question. Just so I’m clear, when you said ____, did you mean ABC or XYZ?

This is not a comprehensive list, just some examples. As you can see, I try to emphasize that my intention in asking the question is to understand their meaning further. This generally leads to a very positive response.


Summary

In a conversation, it’s easy to misunderstand another person’s message.

If there’s any doubt in the meaning of another person’s message, ask a clarifying question.

Presumption, premature judgement, style, and ego are four reasons why we might miscommunicate, intentionally or not.

Clarifying questions will not only help to clear up any misunderstandings, but the effort alone can help deepen relationship. It is also a sign of emotional and social intelligence.

In my experience, asking questions that emphasize your intent to understand are the best framework to use.

Tips for Improved Time Management & Productivity

Three time management and productivity tips anyone can use to account for time, plan ahead, and prioritize tasks.

Overview

I recently learned some productivity and time management tips and tricks, after attending an online seminar from the New York Public Library and a course on Coursera. I decided to make a blog post after several weeks of using some of the concepts and tools.

In this post, I will share 3 tips I learned on how to:

  • Better account for time on task
  • Schedule long-term and complex tasks
  • Prioritize difficult tasks with a change in mindset

I also have some research on the importance of timing.


Time Tracking: Accounting for Time

One of the tips I learned on time management was on the importance of getting an accurate recording of how you spend your time. There were a few suggestions around this:

  • Create a calendar with 30 min slots of time and then write down what you did
  • Create a task list for the day, and prioritize what needs to get done vs what can be postponed
  • Generally schedule time for the inevitable distraction

I haven’t yet tried the 30 min calendar, but I have been planning for being distracted. Or to put it a better way, I’ve been using a digital countdown timer to account for how much time I spend on tasks.

Smart Countdown Time for PC and Mac helps me account for how much time I spend on a task.

The product I’m using is Smart Countdown Timer, which is available for Mac and PC. It has two benefits so far:

  • Stay focused on a task
  • Time-block different activities, both scheduled and unscheduled

For scheduled tasks, if I have my list of tasks to complete, I can set the time for how long I want to work; (ex: 30 min, 20 min, etc). I know that I will have worked for at least that period of time. And when that time is over, I can reset the clock again, or move on to another task. It’s also great to keep track of how much time I’ve been sitting in one place!

For unscheduled tasks, like if I get a text, or I just have that feeling to check social media or email, it helps me in 2 ways:

  • First, I can look at how much time is left to finish my scheduled work. Then I can decide whether it makes sense to put off my distraction or just go do it. For instance, if I see there’s only 5 minutes left for my task, I’ll just finish my work and then go check my email. If it’s longer, that’s a different decision but you get the idea.
  • The other thing it helps me do is put a time limit on how much time to allow myself for a distraction. For instance, after I finish my work and want to reward myself with a little distraction, I can give myself 12 min, or whatever, to make tea, check email, etc. This way, I still get my distractions, but I don’t get carried away with the time.

For both of these scenarios, when I need more time, I can just add it. But the main point is to stay on task and hold my time to account.


Task Management: Keeping a 30-60-90 Calendar

Another tip I learned was to create a special type of calendar to keep track of longer term goals and tasks. It’s called a 30-60-90 calendar, which stands for 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days. The idea is that it can be hard to take action on 1-year plans or 5-year plans…if you can even plan that far ahead! But 30 days out is a little bit more manageable, as well as 60 days or 90 days. So this calendar is a method to help get some of those longer term goals started and accomplished.

Example of 30-60-90 calendar for tasks scheduled 30 days from the current date.
Using Google Sheets

For my calendar, I use Google Sheets, with different sections for the chunks of time. I use formulas for the dates, so they’re always accurate relative to the current date. My columns are:

  • Activity – The task to be accomplished
  • Date Assigned – The date I added the task to the calendar
  • Deadline – Either a hard deadline, like taxes, or n+30, n+60, etc.
  • Est Time – How much time I think it will take, though I don’t always enter this information
  • Priority – I don’t always include this and instead rely on order
  • Progress – See below.

In the progress column, I write down activities on what I’ve done to complete a task or notes related to that task. Related notes might be phone numbers, addresses, etc. For instance, I had a task to ‘Get dental X-rays’. The progress column kept track of my activity in locating a dentist, getting a quote, and finally putting in an address, phone number, and date after making an appointment.

Bonus Tip: Break apart big tasks into smaller pieces

And just to make another point on tracking progress, which maybe goes without saying: it can be helpful to break apart big tasks into smaller pieces and tackle each one at a time. For instance, getting dental X-rays could involve getting a quote. Getting a quote could involve calling multiple offices, and so on. So this task could be broken up in a few different ways.

In my experience, it feels nice to accomplish tasks and make progress, even if those tasks are small.

Creating Artificial Deadlines

This type of calendar can be used to create an artificial deadline on long-term tasks that don’t have one already. For my X-ray example, for instance, there was no real deadline for that. But I created one with this calendar by giving it a date 30 or 60 days in the future.

I’ve also found that this calendar is also helpful for scheduling calls with friends and keeping up with people, generally speaking. Rather than say, Hey, let’s talk later and then kind of forgetting about it, now I can actually put down that phone call for 60 days out. It’s like a CRM for friends!

Working Through Tasks

As I work through the list, I move tasks from bottom to top. When they’re completed, I cross them off and move them to another tab. I had a task, Publish a blog post on productivity resources, which I put on the list 60 days ago. Little by little, I added more and more detail, moving it through the lists. Here I am now, accomplishing that goal.

Calendar Modifications: 10 days, 20 days

One way I’ve augmented this calendar is to add more sections for immediate tasks. I found that the 30-day slot was too broad to help me prioritize things that need to get done in the next 1-2 weeks. So I created new sections for 10 days and 20 days, respectively. As I move tasks up the list, the new sections help me keep track of things that need to get done right away.

Downsides

While this calendar is helpful for future and complex tasks, I find that this list is not great for daily or routine events. Something like going for a daily 30-minute walk will never leave the list, because it occurs every day. If a task never gets finished, it can feel discouraging because it seems like there’s never any progress being made. So I recommend not using it for that.


Prioritizing Tasks: Eating Your Daily Frog

The final concept came from the productivity seminar. It’s focused on ranking your daily task list, from most dreaded to most favored, and tackling the worst of the worst first. It requires changing your mindset towards how you look at your tasks.

“Eat your frog” by prioritizing tasks.
Putting It Off

In the past, when I had a list of activities to get through, there would often be one that I really did not want to do. I would put it off! My mindset was something like this: “I’ll postpone it until I’m able to work myself into finally getting it done”. Whether it was a difficult phone call, or just a tedious task, I would put it off by doing all the fun stuff first.

Challenging That Mindset

The concept here challenges that mindset by reversing that order. It says: Take that worst thing and get it done first. The concept supposedly comes from a Mark Twain quote about “eating your daily frog”. It goes something like this:

“If you eat a frog first thing in the morning, this will probably be the worse thing you do all day.”

Mark Twain (maybe)

Eating your frogs means that by prioritizing your worst tasks first, you’ll be able to get them out of the way and work on tasks you enjoy more and more. It will be a relief that the most difficult task you needed to do is already done.

Putting It Into Practice

I’ve been putting this into practice and it has been pretty helpful. But some days I think, “Wow, I really have a lot of frogs today!” But actually, there’s another Mark Twain quote that goes something like this: If you have two frogs, start with the biggest one. 🐸

It can be a little difficult when unscheduled “frogs” show up. I don’t really have a solution for that, other than using the timer to account for my time. But for those that are on the list, it’s a helpful motivator.


The importance of timing

Unrelated to my course or the productivity seminar, I watched a talk from the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) YouTube channel. The talk, The Secret of Perfect Timing, was given by Dan H. Pink, who is the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.

The talk is about his research on the importance of time or timing. He argues that being mindful of when tasks take place can make a difference in their outcome. For some people, it can also be useful to help prioritize when tasks take place based on when their mind is most efficient.

I also like that this research supports the idea of taking care of your most challenging or difficult tasks early, though even Dan Pink says that’s not universally the case.

The Secret of Perfect Timing | Dan Pink – 58:23

Summary

In this post, I reviewed three tips on time management and productivity:

Time Tracking: Accounting for Time

Tip: Use a digital timer to account for elapsed time.

  • A timer can help keep track of how long you’ve been working on a task, or even how long you’ve been sitting.
  • It can also help structure time, by tracking how much time is being allotted to scheduled and unscheduled tasks.
Task Management: Keeping a 30-60-90 Calendar

Tip: Plan ahead by managing tasks with a calendar focused 30, 60, and 90 day intervals.

  • This works best for long-term and complex tasks with clear ends, such as filing taxes.
  • It’s not great for recurring tasks, like taking a daily walk.
Prioritizing Tasks: Eating Your Daily Frog

Tip: Take care of your most difficult task first, rather than putting it off.

  • Change your mindset: Once your most difficult task is accomplished, everything else that day will be easier in comparison.
Video: Dan Pink, When

Overview: When a task is accomplished can make a difference, sometimes a big difference, in the outcome.

  • The video from Dan Pink’s talk, The Secret of Perfect Timing, goes into detail on how the timing of certain tasks can affect the outcome — e.g, when a decision is made, when a procedure is scheduled, etc.
  • Some people are more efficient at different times of the day, due to how their brain works.

That’s it! I hope these tips are as useful for you as they have been for me!

Announcement: Mobile Web Specialist Google Developer Challenge Scholarship

I am way late to be posting this, but…hey, I got a developer scholarship! Last year, I saw a post on my local Girl Develop It Slack channel about scholarships being offered by Google and Udacity to US residents.

They have 2 tracks, Android developer and Web developer. Within each track there are 2 levels, beginner and intermediate. Out of (what I read was) 100,000 applications, I ended up getting one of 10,000 places in the intermediate-level, Mobile Web Specialist track.

A few others in GDI also got seats, for both tracks and levels. Google and Udacity also offer this same experience for residents of Europe, Russia, Egypt, Israel and Turkey.

Instruction

The video-based courses are all on Udacity, and the instructor has so far been Jake Archibald, who is the supreme leader of all things Service Workers and Promises. In my opinion, the course is a little more advanced than intermediate, but maybe I just don’t understand JavaScript as well as other people. In any case, I’m glad to have this opportunity.

What is the course about?

So far the course is structured around creating an “offline-first” experience, using Service Workers. What this means is when people are using your website or app, they will still be able to get content, even when they don’t have internet connectivity.

Offline connectivity!? How does this happen?

This happens because those apps and websites are using Service Workers, which intercept the connection between the app and the internet (the network). The service worker allows developers to create custom responses and other behaviors when there is no internet connectivity or when there is poor internet connectivity.

What does the course cover?

As mentioned above, the course covers service workers, the Fetch API, the Cache API, and IndexedDB using Jake Archibald’s Promised library. The course also covers Promises, which ties all this together. In addition, as I’ve read through the forums and discussions that the course designers have provided for us, I’ve come to realize that we are also learning about ES6 (ECMAScript 6) and Progressive Web Apps, which might just be another way of saying “offline first”.

There are some great resources I’ve found. First, I’ve again turned to Lynda to help me learn more about ES6. Although currently the Lynda ES6 course I chose to review is not as comprehensive as this class, but that’s OK. I’ve also had to spend extra time on YouTube learning about Promises, because these are not exactly intuitive if you don’t have too much experience with JavaScript. The goldmine I’ve found so far is the Progressive Web Apps course also offered by Google. After finding all of this information, especially Google’s information, I have more respect for how much Google values it’s technology, the robustness of their applications, and how much time they spend evangelizing technology and helping developers get better.

In addition to this course, I’ve also found another “Grow With Google” course. The Google IT Support Professional Certificate, which is accessed on Coursera.

Official Scholarship Badge

I haven’t discussed this course or this scholarship with people at work. I have misgivings about sharing this news. I guess I’m in a wait and see approach. Maybe if I move onto the nanodegree…or maybe not. I have until April to finish the course.

Learning About Lean, Kanban, Six Sigma, and Kaizen

A few months ago, a friend of mine recently asked on LinkedIn if anyone had any information about Six Sigma certification. It caught my eye, not only because a friend asked, but also because I’d recently come across a conversation on Reddit about Six Sigma, which got me thinking about the concept of kaizen, which is Japanese for “continuous improvement”. Following this path further, I learned more about the connections between kaizen, Six Sigma, and Lean. Six Sigma appears to be one way to implement Lean, which appears to be the way to implement/interpret kaizen*.

NYC Lean/Kanban Meetup, June 2017

Cut to the NYC Lean/Kanban Meetup, which I attended in June to learn more. Unfortunately, it was the last of the season, until September, but they have an ongoing weekly morning get-together on Fridays at 8:30 AM.

https://www.meetup.com/nyc-kanban/

Event Recap

The event was meant to recap a recent series of meetups on Lean as well as a planning session for the next year/season. The talk was interesting, but it’s clear that I’m an n00b. I picked up a few names, book titles, and resources, listed below.

People

Book

During the speaker’s recap, he mentioned a book title, This Is Lean. The book can be found at www.thisislean.com.

A video on ThisIsLean.com explains more about the book:

Radio

The speaker also mentioned a This American Life episode on NUMMI, a GM + Toyota manufacturing partnership. Interestingly, I also found an article disputing the TAL episode, although I think that might be more due to a pro-union POV than actual criticism of the article.

Storymapping

After the speaker’s presentation, we got together to talk about a few ideas for the next year. The table I joined was on story mapping, which someone had suggested as a topic. I joined this table because I wanted to learn more about story mapping. And a few other people at the table didn’t seem to know exactly how the person who suggested it could use it in the example she provided. But, eventually, we eliminated other choices and figured out how it could work. So, it will be a topic next “year”, after the summer break, and I hope to learn more. Although it’s meant to be used in Agile, I guess you could use it even if you don’t work in Agile.

Resources:

Story Mapping Tools: 

  • Cardboardit.com – https://cardboardit.com/
  • Feature map – https://www.featuremap.co/en

Certification

Also, in chatting with someone there, I learned that there is Scrum Product Owner certification that you can get in 2 days. I found a session in Saint Paul, MN, and that one is $1,095 per person at regular price. There was an option to filter for discount only, but I’m guessing it will still be several hundred dollars.

Implementing Kaizen Without Knowing It

As a side note, I used to own a book called, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way. (There’s also a summary of the book’s contents on YouTube, by someone unrelated to the book and the author.) But after getting through the audiobook of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I sold it to The Strand.

Incidentally, “tidying” (and cleaning) is another cultural efficiency practice from Japan, which I first learned about on Japanology Plus. It might not be as respected in business circles as kaizen or Lean, but it appears to be very much a part of Japanese culture.

Even though I gave up the kaizen book, I have been using the concept of small changes and small steps. One instance of this is trying to learn new languages with the Duolingo iPhone app, by focusing on just getting through at least one lesson a day. I hope to post my progress on LinkedIn, once I get to 25% in any language.

Also, in chatting with someone there, I learned that there is Scrum Product Owner certification that you can get in 2 days. I found a session in Saint Paul, MN, and that one is $1,095 per person at regular price. There was an option to filter for discount only, but I’m guessing it will still be several hundred dollars.

Event: Advancing The Careers of Technical Women (ACT-W), Details

Speakers and Notes from “Advancing The Careers of Technical Women (ACT-W)” New York 2017 Conference

Following up from my previous post about the very inspiring ACT-W NY conference with a write-up of my notes.

Unfortunately, I could not attend all of the presentations, but they were all interesting an inspiring. Below are notes from just a few of the speakers I heard.


Presentation One: Advice about promoting yourself, by Natasha Awasthi

Her advice came in two parts, due to being a speaker in two presentations at the conference. I liked what she had to say in the first one, I went to the second.

  1. It’s not bragging to talk about your accomplishments. You’re earning trust:
    • I can completely relate with the idea of feeling like I’m bragging when talking about past accomplishments. So much so that I might avoid talking about what I’ve done in the past, even though it would be very relevant. Now that I can frame my past as a credential to build trust, I will be “bragging” about my past accomplishments as much as possible
  2. Don’t network. Build a community:
    • As an introverted person, the idea walking up to people and introducing myself for the sake of “business connections” or “networking” is almost like a 4-letter word. It sounds so fake and manufactured; like you’re “using” people. But when framed as “community building”, that is a concept I can get behind. It’s not so scary. I can definitely do that.
  3. Don’t get mad. Get what you want. (Create an action plan.)

 


Presentation 2: A story about diversity, by YZ Chin

Her advice was about diversity and the importance of being yourself. There were two main take-aways:

One: Diversity is important because if everyone is the same, it means they can all fail the same way. She went on to give an example about how, as a new member of the engineering team, she solved a critical error that all the other experienced team members failed to recognize. Her value to the team was her knowledge about their customers, not her skill as a software engineer.

Two: It’s important to be honest. In her example, she recognized that you’re not an impostor if you say you’re 2nd best. She again related a story where her manage told her that he didn’t hire her to be the best engineer. He hired her for her customer expertise.

 


Presentation 3: What she did well / What she wishes she done better, by Natasha Awasthi 

In Natasha’s second talk, she presented a list of career aphorisms based on what she had done well vs things she wishes she could have done better. I think the first list mostly speaks for itself. But I’ll explain the second a little more, because I think it’s interesting and helpful.

What she wishes she had done better
  1. Show don’t tell.
  2. Seek to clarify before you criticize.
  3. Find a kernel of truth.
  4. Ask for help.
  5. Have a board of people as advisors (not friends or family):
    • This is a group of professional contacts, that will give you difficult but critical feedback on your ideas, projects, career, etc. I thought this tied in really well with the point from her earlier presentation, about building community. People like this would be a great addition.
  6. Working together means going slower.
What she did well
  1. Act on little knowledge & lot of imagination.
  2. Ask for help, twice:
    • What she means is, instead of getting angry and assume people have simply ignored your request for help, just ask again.
  3. Declare your ignorance:
    • This is sort of like getting lost. Sometimes you just continue on the same path, thinking you’re going the right way and then realize you’re way off path. It would be better to just admit you’re lost and find out where you are and where you need to go, than to just start walking. Same here: rather than pretend you know the answer, admit you don’t and find someone who can help.
  4. Make it easy to have hard conversations:
    • I’m actually quite bad at this, probably because of my desire to separate my professional and personal life. In her example, if you never talk to a colleague about anything, good or bad, that one time you’ve got to have a conversation it’s clearly probably about something terrible. So, take the time to get to know your colleague on a more personal basis and build up a congenial rapport.
  5. Focus on what you want.
  6. Follow your obsessions:
    • She mentioned that she was a writer, who wrote articles for Fast Company. She said she also taught classes at General Assembly.

 


Presentation 3: How to Tell Your Story / Personal Brand, by General Assembly

This talk was given by two people from General Assembly. I think their job was to help students find jobs, or help them find support. (Another example of working in tech, but not being technical.)

At first, I was really annoyed when this talk started. I thought it would be about building a personal brand, which is an area where I felt I could use help. Instead the dual presenters gave somewhat detailed stories about their backgrounds, which I was kind of annoyed by. However, they helped make it useful by talking about how to use your story to convey to employers how you can help them.

The Q&A and Summary section really clarified a few points from them, about what employers are looking for when it comes to the non-technical qualities of an employment candidate:

  1. Employers want to know you have leadership qualities, which they described as seeking personal growth. I personally am not sure what leadership means to me, but I do know that I am growth-minded in that I am always looking to learn and expand my skillset. I want to know what I don’t know.
  2. Employers want to know that you take criticism well. I suppose I always knew this, but it’s good to hear it spelled out like this. For me, trying to apply the improv “Yes, and…” technique might be a good way to accept criticism when I don’t want to accept it. “Yes, I see your critique…and X-Y-Z.”
  3. Coming up with a story can be hard. So they suggested asking friends or acquaintances, maybe that board of advisors, to send 3 characteristics that they would use to describe you. And using that list to help guide your story.

In addition, in combination with YZ Chin’s story above, I came away with the idea that I should think of my story into tech as unique to me – and I shouldn’t feel ashamed or embarrassed to talk about how I didn’t go to design school or study engineering. I’m not being an impostor by admitting that my path into the tech industry was a straight line. Some employers might find that meandering experience valuable.

 


Final Talk of the Day

My last talk of the day, I actually cannot remember what it was called. But it was about finding peace at work and learning to cope with difficult situations.

In this story, the presenter talked about how she created her own job, at her current company, after running into resistance and unhappiness in her previous role.

A quote:

If you think it, you will say it. If you say it, you will do it.

They attributed that to Confucius but many people have said something similar.

A few more:
  • Move towards vs move away
  • Bearing down. (Sometimes you just have to work through difficult times, rather than run away.)
  • Crowd source advice from toughest critics. (Sound familiar? This theme is common, I guess.)

Event: Advancing The Careers of Technical Women (ACT-W), Highlights

Wisdom from “Advancing The Careers of Technical Women (ACT-W)” New York 2017 Conference

Or How a Woman’s Tech Conference Saved My Butt

Kind of on a whim, I decided to attend the Advancing The Careers of Technical Women (ACT-W), 1-day conference. The purpose was to provide career advice for women in all parts of the tech world, not just for developers. Overall, it was incredibly inspiring and energizing, which I really needed. Job hunts can be very depressing.

In an upcoming post, I will share detailed notes from each speaker. But for now, I will share some highlights and how I’ve applied the advice I learned from attending.

Highlights of Wisdom, Summarized

  • build a community; don’t network
  • create an objective panel of reviewers
  • tell your unique story
  • diversity of opinions and experience is important
  • earn trust
  • ask for help
  • be honest

Taking Action

Examples of how I applied the advice I learned by taking action:

1 – BUILDING A COMMUNITY

I immediately started applying the concept of community building. I got some business cards and names, from a few attendees, and I connected with them on LinkedIn and sent emails. I’ve even been reaching out to complete strangers on LinkedIn!

Coincidentally, this was kind of happening in real life, too, which made everything a little overwhelming but also provided another opportunity to try out these new ideas.

2 – ASKING FOR HELP

I decided to ask for help from people I haven’t tried before. For instance, I reached out to employers that rejected me for a job, to ask for help. Either to ask what they look for or to ask for career advice.

3 – BUILDING TRUST

I’ve been working on redoing my website (again) and this time, I included more information highlighting my expertise. Not to brag, but to build trust.

4 – TELLING MY STORY

As a part of redoing my website, I’ve included an About page. I’ve used part of that page to go into more detail into my background and how I got to where I am.

My new “About Me” page has a “My Story” section.

 


My next post will include detailed notes from the speakers.