Featured Guest Blogger:

A few days ago I attended a business networking event hosted by my city’s Chamber of Commerce. As the president of my university’s local alumni chapter, I invited local alumni and friends to attend and network with each other and with members of the business community. It was a fun couple of hours, and I met people from different industries that I usually don’t come in contact with in my career as a civil engineer. There were about 70 people at the event, and I knew about 10 of them – most of them through my alumni chapter, but also some friends and family. I made sure that I introduced my contacts to each other – many of whom had not met before. At the end of the event, I had several people approach me to thank me for connecting them with other people that I knew. The social media marketer that met the video production assistant. The events coordinator that met the winery manager. My friend Shannon, who is considering a career change to community relations, whom I introduced to my friend Gary, a community relations professional. I also benefited immediately, as I met an alumnus that I didn’t have on my mailing list.

In his book Never Eat Alone, Keith Ferrazzi describes this process as “social arbitrage,” a term that implies that something is being traded or bartered in the transaction between your contacts. You are trading to your contact your knowledge of people within your network with an unknown future benefit in return. I like to call this process “internetworking.” According to Wikipedia, internetworking defines the practice of connecting a computer network with other networks, and is the base for a very familiar term: internet. Just like a computer network, you can act as the server that connects one terminal to another. But these terminals are people – your people, your coworkers, your friends.

Think about how internetworking can benefit your friends and colleagues. Can your coworker benefit from meeting your former classmate? Can your manager benefit from meeting your former professor? Can your colleague benefit from the article you just read in the engineering journal? In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi writes “the best sort of connecting occurs when you can bring together two people from entirely different worlds.” The strength of your network derives as much from the diversity of your relationships as it does from their quality or quantity.” While your finite amount of professional contacts won’t rival the number of links on the internet, your contacts can benefit greatly from a few moments of thought about what might benefit them. And in the end, how can having more successful people in your network not benefit you and your career?

Over time, connecting people to people can have a significant and lasting effect on your career. Ferrazzi writes “real power comes from being indispensable. Indispensability comes from being a switchboard, parceling out as much information, contacts, and goodwill to as many people – in as many worlds – as possible.” “Indispensable” is a nice label to have in your career, don’t you think? Consider your professional network an extra tool to put in your career toolbox, one that can’t be harmed by economic downturns. But as Ferrazzi says, introducing people to people isn’t the only tool you can use. We are still in the Information Age – and information is an important form of currency. By sending relevant information to your contacts about news and advances in their professions – for example journal articles, interesting tweets and online news articles – you are providing them an invaluable service.

It is less than a week since the networking event as I write this, still too soon to know if any of the connections I helped establish will bear fruit. Gary, the community relations professional, is meeting Shannon for lunch this week – and I’m sure the exchange of information and the new professional connection will benefit both of them. If you continue to look for opportunities for internetworking, over time those connections that you helped establish can strengthen and expand your social and professional networks. And you never know when the favor will be returned when you need it most.

Please share your thoughts on internetworking.

Jason Kent is a professional water resources engineer and manager with a large engineering consulting firm in Portland, Oregon. In his 11-year career, Jason has tackled engineering problems such as dam removal, bridge scour, flood waves, and stream restoration design and management issues including hiring, training, and marketing. He is also a public speaker on topics including engineering career development and volunteerism, and has contributed to multiple blogs and magazines. Jason may be reached at jason.kent@yahoo.com or on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=36868691

Source: When Gary Met Shannon – an Internetworking Success Story? on Powerful Purpose Associates -

Featured Guest Blogger:

Knowledge and skill often extend and expand engineering careers, but sometimes the squeaky wheel needs some amplifying in positive ways. Fortunately, engineers looking for ways to develop their careers and fortify positions can do so easily and simply.

Networking

One of the mainstays in any career field, networking with other engineering professionals and firms increases your professional profile among those with whom it counts.

Regardless of your engineering specialty, get to know those in the field and let them get to know you in return. Read their books, magazine articles and reports. Subscribe to their newsletters or e-zines and send comments to them. Ask pertinent questions that spotlight their specialty. Give them professional attention and respect without fawning over them.

Presentations

Attend professional conferences and seminars. Spend constructive time outside the conference room discussing the presented information, projects and other industry issues. Attending presentations of various forms extends your professional networking into national or international arenas, not just locally. However, if there’s an important conference in or near your city, don’t overlook that silver-platter opportunity.

Associations

Join every engineering organization you can find and can afford. Don’t limit yourself to just local organizations and associations but certainly don’t forget about them either.

Start with those that pertain specifically to your specialty. Become active in the association, not just a paying member. Volunteer for positions or tasks within the organization.

Often, your extracurricular activities gain more exposure to your abilities, your attitude and your competency than you might imagine. That exposure creates opinion, and opinion drives positive affect.

Publications

Submit a well-written article to a professional publication. Include contact information that meets the publication’s guidelines. Your name in the by-line grants instant professional recognition.

Electronic publications grant additional exposure. E-zine and newsletter owners often welcome contributing authors. Since most electronic publications don’t require long texts that magazines might, e-zine and newsletter publications can be easier to write and submit for consideration.

If the list owners aren’t accepting outside contributions, start your own. Blogs aren’t difficult to start, and if focused on one specialty and presenting highly qualified, relevant content, they can be easily found by someone looking for information you offer.

Self-Promotion

Creating a blog, maintaining it and keeping it tightly focused—then using the blog in a resource box for publication boosts your blog’s credibility and exposure. It also presents you as an expert in your field—a status that creates greater exposure and development possibilities on a CV and in the industry as a whole.

Volunteerism

Volunteer your time and expertise to local charities and causes. If your specialty is civil or electrical engineering, channel that expertise into Habitat for Humanity, for example. Chemical engineers might teach a safety course through the Red Cross on household cleaners. Mechanical engineers can work with youth and adult programs in a number of ways, teaching basic machine design or repair, for example.

Use your skills and knowledge to help your fellow citizens, and you could create a legacy that gains attention of not only those you help directly but of those who oversee the programs and who fund them, potentially cross-networking at high-influence levels.

Summary

Engineers are detail-oriented, science-minded individuals. Adapting those highly proficient and necessary skills and traits into a broader range and focus can work to enhance any engineering specialty, increase professional exposure and potentially boost career aspirations.

About the Author

JC Ryan is a freelance writer for MyCollegesandCareers.com.  My Colleges and Careers helps people determine if an online education is right for them and helps them understand which online courses and online schools they can choose from to reach their goals.

Source: 6 Simple Ways to Develop Your Engineering Career on Powerful Purpose Associates -

Many professionals have this idea that only the more experienced professionals have to network and build relationships. Typically, early on in your engineering career, you will be asked to stay in front of the computer and crank out calculations, create designs, or perform site inspections. That’s a great approach to take if you want to have an average, ordinary engineering career. Fortunately for you, this book is about having an extraordinary career, and in order to do so you need to let go of that belief that you are too young to network RIGHT NOW! Regardless of what you are asked to do, you must take it upon yourself to incorporate networking into your schedule. You are never too young (or old for that matter), to do anything to advance your career, especially networking. In fact, since so many people believe that fallacy, if you do start networking while you’re younger in your career, you will set yourself apart from other professionals who subscribe to this outdated theory and you will put yourself in a position to succeed.

That’s what advancing your career is all about – doing things that make people say, “Wow! He/she is a real move and shaker!” Always remember that networking is building relationships which you have been doing your whole life. Now you are just doing this in a professional setting.

The reason I wrote this section is because if you are a younger engineer, when you do some of the things that I have recommended such as joining networking groups and going out to lunch with your new connections, you may hear some backlash from other people. They may say you’re “too young” to start worrying about networking and that you should be focusing on doing your job. Professionals that listen to these kinds of statements go on to have mediocre careers. Those that don’t listen to these things rise to the top quicker than most.

Start building relationships as early on in your career as possible, regardless of what anyone tells you.

The rest of Chapter 5 will provide proven tips and techniques for becoming a superior networker, in order to keep building solid business (and personal) relationships to advance your career.

Sign up now to receive an e-mail the day the book is available for purchase. There will be free bonuses available to those who purchase the book the day it comes out in May 2011. You can also receive my Daily Boosts and/or Monday Morning Motivational e-mails for engineers by selecting those options as well.

Also check out our LinkedIn Group and Facebook Fanpage to gain support from other engineers!

To Your Success!

Anthony Fasano, P.E., LEED AP, ACC
Your Professional Partner

Source: You’re Never Too Young (or Old!) to Network on Powerful Purpose Associates -

I am a firm believer that your career advancement is strongly related to the relationships you build in your industry.  I have built many solid business and personal relationships through professional societies.  Not only has this helped advance my career, but it has made my career very enjoyable.

Here are some potential benefits to joining AND PARTICIPATING in a society:

• Fostering of professional and personal relationships in the industry,
• Gaining of knowledge through informative seminars,
• Earning professional development credits,
• Giving back to the profession as a volunteer board member,
• Staying more up to date on what’s going on in the industry through discussions and society newsletters,
• Securing new business through professional relationships (I don’t recommend making this your goal in joining a             professional society, although it certainly may happen).

Many people complain that they pay dues to be a member of a society; however they get nothing out of it.  I have two questions for those people.  What kind of effort did you put into it?  What were you expecting to get out of it?

For me, the professional societies have not only helped me to meet many good people, but they have allowed me speak with many engineers and help them with their career development, which has been very rewarding.

Please share your experiences with professional societies in regards to how they have affected your career both positively or negatively.

Anthony Fasano, P.E., LEED AP, CPESC, CPSWQ, CPC

www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyjfasano
www.facebook.com/anthony.j.fasano
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Source: Professional Societies: How Important are they to Career Advancement? on Powerful Purpose Associates -