e-Mentoring and Social Networking Sites Provide Missing “Links” in Professional Development
In many ways, using a social networking site like Facebook for business makes a lot of sense. But like any type of communication, it requires forethought and sensitivity to both verbal and non-verbal cues.
Think about it – isn’t face-to-face social networking where a lot of your business happens? Like a golf tournament or luncheon, social networking sites can introduce you to contacts that will help build your career and grow your business. In a recent study for Nortel, Interactive Data Corporation found that more than one in three people use social networks and online communities such as blogs, wikis and online forums for business communication.
Indeed, Facebook is expanding its offerings to the business world, creating new ways for companies to share their brands with its more than 70 million active users. While some companies have blocked employee access to Facebook entirely, others, including IBM, are embracing its potential, encouraging employees to use it responsibly. Workplace networks on Facebook allow employees to communicate more effectively, some argue.
Potential employers can check you out using Google, Facebook, and other tools – which could spell disaster, depending on what sort of pictures you have posted. Facebook users often post sensitive information about relationships and personal interests, which may not be appropriate for sharing with colleagues or clients. Many users create two profiles – one for business, and one for personal networking. LinkedIn, which was developed as a networking site specifically for business users, avoids many of these pitfalls, but is less extensively developed, with about 9 million users. Users can post resumes and exchange professional contacts without the personal details. It’s also the site of choice for management and executives – all 500 of the Fortune 500 companies are represented in LinkedIn by director-level and higher employees.
Research suggests that online communication is even more effective when supplementing existing face-to-face relationships, or building new ones. Some applications, like video conferencing, now allow you to put a face and a voice to the online persona. This technology is opening new realms in both social networking and professional development. But with the unique challenges that women face, many feel they don’t have time for professional development. As a result of increasingly demanding jobs and additional responsibilities at home, building leadership skills and learning how to take their careers to the next level tend to take the back burner.
But the emergence of electronic mentoring, or e-Mentoring, is breaking down those traditional barriers. Women who don’t have time to participate in a full course or engage in a formal mentoring program can still benefit from the experiences and advice of some of the most successful women in the world. Webinars – online seminars featuring audio, video, and chat – provide opportunities for mentors and protégées to connect across generations and across industries, without leaving their homes or offices. These sessions provide a level of real-time, interactive discussion that social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn lack. While this technology has been used extensively by schools and other institutions, it has rarely been utilized by women to advance their careers and network amongst peers in the business, government, science and technology, education and non-profit sectors.
The Women’s Executive Network™ (WXN) is breaking new ground, driven by Cisco’s innovative WebEx technology. The Wednesday’s with WXN webinar series allows participants from coast to coast to interact with some of Canada’s most powerful women – in real time, on their lunch breaks. “Wednesdays with WXN allows us to extend our exclusive mentoring initiatives to a much larger audience,” said Pamela Jeffery, Founder and President of WXN. “Women across Canada are now able to access the knowledge and experience of professional women who would normally be out of reach.”
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