I, like so many, often make resolutions at the beginning of every New Year – work out, read more, eat healthier, etc. I, like so many, often find these personal resolutions fall to the wayside at some point over the course of the year. Frustrated with myself, a few years back I decided that my resolutions were going to be professionally focused rather than personally focused. As a business owner, I’m always striving for ways to improve my skillsets, deliverables and professional relationships.
While even professional resolutions can be daunting and fall to the wayside, one of these easiest resolutions to keep every year is to do more networking and professional development.
Not to date myself, but I often think back to professional development when I started in this profession decades ago. Everything was face-to-face at huge conferences and expos, week-long classroom certification training that added letters to our titles, long lunches and cocktail receptions, it wasn’t quite the “Mad Men” era, but still markedly different from today.
When I think of professional development now, especially in today’s budget-conscious environment, I’m often amazed at the choices and flexibility available to us all. Smaller conferences, trainings and seminars that are hyper-focused on topics, webinars, online training modules that can be completed as you go, Meetups, virtual mentor groups and so on. Some of my colleagues even do professional development and team building exercises on yoga retreats, sailing, fishing events and even cooking classes.
Regardless of the venue, the real goal is professional enrichment. It is amazing that there are so many more options for us to find unique and customized ways to fill the whitespace in our skillsets and to network with our peers. This year, we even decided to take one step further and host our own professional networking event to bring the brightest HR minds in the engineering consulting community to discover and dissect the latest issues facing the field.
Regardless of which venue, format or experience you choose, identify what whitespaces exist in your professional skillsets and get out there this year. Learn something new, make new connections and commit to completing that resolution to better yourself professionally! Have a great 2016 and I look forward to seeing many of you throughout the year.
