Finding Community with Jeni Smith (Episode 64) | Jeni can help you find and grow your networks
For this episode of the Research Adjacent podcast Sarah is talking to networking expert Jeni Smith about how to find and grow your professional or personal community. If you recognise the name or voice that’s because Jeni guested on episode 56 of Research Adjacent.
This episode is part of our Challenges Series – conversations which take a deep dive into common concerns for research-adjacent professionals including sticky situations and mindset gremlins. I chose this episode topic because so many research-adjacent professionals tell me they are lonely at work. Remote working, being the only person in a team or department who does what they do and a lack of professional networks to join means that many research-adjacent folks feel isolated. Jeni is the perfect person to give us some tips and strategies to start building more connections.
You are not alone
Jeni works with all kinds of people including academics and business people and so many people are feeling lonely.
“Hybrid working, or remote working, is having a massive impact across the board for people and in regards to mental emotional health, that feeling of isolation. People do want this. They are craving this. They want that human connection.”
Knowing that other people are also looking for community might make it a little easier to reach out but it can still be a hard thing to do. It might sound strange, but Jeni recommends spending time with yourself before you reach out to others.
“What if people aren’t sure what they want? This is a big one for me in networks in general, and building community. And for me, it very much starts with personal self. Understanding, awareness, knowing who you are and what you want, will then allow you to put that out to the world.”
To dig into this a little deeper Jeni recommends the 5 Why’s exercise and the work of sociologist Shelly Turkle.
Birds of a feather flock together
Once you have some sense of what you are looking for, Jeni’s next tip is to start looking for where those people hang out.
“There’s a lot of vulnerable involved in reaching out, putting yourself out there. People naturally find it easier to connect with people that they’ve got stuff in common with. It’s called homophily. It’s the idea that birds of a feather flock together.”
And once you’ve found those people you have to engage – even if it’s tentative and online.
“You have to be proactive. You have to you can’t people aren’t just going to come and knock on your door and find you. You have to look and go out and find them.”
Building trust takes time
Sometimes finding people isn’t the problem – it’s building and maintaining those relationships that is the biggest challenge.
“Finding people is one thing. But then nurturing those relationships, that takes time. It takes energy. It takes consistency. It takes time to build trust.”
Build it and they will come
Jeni recommends organising informal low-pressure opportunities to get together like arranging to come into the office on a particular day, or hot desk in the same location. If no-one else turns up, you’ll still get your work done! Someone has to be the person to kick things off and sometimes you just have to trust that other people want it too.
“Build it and they will come because people do want this. They are craving this. They want that human connection.”
Find out more
- Listen to Jeni’s first appearance on Research Adjacent
- Connect to Jeni on LinkedIn
- Find networking events on NetworkWhere.com
Theme music by Lemon Music Studios from Pixabay
Episode Transcript
Jeni Smith 00:00
People do want this. They are craving this. They want that human connection. You have to be proactive. People aren’t just going to come and knock on your door and find you. You have to look and go out and find them. Finding people is one thing, but then nurturing those relationships that takes time. It takes energy. It takes consistency. It takes time to build trust.
Sarah McLusky 00:22
Hello there. I’m Sarah McLusky, and this is Research Adjacent. Each episode, I talk to amazing research-adjacent professionals about what they do and why it makes a difference. Keep listening to find out why we think the research-adjacent space is where the real magic happens.
Sarah McLusky 00:44
Hello and welcome to Research Adjacent. This episode is the third in our Challenges mini series where, with my guests, I’m exploring some of the sticky situations and mindset gremlins are common for research-adjacent professionals. So far, we’ve covered imposter moments and navigating change. And if you haven’t listened to these these episodes already, then make sure you add them to your listening queue. And while you’re at it, I’d love it if you could make sure that you’re subscribed to the podcast or even take a minute to write a review. This podcast is a real labor of love, and it’s created with a mission to make life just a little bit better for people like you. And so doing tiny things like following the podcast or liking social media posts can make a huge difference to how many people hear about the show and how many people we can help. So back to today’s episode. I’m delighted to welcome back previous guest, Jeni Smith. Jeni is an academic networking expert, and you can hear all about how she got into this work in Episode 56. I wanted to get Jeni back on to talk about her specialist subject, because so many research-adjacent professionals I speak to are lonely at work. It might be due to remote working, being the only research adjacent on a research team, or just a lack of professional networks to tap into. It seems like lots of us are finding it hard to make and maintain connections these days. So Jeni is here to give us some simple strategies, and I promise they don’t involve anything sleazy. We talk about why self reflection is a good place to start, how to find people like you, and how to nurture those relationships and give them space to grow. And speaking of which, if you’re listening to this as a self-employed research-adjacent folk, then I have a friendly community just for you. Jeni and I talk a little bit about the research adjacent community in the episode, and it’s for freelancers and small business owners and I started it to provide exactly the kind of support that me and Jeni talk about. And Jeni and I are both members, along with lots of other brilliant, like minded people. So if you want to find out more, you’ll find a link in the show notes. But for now, on with the episode. Listen on to start finding your community.
Sarah McLusky 02:49
Welcome back to the podcast. Jeni, it’s lovely to have you here again and to come back and talk a bit more about your specialist subject, networking and communities. So to begin with, could you just give us a very quick recap for people who maybe haven’t listened to your last episode, but what it is that you do?
Jeni Smith 03:08
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me back. Firstly, so my passion in life, slash obsession, is networking, and that comes out in two main ways. Firstly, I help teach networking skills to people, so academics, businesses and students, teaching them how to network, giving them the tools and confidence. And then I’m also a PhD student, so I’m doing my PhD research in networks as well. So I kind of come at it from two angles,
Sarah McLusky 03:34
Yeah, so really, lots of knowledge about this area, and that’s the reason why I wanted to get you back on the podcast, because this episode is going out as part of series. It’s going to be a special series looking at some of the big challenges that face professionals who are working in a research adjacent space. So that’s people who are not doing the research themselves, but are working with and alongside and in some way helping the research to happen. And there’s a real divide in a lot of organizations, not all, but a lot of organizations where the researchers have loads of opportunities to connect and network. There’s conferences, there’s training courses, there’s, you know, they have like seminars and meetings and things like that, whereas the people who are working alongside them don’t get nearly the same opportunities. And then there is also the fact that often people who are doing so somebody, for example, who’s a project manager for a research team, they might be the only person who is not a researcher in a team of 10 people, so the people that they’re working with day to day don’t understand what they’re doing. Sometimes there’s even a little bit of antagonism towards the work that they’re doing. Yeah, so there’s the case that often people are the only one in their team. They might also. There’s people who are research adjacent often work from home as well, at least for a large part of their time, so they’re not getting that social interaction of just maybe being in the office. And there’s people, again, who just, you know, you see kind of coming and going. And then, as I say, there’s a lack of these events, training opportunities, places where they might find that they would get together with other research agent professionals. There are some, but not loads, and so that’s some of the problems facing them. So I’m hoping that we can have a conversation today about how to tackle some of those issues.
Jeni Smith 05:37
Absolutely. Yeah, love this. Let’s, let’s, let’s fix it.
Sarah McLusky 05:40
Yeah brilliant. So, I mean, one of the first things that’s going to be is going to be, if somebody is in this situation, they’re they feel that they’re a bit stuck at work, a bit lonely, not managing to find people to talk to, who get it where, where do they start?
Jeni Smith 06:01
Yeah I think there’s a couple of things, firstly, to consider thinking about whether or not someone is employed within the institution, or if they’re freelancer and they like sell into multiple institutions, it’s going to be a slight difference there. So someone who is if you are employed, I would start off with your employer, engage with the wider University, with the institution, and see what kind of social networks they’ve got. And it doesn’t have to be finding someone that does the exact same job as you. I would start by looking like close to home. It’s going to be accessible in terms of travel, so you get that in person stuff as well. Like you said, that that hybrid working, or that remote working is having a massive impact across the board for people, and in regards to mental emotional health, that feeling of isolation that it’s hard to keep up momentum with work when you feel isolated, because you kind of carry that by yourself so physically, getting out of the home office, going to your place of employment if you are employed, alternatively, if you’re not, if you like, work as an external and sell into different institutions, which is what I do, finding other people that either do what you do and connect remotely so engaging with you know, something like this podcast, for example, people that follow this podcast will be in a similar space to you. Comment on a LinkedIn post about it, or look at who else is commenting, and start interacting digitally. So if you can’t physically like find people close to you that to spend time with that do what you do. Start looking online and making those connections remotely, and then having these conversations become not just like text on LinkedIn, for example, but then you can start like having a quick call and a catch up, and maybe even moving into a WhatsApp group. And the thing with anything like this is that you have to be proactive. You have to you can’t people aren’t just going to come and knock on your door and find you, you have to look and go out and find them. So thinking about what you want from these these networks and these relationships. Is it moral support? Is it people that do what you do, but in different physical spaces, environments, geographic locations, or do you just want, like, emotional connection, support in general, and the answers to exactly what you want are going to help you find the right people in the right spaces.
Sarah McLusky 08:26
Yeah. So what sort of advice might you give to somebody who’s thinking, Well, I don’t know what I want. I just know that this is not it.
Jeni Smith 08:35
Yeah. This is Yeah. I need more than this. Yeah. I would. I would the easiest place to start is going to be online. There’s a lot of vulnerable a lot of vulnerability involved in reaching out, putting yourself out there, whether it’s looking to, you know, meet new friends as adults, a lot of a struggle to to make and maintain new friendships. So this isn’t just something to do. This isn’t just a work situation. This could be a friendship thing or any kind of human connection, and there is a lot of vulnerability in that. So starting online, if you are feeling a bit like, Oh, I’m a bit unsure. I’m not sure there’s a lot of safety that comes with being behind a screen where we can take our time, we can edit ourselves. We don’t have to worry about saying something wrong, looking silly. So starting digitally, finding, you know, searching for hashtags associated with your work, or the work that you do, or the things that you’re interested in. People naturally find it easier to connect with people that they’ve got stuff in common with. It’s called homophily. It’s the idea that birds of a feather flock together. So starting, starting there where you’ve got stuff in common, whether that’s you work in the same space, you work within universities, or if you’ve got a hobby that’s outside of work, finding other people that have got those common interests that’s going to be a really easy, nice, safe space to start to ease you into finding connections and starting those new conversations.
Sarah McLusky 10:01
yeah, I really liked your comment before, where you said about looking for, you know, something that you’re interested in, or that you think other and the other people that you want to connect with will be interested in, like, as you say, for example, the podcast and and not because I know that when you talk, you think about something like online, people are really intimidated to, you know, post something. It feels very vulnerable. It feels like they’re really putting themselves out there to post something say on LinkedIn. But if you go and then comment on things, or even like, you know, just liking things and starting your name like it’ll start your name will start to come up, you’ll start to see the same names coming up, you know, when you start to think, oh, maybe there’s somebody who is, like, interested in the same thing that I’m interested in. And then
Jeni Smith 10:49
Absolutely and finding, rather than, like, just posting something out to the world, find digital groups. So LinkedIn, I’ve got loads of groups. Groups are really underutilized, I think. But like, finding a group that’s got a theme, you know, a topic that you have in common and that you’re interested in. Obviously, it’s to do with your work, supporting academia, whatever it might be, finding groups, enjoying those groups, and then you’ve got a room digitally full of people who you know you’ve got that commonality with. You already know that. It’s kind of like, just by default, you’ve got something in common. So again, and then you can start engaging in other people’s posts if you’re not ready to put your own out there. I think for me, for me as well, you know, and you said before about like, Oh, what if people aren’t sure what they want? This is a big one for me, because this is a big thing in networks in general, and building community. For me, it very much starts with personal, self understanding, awareness, knowing who you are and what you want, will then allow you to put that out to the world so other people who have that in common can find you, and if you don’t know that, that’s kind of step one in the process of building a community is understanding what your community is, who you are, so that you can find other people similar or that like you, or that you’ve got things in common with. So it’s often doing a bit of like self reflection and self awareness work first knowing what it is that you want from external relationships by building that internal one first, I think that’s a really important step that people often hop over and try and go straight into building these big external communities, but they’re not really sure on who they are, what they need and what they want, so that they kind of search without ever finding what it is. So starting, there some really good a really good first step as well.
Sarah McLusky 12:42
That is, does sound like really good advice. So are there any particular tools or practices that you’ve come across that are useful for doing that self reflection?
Jeni Smith 12:54
You know, I do. I did an activity recently for an event, and it was based on this concept around the three chairs. And there’s a MIT professor called Sherry Turkle who does a lot of work on empathy, and one of her books is called Reclaiming Conversation. And on the cover of the book is a single chair, and it comes from, I think it was from a poem or a story about a guy, I can’t remember his name off the top of my head, but he talks about having three chairs in his house. One is for isolation and for solitude, for like personal reflection. Two is for friendship, so that one to one relationship, and then the third is for community and for society. Now, often, especially in the world that we live in now, we’re, we’re connected to so many people. There’s like, we’ve got that, you know, access to literally hundreds of 1000s of millions of people. However, because we’re always entertained through our screens and our phones, we don’t really spend time on that singular chair. So, you know, spending time with our own thoughts, no screens, no phones, nothing just having that, that time of solitude, to process and build this internal relationship with ourselves. And once we do that, then we can introduce a second chair and have these one to one relationships. And then once we’ve nailed that, we can then introduce the third chair. So the activity that I did was to have people sit in silence for five minutes, which is quite a long time, five minutes, yeah, it’s quite it’s like, it’s quite gangster. So I had, like, this room full of people, and they all had to kind of move their chairs so they were a bit like isolated. So they were just sat, and then just had them sit for five minutes, and they were allowed to have, like, a pen and paper so they could write down things and, you know, stuff, ideas popped in their head or whatever. And I think it’s a bit uncomfortable, and there’s been a lot of research into this, and, you know, I can share some studies if, if anyone finds it interesting, but, yeah, it’s something that we don’t spend time doing, which, you know, sitting with our own thoughts we’re constantly entertained, or there’s music on in the car, or whatever. So my first like recommendation to people is just have some time on your own, like with your own thoughts, no technology, no music, screens, entertainment, and just see where your brain takes. You see what kind of internal monologue is happening, and just like process life basically, and schedule that into into your day to day, so that you can start building and nurturing this internal relationship. Once, once you have that, then it’s so much easier to know who you are, know what you need from external relationships. You’re more comfortable putting it out there, because you know who you are, you don’t need that external validation anymore. And it’s a lot easier to kind of be vulnerable and say, Look, this is who I am. This is the things I’m passionate about. If you feel the same, I’d love to chat to you. Becomes so much easier to find those communities, and it ends up being the right communities as well.
Sarah McLusky 15:59
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense to find that inner confidence first, because I know one of the things you know comes up again and again, that people are just scared, vulnerable, worried about putting themselves out there, whether it’s taking that first step and, you know, messaging somebody making a comment on a post, you know, go into a group and just lurking for a while and not necessarily saying anything. So that confidence is an inside job, isn’t it? It’s not something that there’s no amount of waiting that’s gonna that’s gonna magically make you feel like you’re
Jeni Smith 16:40
No you’ve got to put the you’ve got to put the work in. I’m a massive fan of therapy, speaking, therapy, counselling, whatever it is. I used a technique called the five whys as well, which is a business technique that they use to get to the crux of a problem. So, and if I’m doing something, or, you know, whatever, I’ll ask myself, like, why am I doing this? Well, this is why, but, but why? And you ask why five times. And actually, when you get to the root of it, it’s usually something absolutely ridiculous that has nothing to do with the surface level, original, why? But once you realize, like, this is such a silly example, but like, a year ago, I stopped dyeing my hair, and I’m only in my 30s, but naturally I’m now full gray hair, and when I was dying my hair, I was like, Jeni, why are you doing this? Because I was I had to get up at five o’clock in the morning to put chemicals on my head and sit like an idiot for, like, before, for half an hour before getting in the shower. And it was ridiculous. And I was like, why am I doing this? I’m like, well, because I’ve got gray hair. Well, what’s wrong with that? Why are you covering gray hair? Well, because, and then you get down to it, and it’s like society tells me that, as a woman, I shouldn’t as a, you know, it kind of devalues my value in society, because gray hair represents aging, and you when you get really into it. And I was like, What the hell am I thinking, and I’ve never dyed my hair since, and I let it grow out naturally. And it was quite, quite it’s a long process. It takes a lot of time. It’s quite a vulnerable thing to let you gray roots grow through, especially as someone in their 30s. But when I kind of really got to the crux of what I was doing and why I was doing it, this kind of the self awareness that comes from that, and then you end up being this more authentic version of yourself, and more I’m more comfortable and confident in my skin because of it, and I’m able to just be like, well, this is just me, and people that like that will find me and will become friends, and we’ll talk and we can relate to things. So the five whys is a really good little quick hack for figuring out what you’re doing, why you’re doing it. Yeah, that can, that can really help bring that self awareness, and that self awareness allows you to, then, you know, have those more authentic external connections, relationships, communities as well
Sarah McLusky 19:00
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, fantastic. I mean, certainly, when it comes to the kind of confidence things that I am very guilty of, of lurking, and again, it’s one of the reasons why I do a podcast where I interview other people, because it means that it’s not about me. So there’s cunning ways to do it. But also, yeah, I mean, I’ve said before that doing the podcast is like a very extreme form of networking. So you get to trap people in a room with you for an hour, which is amazing.
Jeni Smith 19:26
Love it
Sarah McLusky 19:27
But even then, you know, it, I might come across as confident here, like you were saying you went through that really vulnerable process. The first time I published the podcast, I thought I was going to be sick. I had to, like, get up, leave the house, you know, go for a walk, because it was so scary to just, like, put something out there. So even the people that you see who seem like they’ve got it all together and they’re really confident, it’s
Jeni Smith 19:53
Absolutely but like, if you were to ask yourself those five whys, like, Why? Why was that so scary for you, and then, like getting into the reasoning behind it, to understand it’s after this fear of judgment or the social rejection fear, or, you know, there’s loads of different things that it could potentially be, but once you understand it and you’re aware of it, then it can’t control you anymore, which is a really powerful thing, and the fact that you did that anyway is amazing, and you’ve now able to help all these people by sharing, you know, all this, these stories and narratives and knowledge and stuff. It’s just, it’s awesome. You should be very proud.
Sarah McLusky 20:29
Ah thank you. So well, I think going on from right, yeah, so let’s think about the next stage in this journey. You’ve found some people, they seem like the right kind of people,
Jeni Smith 20:41
yeah
Sarah McLusky 20:41
But I think everybody’s had that experience of where, you know, you maybe meet somebody at an event, you know, you exchange email addresses, or you follow each other on LinkedIn, but then, you know, how
Jeni Smith 20:56
It dwindles
Sarah McLusky 20:57
It dwindles, yeah, yeah. How do we keep those relationships,
Jeni Smith 21:02
That momentum going? Yeah, I always think of this like either healthy eating, going to the gym, whatever, you know, people, we know that we need to do it. The thing, the big thing, is this consistency, the idea of being consistent, so nurturing, you know, finding people’s one thing, but then nurturing those relationships. That takes time. It takes energy. It takes consistency. It takes time to build trust. The best, the quickest way to do that is spending time in person with someone. So if you can find people who are geographically close to you, so you can physically get together, create a rhythm or a routine, that’s a nice one. You know, we talked, you know, talked at the beginning about, you know, academics have got all these conferences they can go to, and events that they can attend and stuff like that. But there’s not really much for the support networks. But there’s opportunity. That means there’s opportunity there for people to potentially create their own networks, to put in, you know, say, to say to people, look even hot desking. This is, I think hot desking is such a wonderful way to network. And there’s a great guy in the North East called Chris, he’s a photographer, and he calls it slow networking. He puts on events where you come along, you just bring your computer, and you can just work from a shared space for on a certain day. So if you can be the catalyst and like, say to people in your network look on if you know, the first Friday of every month I’m going to work from this cafe. If you want to come along and just work there, then it means it’s not as networky. It’s not pressured, you don’t have to, kind of like, make small talk, put your headphones in if you want, but you’re not on your own. It gets you out of the house, and you’re physically spending time in the same, you know, space, the presence of another person, which allows you to really build that depth of connection, that trust, being close to each other. So often again, it’s about being proactive. If there’s nothing available for you to go to think about potentially doing something like that yourself and putting it out there. But it does take consistency. It takes time, and one of the things that we all struggle with is time. You know, everyone’s busy. There’s a lot of things going on, so it does have to be prioritized. In the same way, you’ve got to prioritize going to the gym, you’ve got to prioritize healthy living or whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve, you’ve got to prioritize it. So finding a rhythm and a system that works for you, whether that’s, this is a fun little example, but my mam is one of seven kids, so my grandparents, I know. My grandparents, they were, they were missionaries in South Africa, so they were obviously, like, you know, religious people. And my my grandma, she had a different day of the week for each child that she would have a call or, like, pray for them on a different day of the week. So my mam’s day was Thursday, so she would always have a call with her mom on a Thursday, which I thought was lovely. So if you can find, like, a rhythm, if you’ve got like five people in your network that you really want to nurture relationships with first week of the month, you know, have a catch up or send an email or text message to that person the next week, it’s the next but you know, something like that that works for you, that allows you to get into a rhythm, keeps you at the forefront of the other person’s mind because they’re busy as well, and then gives you that opportunity to nurture relationships.
Sarah McLusky 24:17
Yeah, and certainly, there’s no shame in putting something like that on your to do list, because I do that
Jeni Smith 24:24
I’m awful for texting, messaging, my friends will tell you I am really bad, so I have to, like, sit down at, you know, at the end of the day, my little ones in bed, you know, TV on in the background, and I’ll sit down, and then I’ll go through messages and reply to everyone in one go, because I can’t do it throughout the day because it just disconnects my day. It’s different. So it’s just finding out again, once you know what works for you build it into your routine, whether it’s a to do list or a, you know, a set an alarm, a reminder, or whatever it is, and then you
Sarah McLusky 24:54
say whether you do it on a particular day of the week, something like thatt
Jeni Smith 24:57
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Jeni Smith 24:59
Yeah, oh, well,
Sarah McLusky 25:01
that’s a good advice then as well. And, and I think I love that idea of making it like taking the pressure off a little bit. I think people think they have to organize, you know, some big networking meeting, or, you know, some sort of a seminar. But what often happens then is you you cram the time with stuff that feels productive and don’t leave enough space for the conversations, whereas, if you make it something informal, like, yeah, like you say a co working day or something like that, and, and, you know, and I think that is the way a lot of universities and places that that have gone now, is that people don’t have fixed desks anymore. They just have, like, a, you know, a space. You can book a desk and come in on certain days. So, you know, maybe just arranging like, Oh, should we all go in on Wednesday and then we’ll have lunch together, even like that.
Jeni Smith 25:54
Yeah. I mean, Durham University, the business school where I’m based, the new business school, and they’ve got a cafe area, and it’s open to the public as well as being open to obviously, you know, people, students, academics, whatever. So doing something within an institution that you work with, if you’re external, or if you’re within a university, putting something out to other colleagues and saying, Look, does anyone want to I’m going to hot I’m going to be hot desk. Don’t even ask. Does anyone want to just tell them I will be here on this day. Everyone is welcome. Bring your laptop, bring your lunch box, or we’ll get something from the cafe, or whatever. This day, between these hours, I’ll be there and just go and then, you know, there might be time where no one comes, but it doesn’t matter. You’re just sat working anyway, so it doesn’t feel as like you’re sat waiting for anyone. You’re not. You’re just sat working from a public space. So but then people will come. I think the fact that you know we were chatting before Sarah and like this is such a common theme that is coming out, I think it is very much like build it and they will come. Because people do want this. They are craving this. They want that human connection. It’s just who’s going to be the person to put themselves out there to to pick it, pick it off, really,
Sarah McLusky 27:12
Yeah, and I think, and that’s we do. It’s almost a call to that, isn’t it. We need some people who are willing to be the ones who are going to stand up and organize it
Jeni Smith 27:19
Be a leader
Sarah McLusky 27:20
Being somebody who’s just done that myself. So yeah, for people who don’t know, there is now a little, a little community for research-adjacent freelancers. For exactly this reason, I just was it kept coming up with people I was talking to, and I thought, well, if nobody else is going to build it, I will
Jeni Smith 27:36
They’re the best. They’re the most authentic ones. It’s not from you’re not coming from a place of like, Oh, if I get all these people together, I can sell them this. It’s not like that. It’s like, literally, people are telling me they want this, and I’ve got this network of people that I’ve got access to. I’m just going to put it out there and see what happens, and that they’re the ones and that really, like, have the, the most authentic power. And I love, I love those kinds of networks, yeah.
Sarah McLusky 28:02
Oh, so go out there, make your if it doesn’t exist, then make it yourself. And I think certainly we’re in that it’s almost like hangover, isn’t it, from COVID is yeah, when COVID hit and everybody went into their homes and and suddenly the idea of working from home, hybrid working, felt really liberating. But then now we’re four years, five years down the line, and and people are starting to be like, yeah, actually, I wish I got a house a bit more
Jeni Smith 28:32
It’s a bit lonely. I forgot I had to talk to people.
Sarah McLusky 28:34
Yeah,
Jeni Smith 28:35
No, yeah. And it’s got, I think, I think there’s, there’s pros and cons. The novelty, like you said, has worn off, I think for a lot of people, and it’s impacting people’s like, social skills and confidence, but it’s also impacting their their sense of connection, especially, you know, people like myself. I just work. I’ve, you know, run my business, but it’s just me, so I’m and I need that, that connection, so I need to proactively go out, talk to people, hot desk. I’ll sit in the coffee at the uni all the time, and you just chat to people walking by, and you get, I get to know the people that work there and stuff as well as you know, seeing people I already know. So it’s, it is, it’s a proactive choice I think that you have to make. And it can feel scary and vulnerable, but it’s so worth it. All the good stuff comes from vulnerability, as well as the some of the scary stuff,
Sarah McLusky 29:26
Yeah, oh, you’re even giving me a nudge for some of these. I should probably do something and say, yeah. I’ll be yeah here on this day come and have a chat.
Sarah McLusky 29:34
Yeah rather than eh fantastic. So I think another thing that comes up often with people in this community is finding somebody who can be a bit of a mentor for them, whether that’s formally or informally. I think one thing I’ve I’ve found interesting the more I thought about this, is that there are different kinds of mentoring relationships. So there’s, there’s times when I’ve been in organizations where I’ve been assigned like a formal mentor, right? But it just didn’t quite gel in that. And not that there was anything like they were people who had amazing insights, but it just finding a way to prioritize that relationship, I guess again, was was challenging on both sides. But then sometimes mentors, well, I don’t know, tell us. Tell Tell us your thoughts on mentors.
Jeni Smith 30:31
No I’m a big fan of mentorship. I’ve experienced it from different perspectives, as a mentor, as a mentee. I think there’s different ways to go about it. You are totally right. It has to be the right fit, and it’s a very personal relationship. So it has to be someone that you admire, that you know, that it has to be the right social connection between the two people. So this is where the it can become problematic if you are just assigned someone as a mentor. I think there’s different, there’s a couple of different ways to go about it. As you said, prioritizing is is difficult because people are busy, so it has to be mutually beneficial. I feel like relationship. There’s either the peer to peer mentorship, where you network and meet someone, and the two of you kind of connect, and you’ve got things that you can learn from each other. So you both have this kind of equality within the relationship and the dynamic. And then you put something a rhythm, whether it’s like meeting up every month, or having a call once a month just to check in, or whatever it is, I think there’s also a lot of space for paying for mentorship, which is a different dynamic, but it really it gives commitment, obviously on both sides of that dynamic. It’s something that I do professionally for not for for academics or anything, but for business people. I’ll mentor them one to one. It’s a paid service. It’s something I really love doing, and it means that I don’t feel like I’m giving up my time. Obviously, as a as a busy person, you’ve got, you have to kind of get that return. So it allows me to do something I love, and obviously get paid for my time, which is brilliant, and helping people one to one. So there’s also an option of that and finding a mentor. It depends, again, what you need from that mentor relationship. If it’s just someone to like for that that support and to get ideas from, then that’s one thing. If it is more like you want, bit more like outputs and coaching, almost, and that’s a different thing. So again, I think starting with what it is that you want, and then finding that right fit. And you might have to try a few different people first to find the right fit, but being open to it. So when you are going out, networking more in general, whether that’s events, conferences, hot desking, just having conversations with people, having at the forefront of your mind when you engage with new people. Like is this someone that I could see that working with, or if there’s someone that you’ve already got in mind, that you admire, and you they’re like, further down the path than you, and you would love to get their insights and their experience, reach out to them and say, Look, I would love to to explore like you, becoming a bit of a mentor. And is that an option for you? What might that look like for you? And, you know, just let me know and see where that conversation goes as well.
Sarah McLusky 33:27
Yeah I think as well. Something that’s, that’s, I’ve realized is a lot of the people who are almost mentors to me aren’t even like they’re so far down the line that I have no access to, you know what I mean? So people like authors, podcasters, you know, I’ve learned so much from
Jeni Smith 33:44
Yeah, yeah from the content
Sarah McLusky 33:47
Yeah that they’ve put out in the world. And so mentors doesn’t always even necessarily need to be a real life human being who’s in your space. Yeah.
Jeni Smith 33:57
It could just be, yeah, you’re right. Finding those people that you admire that are doing things that you think you want to do you aspire to do, or that you just think are really cool and then, like making sure that you are surrounding yourself with their content, with their Yeah, absolutely so, it could just be more of a consumption of of information and stuff, rather than having those one to one relationships.
Sarah McLusky 34:20
Rekationships yeah. I mean, obviously the relationships are great if you can find them, but if you can’t find them, then
Jeni Smith 34:25
In the interim, absolutely. But I think the first thing, yeah, figuring out what you want from that mentor mentee relationship there might be. I used to volunteer as a mentor for the Girls Network, which is a great charity. So there’s potentially like organizations like that. That was for 16 to 18 year olds. So it’s a bit different, but there could be some professional networks that mentorship is included. So looking to maybe engage with networking organizations, if again, it aligns with what you’re looking for. And sometimes you can get more structured mentorship access for free. It’s people who are further down the line?
Sarah McLusky 35:01
Yeah.
Jeni Smith 35:01
So there’s different organizations out there, so it’s having a look for them as well
Sarah McLusky 35:04
Yeah, yeah, definitely something to look into. Fantastic. Well, I think we should probably think about wrapping up at this conversation. It’s been helpful for me, if nothing else, has given me ideas. But I’m sure people will find that really, really useful. So if people are looking for one thing that you do do is you offer a directory of networking events and things don’t you for events? Yeah, for something like that. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
Jeni Smith 35:29
Yeah, absolutely. So one thing that came out of conversations with creating strategies for people and stuff is people never, or they struggle to find networking events, or which ones are the right ones for them. So I’ve built a website, a platform called Networkwhere.com and it brings together all the networking events that happening. Currently it covers the North East, Tees Valley and Cumbria, but it’s free for people to put events on there, as well as free for people to access to find events. So if anyone’s hosting events further afield, they can put it on there for free and advertise it. There’s nearly 500 users on there, which is great, but it just means people can quickly find events and they can filter them based on topic and theme. So if you are looking to find that community of people with common interests, you can quickly filter networking opportunities or co-working days, workshops based on topic and theme as well as location and stuff like that. So it’s really easy, accessible to use, and it’s a free resource so hopefully it’s helpful for people,
Sarah McLusky 36:26
Yeah, yeah. And I think especially, as you say, there’s not much on there at the moment that covers the kind it’s a lot of businessy sort of stuff, isn’t it? Well, it’s quite mixed, isn’t it? But, yeah, yeah.
Jeni Smith 36:36
You know a mixture of the universities doing things on there with the external engagement, which are like mixture for academics and non academics. So if you want to engage with academia, even though you’re not an academic, that’s you know, there’s options, and there’s events for that as well. So yeah, there’s a big mishmash of stuff, women only events, all kind of crafts, wine, all kinds of stuff. Yes, excellent.
Sarah McLusky 37:00
Just sort your social life out there.
Jeni Smith 37:03
Absolutely. Yeah,
Sarah McLusky 37:06
Fantastic. Oh, well, thanks very much, Jeni for coming along. I’ll put all those links and things in the show notes and yeah, it’s been really fun, useful conversation.
Jeni Smith 37:17
Thanks so much for having me Sarah.
Sarah McLusky 37:23
Thanks for listening to Research Adjacent. If you’re listening in a podcast app, please check you’re subscribed and then use the links in the episode description to find full show notes and follow the podcast on LinkedIn or Instagram. You can also find all the links and other episodes at www.researchadjacent.com. Research Adjacent is presented and produced by Sarah McLusky, and the theme music is by Lemon Music Studios on Pixabay. And you, yes you, get a big gold star for listening right to the end. See you next time.
