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Charting Your Future Course: Determining Next Steps and Maximizing Success in Mid-Career
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Charting Your Future Course: Determining Next Steps and Maximizing Success in Mid-Career
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Segment:0 .
OK we are starting to assemble. Thanks, everyone who's joined us. So far, and we'll give it another minute or so and let folks log in, and then we will get underway.
Welcome and we'll be getting underway shortly. OK I'm going to get started with our introductions while folks are still assembling, because we have a lot to talk about, and so it would be good to get underway.
So thank you and welcome to today's SSP webinar, charting your future course, determining next steps and maximizing success in mid-career. Before we get started with the webinar officially, I want to thank our 2025 education sponsors, as always, access innovations and Silverchair. We're very grateful for your support. My name is Lori Carlin. I am the chief Commercial Officer at Delta Inc and the lead of the SSP education committee's webinar working group.
Before we get started, I have a few housekeeping items to review. Attendee microphones have been intentionally muted automatically. Please use the Q&A feature in Zoom to enter questions. You can also use the chat feature to communicate directly with other participants and the organizers. Closed captions have been enabled.
If you don't see the CC icon on your toolbar, you can view captions by selecting the More option on your screen and choosing show captions in the drop down menu. This one hour session will be recorded and available to registrants following today's event. Registered attendees will be sent an email when the recording is available. A quick note on SSPS code of conduct in today's meeting. We are committed to diversity, equity and providing an inclusive meeting environment that fosters open dialogue and the free expression of ideas free of harassment, discrimination and hostile conduct.
We ask all participants, whether speaking or in chat, to consider the debate relevant viewpoints in an orderly, respectful and fair manner. OK, now on to our webinar. So to start, I believe we have a poll that we're going to put up. So I think Susan is going to start that.
And we like you to answer this while we're doing our opening remarks to just to give us some insight into where you are in your career. So if you can take a moment and fill out that poll, that would be great. And you can see the questions on, you should be able to see the questions. How would you describe yourself. And there are four options for that.
So go ahead and answer the poll while I continue. And I'll start by welcoming our wonderful panelists. Gabe harp, Sue kestner, Rebecca McLeod, and Heather Stevens. And I'm going to let them each introduce themselves in a minute. But before I do, I just wanted to set the stage a bit and attempt to define what we mean by mid-career, which we're looking at very broadly. And when I was setting up this webinar, the webinar group was setting up this webinar.
I was asked, how are we defining mid-career? And I wanted to say anything that isn't early career. So we're not being very specific here. This is not about an age bracket or a number of years in a specific career or a role. It's more about being at a crossroads, perhaps, and wondering, where do I go from here? What's next? Be that continuing where you are, maybe moving up within your own organization, moving out to another organization, changing your career path entirely.
And that can be within our industry. Maybe you are working for a publisher and you're thinking of moving to a service provider, or you're a librarian and you're thinking of moving into the publishing side of things. Or you might be changing careers entirely. Maybe an academic researcher moving into publishing or moving out of scholarly publishing, and you're in it. Really, the list goes on.
So it's looking at what do you want to do next? And sometimes even revisiting that early question that we've always, you know, we've all been asked at some point, probably in our youth, what do you want to be when you grow up? So again, we're looking at this very broadly. And with that, let's see where we are with the poll actually. So it looks like we've got 78% of our attendees are employed and curious, not seeking a change but thinking about the future.
And that's great. Another 11% are employed and looking for their next adventure. So actively seeking a change, we've got 6% who are not fully employed or permanently employed, and they're looking for their next adventure, and then about another 6% as others. So good mix, definitely heavily weighted in the curious. And that's great.
That's really a great start and good information for us as we move on. So with that, I'd like to ask each of our speakers to introduce yourself. And in so doing, if you can talk about your experience related to a career change or a pivot that you made, maybe you moved from a function to another function, a position to another position, a type of organization to another, as I was talking about before.
And if you could share your experience. So we'll start off with Sue kestner. Sue as opposed to Susan here. You got a lot of Sue's on this call. Well, as we said, I'm Sue kestner, and I retired a few years ago as senior director of publisher relations at copyright clearance center. I served as an SSP president from, I think, 2007 to 2008. And most notably, during that time, we created a strategic plan, and out of that strategic plan came a plan for a blog, which you may know, is the Scholarly Kitchen, which was cooked up literally in Kent.
Board member Kent Andersen's office at NJM that year. I think I've served on every committee and chaired almost every committee at SSP, and even in retirement served as the chair and then co-chair and now on the committee of the Kitchen cabinet. It's called the runs the business of the Scholarly Kitchen and on the generations fund. So here's my pivot story. I was trained as a librarian.
I have a master's in Latin American history and Spanish and Portuguese and then a master's. And I knew fairly early on that I wanted to be a librarian. And I had wonderful pre pre-professional jobs in London and Stanford. And so on, all in that area. And long story short, we found ourselves moving to the Boston area where we are now. And I had a young family and I got a job as a professional reference librarian at our local public library, which was great, and I did that for several years.
And thoroughly enjoyed it. And even in our little suburb at that time a prosperous little suburb, a vote was taken to increase funding for the library. It failed and the most of the staff was permanent staff and part time staff was laid off and we had skeleton hours and I was found. I found myself looking for a job. Now, I wasn't exactly mid-career, but but I was ready for something different or bigger.
But I still needed part time. So that was challenging. And I started looking for library jobs. I couldn't find one, and I basically fired up my network and landed a job at a young company then based in London and Boston called silver Platter, which merged into Wolters kluwer, where it sort of lives. Now And I started very part time and ended up within a year managing a team.
And I worked for a guy who you may know, his name is Stephen rhind-tutt. He he's really a serial entrepreneur in our space. And he, he taught me how to use my library background and understanding of how libraries work to the advantage of the company as we created products. And I you know, of course, I was strong on the library side, but where I was a little weak was on the business side. And I always say he taught a librarian how to be a business, think like a business person.
And there were other things that I had to learn in that switch. But I just ended up loving it and made a career out of various information companies. And fast forward managed many teams and often had either librarians joining my team in early years publishers later years, and had to kind of go through the same exercise with them as well. Great Thanks so much, Joe. Yeah, no that's great.
I have follow up questions, but I don't because we have a lot to talk about today. Rebecca, you. Hi, everyone. I'm Rebecca McLeod. I am the managing director of Harvard Dataverse science review, and I've been a member of SSP for several years, and I'm president in fact, following in Leicester's footsteps of Sue and more recently of Heather Staines.
So my big pivot story career pivot was moving from a publisher role. I worked at MIT Press for 20 years, and at the end I was head of journals, moved from that role into working for a service provider. And, you know, sometimes you even if it's a great environment or a good environment, sometimes you have to make a change if you want to expand yourself or you want to gain different experience.
So I was hired in this publisher role because I knew publishing was my background. There were many. There were other people at the time in this organization who worked in, you know, the customer service, publisher relations, but they didn't necessarily they knew the product, but they didn't have the publishing background. Anyway, so I made that change.
It was a tough I have to say. It wasn't. It wasn't easy. Different culture. Because I wasn't at AUP anymore. I couldn't I wasn't speaking AUP committees. But I learned new skills, and I gained a different perspective and learned about different stakeholders in the scholarly publishing ecosystem.
So it was something I'm glad that I did. It wasn't easy, but I can talk about that more later. Great Thanks, Rebecca. Gabe Hey, everyone, I'm Gabe harp. I am currently working for a local startup here in Maine called Oak I, and that's really a bridge while I seek my next full time role. And I've gone through a lot of changes in my journey here. I've worked at a lot of organizations in the industry Elsevier, Springer, nature, MIT Press, and so on.
But I'm going to I'll bounce off of Rebecca's example. She talked about leaving the MIT Press. I'll talk about joining the MIT Press. So basically about seven years ago, I realized that I had been at one organization, Elsevier, for almost 15 years. And it was a great place to work. Wonderful culture, very supportive. Excellent job.
Career opportunities. And yet I started to kind of feel this internal itch to see what else is out there. But also I had started to recognize a pattern of people I respected, who were at fairly senior levels, being laid off, not specifically at Elsevier, but just across the industry. Periodically I would see this, and I realized that I didn't want to spend my next 15 years at the same organization, and I especially didn't want to find myself being laid off after having been at only one place for decades.
I was worried about that prospect. And so basically I left a very stable, great place and I took what was a very scary leap at the time for me. And I joined the MIT Press, and that was a wonderful place to be. But what actually happened after that, those, those years that followed leading up to today were really tumultuous for me. I worked at four different organizations, went through two acquisitions and eventually got laid off last year, which was, you know, the prospect that I was hoping to avoid in the first place.
But I have no regrets. I learned so much. I met so many great people. I got to work with both Rebecca and Heather in different capacities, and I also learned what it is to transition from one organization to another and then another and another. And so I'm happy to talk more about that as we dive into the panel.
Thank you. Great Thanks so much, Gabe. And I was thinking as you started talking, and I know Heather was at MIT Press as well. Sue, you and I are, I think, an odd, odd person out on that note. Yeah, Yeah. Sue and I worked together. Sue was at.
Yes Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. So you and I worked together, Lori. So we can. We can. Yeah, I know, so there's one degree of separation there. Yeah zero. Great Heather. Yeah so, Hi, I'm Heather Stevens.
I, as I just said, I work with Lori at Delta bank. And in the past, I've worked with at MIT and intersected with Rebecca and Gabe. I also feel like I haven't been the chair of every SSP committee, but that's only because, like, there's a lot more committees than there used to be. But I've probably been a member of SSP for more than 15 years. And it's made a huge difference in my life and my career.
I've had a lot of pivots. I mean, I had to pivot before I even started as an academic who couldn't get an academic job. And I will say, I think the situation is much worse now than it was, you know, in the 90s. But my first job was as a book acquisitions editor, which I really loved. But one of the challenges in publishing and probably other industries is that the more you move up, the less you get to do the thing that you really love, which might be why you started to do the job, you know, in the first place.
I was fortunate I was with a small division of Reed Elsevier that we got involved in, you know, what we called electronic publishing. And I could see the potential as a former academic of, wow, if you could search books electronically. And I kind of wanted to do that. So I moved over, you know, into the journal space. But I will say I sometimes have sought out a change, and sometimes the change, like Gabe mentioned, has been thrust upon me.
So I feel like I'm more often. I'm pivoting so many times that maybe I'm like a Downhill Skier. But I've learned a lot in publisher roles, vendor roles, startup roles, and, you know, just we say it all the time, but it's the people. And I met some of the people before I was an SSP member. But it definitely sped up after that. And it's hard when a pivot is thrust upon you. But over time you can kind of appreciate the opportunities even though it doesn't always feel good.
So I'll leave it for that for now. Great Thank you. Well, that may pivot into this next question really well, Heather, which is how do you find the motivation and inspiration to make a change mid-career, air. Whether you're making that change on your own, or it is thrust upon you. And then even if things are stable and rewarding, but there's just something in the back of your head that's saying it's time for a change.
You know, Rebecca, you alluded somewhat to that in your opening about being somewhere for 20 years and just kind of knowing I might be happy and satisfied here, but shouldn't I be thinking about something? Something more? So, Heather, I'm going to pass back to you to start this one off. Yeah I mean, this is a tough question because I think we're all so busy doing all the things, you know, that we have to do.
And particularly in this, whatever this phase we're in now, you know, after COVID, it's OK if you're just doing all the things or as many of the things as you can do, and you don't feel like you have the bandwidth, you know, to look forward, that is absolutely fine. And sometimes you need to do that for yourself. But I think, you know, I try to ask myself, what are the things I'm doing in my current role that make me the happiest that I might like to do more of?
And what are some of the things that maybe don't thrill me, that I might ideally like to do less of? And, you know, sometimes there are opportunities within your organization to get involved in task groups, new initiatives, you know, cross departmental teams where you can, you know, go a little bit outside of your daily routine. So I always encourage that.
Certainly if you want to try something that is a little different, SSP and other organizations have volunteer opportunities. I'm a big standards person, so I got involved in niso standards groups from the beginning and met a lot of folks that way. So that was kind of like exhilarating and just, you know, all the opportunities to read about new initiatives, see things at conferences, lifelong learning. You know, sometimes you just have an interest.
I I'll throw this out as an example, because here's a person that I really worship and admire. It's chavie chohan, who some of you may know. I remember 5 or six years ago when she said to me, I'm really interested in AI and I'm going to become like an expert. And I didn't know her very well. If I had known her a little better, I would have like not had a flicker of doubt.
But, you know, so there are people who have pursued an interest and now they are really one of the top, you know, go to folks in the field. So don't think you can't learn something new and really, you know, have that be, you know, part of your resistance. So number of different pathways you can use to kind of get excited. Absolutely Thanks, Heather.
Rebecca, do you want to take this one next to. Oh, you're on mute Rebecca. Sorry about that. So as I mentioned earlier, I had been at MIT for 20 years. It was a great place for me. But you know, it's funny, when I was thinking about making a change, I talked to a career coach and they said, for someone who's a very you're a diverse candidate, your resume is not very diverse.
Because even though I had different roles at MIT, it was in the same department and journals in the same place. So I think it particularly when my kids were young, it was a good time to be there, because sometimes when you're managing all different kinds of things with your balancing with family and work, you may not want to have too many crazy things going on at work, but in order for me, I wanted to advance. But in order to advance, I didn't think I was going to be able to advance where I was.
So I unless I gained different skills. So that's how I made that pivot. And again, it was challenging for me. I went from also being like the top boss in journals, not to be the top boss for my ego. That was hard. So certain decisions I just couldn't make or and it was a different but but what it exposed me to increased my network because I met people that I wouldn't have met before staying at MIT.
And again, I gained a new knowledge about the, the, the industry. But I want to echo what Heather said about the importance of volunteering, because I do think when you get involved in these different committees, whether it be SSP or some other organization, you can gain new skills and you can do things in a way that because it's not for your employer, it's a bit more not easy, but you're more relaxed, I guess.
Right and I really think working on committees you gain new skills, but you also forge really strong connections with people that you may not have, but connections with people that you can then have conversations with. Be mentors, mentees away from your employer. I think that's really important. So that's what you had mentioned, Heather, about working on computers.
I think that's really important. Yeah great. Rebecca, I mean, I think we all I know that resonates strongly with me. I can remember being on the marketing committee, and there were people on the marketing committee who were not marketers, but it was something that they liked to do. And I think every SSP committee probably has the same, you know, annual meeting committee are not meeting planners.
Right but but we all enjoy those things. So Yeah. So Sue, do you have anything to add? I was just going to add to what Heather said. So well, which is that I think you gain inspiration and idea and ideas from your colleagues at SSP and other organizations and just be tuned into the world. And you may realize that something is happening out there that sounds awfully interesting, and you follow it.
And all of a sudden, you know, the time seems right. And or maybe gradually the time seems right and you move in that direction, even within your current job, you had that responsibility. You bring it to the company. Yeah great. I'm going to move on a bit. It's on the same theme and give you a chance to kind of answer this.
And this next question combined, I would say, and it's specific pain point of being laid off or made redundant and looking for a new opportunity. So a bit more urgent of a need here. But it can also apply to folks who are working but looking for new opportunity and just feel like it's time they need to move on. So Gabe, starting with you. What are your best tips for finding your next adventure?
That's such a great question, and I'm sure my fellow panelists have other ideas as well. I'll distill this into a few, and I'll focus on the layoff piece first, since that's kind of the journey that I'm going through right now. I will say, like, I was intellectually prepared, like I knew this thing might happen to me. And I could also read the tea leaves in the situation I was in.
But when it happened, I found myself completely unprepared emotionally. And so my first tip is to just pause. Don't jump right into a new job search unless, like your circumstances really require that. If you can take the time. It's really important to take the time to grieve because like it really is a big loss emotionally and in terms of professionally, like your confidence and not to mention all the anxieties that come with suddenly I don't have a paycheck, I have bills and family and so on.
And those pressures are going to push you to jump right into the job search. But actually, if you can take that time to kind of ground yourself and find balance and find what's important to you, that's sort of my number one tip. And talk to people in this process, whether it's your network, your friends and family, therapy is very helpful. That's that's part of that grounding process.
Very concretely like I'm actually following a specific methodology right now. I'll put this in the chat, but it's called Never search alone. This is a book by Phill Terry. The entire process is free other than the modest cost of the book, so I'm not like I'm promoting it generally because it works. And I know this because Heather and I worked together or collaborated through part of this process a few years ago, and it revolves around the concept of joining what's called a job search council, which is usually like five or six people, sometimes people, you know, often strangers, but who are also going through the same journey.
And it becomes like a support group. But it there's also a 10 week methodology. They have a slower track if you're in a job and looking for a new one, but the 10 weeks are for people who are doing sort of full time job seeking, which is what I'm doing. And it starts with having a listening tour. This is different from networking. It's different from going out and applying for jobs.
It's about really understanding some of these questions. We've talked about. What is it I actually want to do? What do my skills bring to the marketplace? What kind of job should I be going for? And then you write what's called your candidate market fit, which is a sort of concise statement about what you want to do, but also where you fit into the hiring landscape. And only once you've done that is when you should dive into the job search and start applying and networking and interviewing.
That's the methodology. Again, it's hard to resist the urge to go ahead and try to start finding a job right away. But the downside of diving right in is that you may take a job that just doesn't suit you or doesn't interest you, and that that has its own potential side effects. So my last point is just reach out. Like, I've benefited so much from mentors and other people who've given me so much time and wisdom and support.
And so I try to give that back. So like anybody here who's attending reach out to me anytime now or 10 years from now, if you ever want to talk about whatever journey you're going through. And I'm sure my fellow panelists may agree as well. Thank you. Thanks, Gabe. Heather, would you like to add to that one? Yeah the job council that Gabe mentioned was extremely helpful for me for a couple of reasons.
One, there was a set aside time for a online call each week. So it gave you like a little bit of structure and time to be accountable for the things you're thinking about. But also you could get feedback. I did mock job talks. I explained publishing to people who really didn't know publishing. So it was really a great opportunity. I talked to a lot of people who have lost roles because this has happened to me three times.
And much like Sue found, there's a lot of adjacencies. You know, you can work for vendors, you can work for libraries, you know, for publishers. There's just so much going on. And many of us really have our focus narrowed to like the space that we know. And opening up that I tell people you have unlimited opportunities. So what you really need to do is kind of narrow it down.
If you're not acquainted with any recruiters, the time to become acquainted with recruiters is before you need them. Before you think you might want to use them. They're every recruiter I've ever met has been fantastic, and they kind of know what the trends are in the industry, and they'll reach out to you for suggestions. And and so it's a nice way to kind of, you know, have someone's ear.
You know, when you need it. They're always happy to talk things to you. I've had recruiters talk through job offers with me and say, you should ask for more. You should, you know, here's where you can. They really know what's going on in the industry. And then the other thing you know, I'll say is that the talking to people is important, but there there's the people you would talk to anyway.
And if you just talk to the people that you always talk to, you're going to just kind of be pitching the same ideas off of each other. So when you talk to people, they'll suggest, hey, have you talked to so-and-so? Or do you know so-and-so? And I found that next circle out and the next circle beyond that, what do they call it? Weak ties versus strong ties were places where I got suggestions I might not have thought of myself, and had great conversations with folks that I knew, like a little bit in passing, but I'd never taken the time to have a one on one, you know, sit down with them or coffee.
And so just kind of going where the discovery journey leads, you can be like a very fulfilling aspect of it, just in and of itself. Thanks, Heather. I just wanted there was a question in the chat about specific recruiters. And I don't know that we want to talk about specifics in that way, right now, we are going to all put our either LinkedIn or emails so that we can.
And we Susan did list one that we kind of all see around and know. If you do a search on scholarly publishing recruiters, you'll probably get a short list of those as well. But one on one, any of us would likely be happy to point you in some directions as well, just with this question. Rebecca or Sue. Anything to add?
No, but I have there's a question earlier that was about parenting. About parenting. Yeah, I but between MIT and when I went to ours, I did take a little time off and in order to get back in, I guess that's the question I, you know, reach out to former colleagues, people you worked with before you took the time off. Again, I think networking again, if you want, if you have time to participate or volunteer on a committee, if you're feeling that you're not getting enough of a feedback or, or interest from, from employers, I really think that's important.
So that's how I would say I would say get, get reach out to your former colleagues, join a volunteer, you know, volunteer on a, on a, on a committee and then network. And I know we're having young children. It's hard to do that. But any employer should be like thinking, hey, take, you know, time to parent. That's an experience that's invaluable. Right so and not only coach might help too I mean that that helped me a lot, because I was looking at myself in a certain way being at MIT for so long, and I needed someone else to help me position or I don't know what to say, brand myself in a different way.
And sometimes it can be a career coach that's not in the industry, so I think that might be helpful. I felt like I was in therapy when I went to this career coach, so maybe you can try that. Yeah and I think just to broaden it out, you know, parenting is one of the things that we think of when we think about a break. But there could be elder care, there could be medical reasons, you know, you could have a partner who, you know, needs to move elsewhere and you can't work in that country.
Or, you know, there's so many different reasons why people take a break and, and might find it hard to get back in or stay, keep their head in the game, if you will. So all right, I'm going to move on to the importance of networking. And we, all of these questions are kind of morphing into each other. So we've certainly talked about networking.
So tips and tricks for networking. You know what you've learned about building your network and maybe being involved in mentoring or having mentors, especially at mid-career and all of those types of things, you know, who should you be looking to network with and how do you make the time to invest in these connections? And and I don't know if any of you are consider yourself introverts or anything along those lines.
So that can add an extra layer of complexity to the networking game or the networking opportunities. So Sue, I'm going to start off with you. Sure well, you know, I can't say network network network network enough and it is harder for people that are naturally introverted. There's no question about it. There are other ways to approach it, but it it's really challenging.
But if you can make yourself do it, it's really pays off. I do a ton of mentoring, and it's really one of the things I do in retirement. I think I have seven active mentor mentees now in countries all over the world, and some I've been working with for more than seven years. So a long time relationships. And so I focus a lot on building networks. And I often talk about SSP because even if their company isn't part of the organization, they can join as individuals and as reasonably priced.
So I urge them to do that. And aside from that, so closer to home, I want to talk about something that Rebecca may follow up with, because she's probably a founding member of. And I was close to a founding member of something called Boston women and information network. Bwin and bwin is ongoing, and it's probably, I don't know, Rebecca, has it been 30 years, 20 years of librarian?
Yeah although we don't meet as frequently as we used to. No, I know. And librarians, vendors, and publishers in the Boston area. And the only requirement was that you were a woman. That was how we managed it in the beginning. And and we had meetings once a month. And we used to talk about taking off our or putting down our sort of pretend briefcase outside the door and coming in just as people to support each other.
And I can tell you, I know my own, in my own case, that I had people take me by the hand at my first Frankfurt, and I did that to someone else who's now head of a big publishing house. I mean, we did these things for each other. So that's really a tremendous support. And it particularly as I pivoted from librarianship, look within the information industry. But I was focused on the library market.
And then I moved to the publishing side and I needed contacts, I needed help, I needed to understand what makes publishers tick. And I got that from my bwin network. So local networks, even especially when you're working from home, which so many people do. Yeah that's great. I will say, I just have to say this as an aside, because I know Sue for quite some time, that if you talk to people in the industry who know Sue, so many people feel that Sue gave them a helping hand and all of us are here for that reason.
And speaking on this panel today. But, you know, I'm always in awe a bit when I talk to people who knew Sue and Oh, yes, she helped me move up and a lot of people. So we all need help. Yes people help me. Yes same thing. Rebecca so I'm one of those introvert extroverts. I was painfully shy as a child, so people would say, like what?
I go, yes. So when I'm acting outgoing, I'm not. Yeah sometimes it's an act or sometimes I'm forcing myself. So networking is much easier now. But at my earlier stages it was hard. And you just have to push yourself and get out there and there's all kinds of networking. Again, I'll talk. I mean, I keep on I'm a broken record about volunteering, but I think that's really important, volunteering on SSP.
But also, you know, you can network outside of the industry. You know, if you have a passion to do some kind of whatever work or involvement. And it also you can get skills there by the way. And also it helps them get out of yourself I guess or become less introverted. I think peer to peer networking is really important. I know that people like Sue, who mentored me and given me, you know, tricks, and tips along the way.
But I also think having people who, like former colleagues of mine have been really important for me during my career journey. You know, many times I just need a sounding board, like, what do you think of this? How should I approach that? So it's not like a typical did I already skip the question? But I'm talking about mentorship already, so it's fine. These two merge into each other.
OK we'll go back and forth on that. It's not your typical like someone of many years mentoring and early career. I really think that peer to peer is really important. And then, of course, you know, now when I feel like I'm the oldest person in the room, most the time, you learn a lot from the younger people, all the time and mentees. I'm always like, Oh, you know.
So one thing I always say work with people from with all different ages. I think that's so important. You just gain a lot of insight. So Yeah, network, network, network as Sue says. But and I know it's challenging times because of being virtual for many people. So I think you really have to be even more kind of strategic and mindful of how you go about it.
Absolutely absolutely, Gabe. It's hard to add to what Heather and Rebecca have said, but quickly, I actually found also, as an introvert at heart, the virtual element makes it easier in some ways because you can attend a webinar and then, you know, connect with the other attendees, or there are a lot of asynchronous or online forms that don't require the in-person interaction, which sometimes raises more social anxieties.
I also just want to Thank Heather because there was a moment for me many years ago at probably an SSP event where there was a lightning networking activity leg speed dating, and I was incredibly uncomfortable, and she kind of gave me the courage to just go ahead and try it. So, you know, put yourselves out there, embrace that discomfort, and don't really think about it as networking per se, but just, you know, connecting to other like minded people.
Yeah, I will say so. Heather, I want to hear your perspective. But before I do, I just want to say, I mean, we all have learned to network. Heather, to me is a master. Heather, why don't you tell everybody. How many LinkedIn connections you have? Sorry that's rude. She has thousands.
So OK, I'm just going to say I started this is a little LinkedIn aside. I have no share in the company and, you know, whatever. I started in like 2007 on LinkedIn, and when I was changing from the acquisitions job into the more tech job, I wanted all of my authors to go on LinkedIn because I didn't want to lose them. I didn't want to lose track of them.
And it was like, you know, Facebook really wasn't that kind of a thing yet. And so, I mean, to have a Rolodex that updates itself, I will say there's so much like sponsored stuff on it that I think it's less useful, you know, than it used to be. But I am a self-described LinkedIn whore, not safe for work, but meaning that like, yes, I would love to link in with people. And so you can see when you linked with someone, if you click on the little contact info thing.
And you can go, Oh, it must have been in such an event or it must have been here or there. So there's more information that you can glean from that than just that. And I'm not going to say how many people, but it's more than 5,000 more than most of us. But I Yeah, I probably spend too much. I don't I will say I don't pay for it, but whoever's listening, if they threaten to take it away from me, I would have to pay for it.
But like Rebecca, I did not talk. I did not talk. My people in my high school are like, what? You talk for a living. Like we can't even, like, picture this. It turned out, once I started teaching, you couldn't kind of shut me up because I had a captive audience. And in those days.
But there's, like, really small steps you can take if you want to start networking. And, you know, one is start with speakers. You know, if you've been at a virtual event, reach out to the speaker. They they're obviously they're speaking because they want to talk about something us included today, if you're at an in-person event, go up afterwards to the speaker or find them in a break.
You know, again, that's like a really low risk. Opportunity to interact with the speaker. But somewhere I read, if you're at an event. Go up to people who are talking together because they either came together, which means they're probably open to talking to somebody or they just met, which also means they're open to meeting new people. And it's much easier in a group of 3 to get a conversation in than it is with a larger group.
So if you try it, you can figure out, like if that works for you. But I have found that that is wonderful and I usually give myself I need to meet three new people at every event before I can go into the corner and talk to my friends. Sometimes you can find a few people talking together and you can like cross that off right away. But there are like little practical things you can do to try to get started.
Great Thank you. So we're going to just dig a little bit deeper into mentoring. We've talked about the importance of that, but I'd like to talk about how you get the best out of a mentorship relationship and how can mid-career folks find and best use mentors. And so I'm going to start with you, if that's OK, on this one.
Sure, sure. Well, as for finding a mentor, there are lots of ways to do it, but an easy way to do it is through SSP. And Thanks to the generations fund, I think that's going to that. And our fellowship program will be funded for a good long time. So that is that's one route and all the publishing organizations have them. I do a lot with STM, for instance, still to this day.
And I you know, I think so much of the mentoring relationships really are chemistry. And so some, you know, I would say 85% of the time and I've had so many mentees, it works really well. And then but there are some times when it hasn't been perfect. It's not bad. It's just it doesn't click. And sometimes it's cultural.
And although, you know, I work with people from many different backgrounds, but how to use. The other thing you asked about Laura was how to use your network. And when. I have needed to, for whatever reason, made a decision that I wanted a different kind of job or in one case, the job, the whole division I was a part of a spin off.
It ended. You know, I literally have this image of firing up my network. It's like it's like a visual for me. And I'm pretty networked all the time. But firing up my network is something different. I mean, that's when you're talking to your closest colleagues and friends, but I think it was Gabe that talked about their degrees out and out and out.
And really conventional wisdom is you're not going to find that job from that first group, but it's who they talk to. And then they in turn talk to and be open to meeting with them. I think that was really good advice. And the other thing I'll say is that I have always tried to leave on, even when I, when this division was let go, and I was sad to leave the company of many years leave on good terms.
And I must say that I've sort of taken along with me and used as references and for job searching company founders, my boss, my boss's boss. You know, it's not just peers, but it's all directions. I think that's really important. Great Thank you. Rebecca, do you want to talk about mentoring? Well, like, I can add much, but to Sue said. But I think when you are looking for a she said new opportunities or different skills, you want to seek out someone who might fit.
And I think the chemistry is important because you never know. You could look like on paper it would be perfect match. But then maybe the personalities don't, don't, don't mesh. So again, when I think I had said before about the mentoring, it's not just someone who's had more experience, it could be someone who's been in the industry as long as you have, but comes from a different part of that ecosystem.
I don't know, I've had different, I guess, mentors, peer mentors, people who've worked in the industry longer. But I also talked, you know, I've had working mom mentors who don't even work in the industry to, you know, get strategies and how to, you know, even cope with everything. I always feel like it's like taking a lot of mentors to keep Rebecca together so I don't have a nervous breakdown.
So I think that's just looking in all directions. As a mentor and as right now, being a mentor has been really been worthwhile. Again, I learned a lot from my mentees. Great great. Yeah let's see. Heather, do you want to weigh in? Yeah I mean, just to add on, what's been said, I've. My career has been very zig zag, and I often get when, like SSP or another organization is signing a mentee, they'll have like someone with a kind of an unusual situation where it's not easy to pair them up.
And so I get into a lot of those and I have learned so much. And I think looking at it as a learning opportunity, where they're mentoring you about what they do or what the challenges are at the point in their career or what their department. I learn a ton. I've had official mentees from every continent in the world except Latin America and Antarctica. And I've had unofficial mentees from Latin America.
So if you're in Antarctica and you're listening to this, I need that on my bingo card. But I just think that it's such a wonderful, you know, experience. But I will also say tell people if they made a difference for you. Like Gabe, I had no idea that speed networking thing made a difference. And that just makes me that, like, warms my heart to hear that.
And I think maybe we don't do enough of that telling people, you know, when they make a difference. Because that might be the encouragement you need in your role to know the people you've introduced around and send on. So I'll just say, tell somebody today that they made a difference in your life, whether it's professionally or personally. Yeah, I think that's great.
And it also what you said before, Heather also reminds me that you can learn in every situation and if you position yourself to be thinking that way, that even if you're the mentor, there's things for you to learn and you can be learning from people at any time. People who report to you, people you report to people from different areas of your life that have absolutely nothing to do with scholarly publishing. You can.
There's always things to learn, and if you're open to that, you know, that's part of that mentor relationship. Gabe, anything to add here? Just that nobody's too experienced or too old to be a mentee as well. I think we all benefit from serving both as mentee and mentor, so it's incredibly rewarding. So did you have something? Yeah, I do I, I heard about something really interesting a few years ago that was one of the big publishing houses that has junior people new to the profession mentoring senior.
And I think that is really cool. And that just shows that nobody's too. And they learn a lot. So nobody's too seasoned or too advanced to learn something from someone. Absolutely, I would agree. All right. We're getting close to the end here. So we've got one more question that we want to just go around and ask folks for about any last words of advice, helping folks to navigate mid-career opportunities, potential change, you know, maybe even touching on some of the realities of making a change at mid-career, which are benefits, you know, a certain level of income coming in or responsibilities that you might not have had.
You know, in your early 20s when you first started out that you now have. And they weigh into that, making that change, too. So, Gabe, last words of advice to pick one, just to give tactical advice. Do try to keep track of your accomplishments and especially like measurable achievements as you're going, because it's hard to kind of recreate that years later when you suddenly find yourself looking for a new job.
So save your performance reviews. Save, save like some of the data points, because that's what you're going to need when you're preparing your applications for future jobs. Great Thank you. Rebecca Yeah, I've been thinking about this like there's so many different things to say. But ironically, I have to say my advice to people, I guess, in my career.
Don't let your job define you. Does that make any. You know so I and because I think in your early career you your job will define you or you let your job define you. And as we get older, as we move, advance, move, along the way, different things happen, you know? So they say life happens. Or either with children or parents, aging parents. So sometimes, you know, you need to focus on something else.
So I guess at this point just if you're at a spot and if you're happy you have other things going on, it's OK. You don't have to always be like on that treadmill. You know, you can get fulfillment again, volunteering either with SSP or other organizations. But I think that's just my thing. Don't, don't let your job define you. You're more than one job or one position. And then I think if you have that confidence and know that, then you can do anything.
That's great. Thank you Sue. Well I echo what Rebecca said and that is even truer as you get towards retirement, you really need to make sure that you have other things in your life. I was just I was also going to echo what Gabe said. Keep your resume up to date all the time. Keep if you're interested in staying in the industry, keep current.
I always advocate reading the Scholarly Kitchen every day. That keeps you pretty current. But more than that. But that in and of itself is helpful. And and you just asked Lori about things in mid or late career that it could be good or change. And I always give it's part of an introductory exercise I do with a new mentee is to really think of what's important in your life and, and what matters most to you.
But I always give the example of, you know, of being at a job coach and having to force rank that and saying that, you know, my kids are young, so any job that's more than a half an hour from my house, I'll never take you can pay me $3 million and I will not take this job. I can't, you know, for various personal reasons. And, you know, fast forward a few more years. It was maybe 4 or five years.
It wasn't any more than that. I went to work for c-c-c, which is a good hour from my house, you know, on a good day, you know, 45 minutes to an hour on a good day each way. And it was fine because my life had changed in some ways. So absolutely. Remember, things change. Absolutely nothing's forever. Right?
Heather, do you want to close us out on this? Oh, so much good stuff. Try not to be intimidated. You know, by folks. Most people you know, there are some people out there who are a piece of work. You know, we all want to avoid them, but most people are just people. I remember the first time I was at SSP and I went to the chef session and I was like, Oh, my celebrities on the stage.
And I, you know, I think I got up all the courage to talk to Joe Esposito after and I think to myself, like, I should have realized that they were just people. So don't be try not to be intimidated. And then I tell my mentees, listen to people when you meet them, just because it doesn't seem immediately apparent that what they're doing has an effect on what you're doing, as your role might change or their role might change, or they might hear of something that's perfect for you, or you might be able to connect them with the person that you meet 10 minutes later.
And so there's nothing worse when you're at a networking event and you tell someone what you do and you literally see the light go out of their eyes and you think to myself, they can't wait to find somebody else to talk to. Don't be that person. Don't do that. Someone might have grown up in the town where you grew up in. They might have the same pet or the same charities that you're interested in.
Listen and give people a chance, because that's why we're here, is for the people. Well and we all, I think many of us have always said, you never know when this person might be your next boss, your next direct report or your past are going to cross in some other way. We are a small industry, so good, good advice. Very good advice. All right.
One thing I'm just going to add it just came into my head. I've had a lot of pivots and changes too. And and so so I've had to, like, bite my tongue and let our great panelists talk about many of these things. I know when I was in a career change, at one point, a mentor of mine had said to me before that career change ever happened years before said to me, if you're ever out of work, go to an SSP conference. And it's an expense, and it's an expense that if you're out of work, you might not have the money for.
But you can also find local and regional and maybe online events that are less expensive. You've got to invest in your career and it's just a great and you know, it might not just be SSP, of course, there are other organizations, but make that effort to be out there and circulating because it's an important thing. And it goes with that networking. All right. We're going to close out for today.
We've put our email addresses in the chat. And please feel free to connect with any of us on LinkedIn as well. We are happy to continue these conversations with anyone who would like to speak further on this topic. One on one. Perhaps you've got some questions you didn't want to ask in a, you know, in a large forum. So thank you for participating in today's SSP webinar.
Thank you to our wonderful speakers who were very willing to share their stories. And I think that really makes us all feel connected. Hearing those personal accounts. So thank you so much. We encourage attendees to provide feedback on today's webinar and provide suggestions for future webinars. Please complete the evaluation via scanning the QR code or the evaluation link you will receive.
Use the evaluation link link you will receive at the end of the event. Save the date for the SSP annual meeting schedules to be scheduled to be held in Baltimore may 28th through 30th, and registration will be open soon. Thanks again to Silverchair and access innovation, our sponsors. Today's webinar was recorded and all registrants will receive a link to the recording when it's posted on the SSP website.
And that concludes our session today. Thank you all. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Bye bye everyone. Thanks, Lori. Thank you. Thanks, Lori.
Segment:0 .
OK we are starting to assemble. Thanks, everyone who's joined us. So far, and we'll give it another minute or so and let folks log in, and then we will get underway.
Welcome and we'll be getting underway shortly. OK I'm going to get started with our introductions while folks are still assembling, because we have a lot to talk about, and so it would be good to get underway.
So thank you and welcome to today's SSP webinar, charting your future course, determining next steps and maximizing success in mid-career. Before we get started with the webinar officially, I want to thank our 2025 education sponsors, as always, access innovations and Silverchair. We're very grateful for your support. My name is Lori Carlin. I am the chief Commercial Officer at Delta Inc and the lead of the SSP education committee's webinar working group.
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If you don't see the CC icon on your toolbar, you can view captions by selecting the More option on your screen and choosing show captions in the drop down menu. This one hour session will be recorded and available to registrants following today's event. Registered attendees will be sent an email when the recording is available. A quick note on SSPS code of conduct in today's meeting. We are committed to diversity, equity and providing an inclusive meeting environment that fosters open dialogue and the free expression of ideas free of harassment, discrimination and hostile conduct.
We ask all participants, whether speaking or in chat, to consider the debate relevant viewpoints in an orderly, respectful and fair manner. OK, now on to our webinar. So to start, I believe we have a poll that we're going to put up. So I think Susan is going to start that.
And we like you to answer this while we're doing our opening remarks to just to give us some insight into where you are in your career. So if you can take a moment and fill out that poll, that would be great. And you can see the questions on, you should be able to see the questions. How would you describe yourself. And there are four options for that.
So go ahead and answer the poll while I continue. And I'll start by welcoming our wonderful panelists. Gabe harp, Sue kestner, Rebecca McLeod, and Heather Stevens. And I'm going to let them each introduce themselves in a minute. But before I do, I just wanted to set the stage a bit and attempt to define what we mean by mid-career, which we're looking at very broadly. And when I was setting up this webinar, the webinar group was setting up this webinar.
I was asked, how are we defining mid-career? And I wanted to say anything that isn't early career. So we're not being very specific here. This is not about an age bracket or a number of years in a specific career or a role. It's more about being at a crossroads, perhaps, and wondering, where do I go from here? What's next? Be that continuing where you are, maybe moving up within your own organization, moving out to another organization, changing your career path entirely.
And that can be within our industry. Maybe you are working for a publisher and you're thinking of moving to a service provider, or you're a librarian and you're thinking of moving into the publishing side of things. Or you might be changing careers entirely. Maybe an academic researcher moving into publishing or moving out of scholarly publishing, and you're in it. Really, the list goes on.
So it's looking at what do you want to do next? And sometimes even revisiting that early question that we've always, you know, we've all been asked at some point, probably in our youth, what do you want to be when you grow up? So again, we're looking at this very broadly. And with that, let's see where we are with the poll actually. So it looks like we've got 78% of our attendees are employed and curious, not seeking a change but thinking about the future.
And that's great. Another 11% are employed and looking for their next adventure. So actively seeking a change, we've got 6% who are not fully employed or permanently employed, and they're looking for their next adventure, and then about another 6% as others. So good mix, definitely heavily weighted in the curious. And that's great.
That's really a great start and good information for us as we move on. So with that, I'd like to ask each of our speakers to introduce yourself. And in so doing, if you can talk about your experience related to a career change or a pivot that you made, maybe you moved from a function to another function, a position to another position, a type of organization to another, as I was talking about before.
And if you could share your experience. So we'll start off with Sue kestner. Sue as opposed to Susan here. You got a lot of Sue's on this call. Well, as we said, I'm Sue kestner, and I retired a few years ago as senior director of publisher relations at copyright clearance center. I served as an SSP president from, I think, 2007 to 2008. And most notably, during that time, we created a strategic plan, and out of that strategic plan came a plan for a blog, which you may know, is the Scholarly Kitchen, which was cooked up literally in Kent.
Board member Kent Andersen's office at NJM that year. I think I've served on every committee and chaired almost every committee at SSP, and even in retirement served as the chair and then co-chair and now on the committee of the Kitchen cabinet. It's called the runs the business of the Scholarly Kitchen and on the generations fund. So here's my pivot story. I was trained as a librarian.
I have a master's in Latin American history and Spanish and Portuguese and then a master's. And I knew fairly early on that I wanted to be a librarian. And I had wonderful pre pre-professional jobs in London and Stanford. And so on, all in that area. And long story short, we found ourselves moving to the Boston area where we are now. And I had a young family and I got a job as a professional reference librarian at our local public library, which was great, and I did that for several years.
And thoroughly enjoyed it. And even in our little suburb at that time a prosperous little suburb, a vote was taken to increase funding for the library. It failed and the most of the staff was permanent staff and part time staff was laid off and we had skeleton hours and I was found. I found myself looking for a job. Now, I wasn't exactly mid-career, but but I was ready for something different or bigger.
But I still needed part time. So that was challenging. And I started looking for library jobs. I couldn't find one, and I basically fired up my network and landed a job at a young company then based in London and Boston called silver Platter, which merged into Wolters kluwer, where it sort of lives. Now And I started very part time and ended up within a year managing a team.
And I worked for a guy who you may know, his name is Stephen rhind-tutt. He he's really a serial entrepreneur in our space. And he, he taught me how to use my library background and understanding of how libraries work to the advantage of the company as we created products. And I you know, of course, I was strong on the library side, but where I was a little weak was on the business side. And I always say he taught a librarian how to be a business, think like a business person.
And there were other things that I had to learn in that switch. But I just ended up loving it and made a career out of various information companies. And fast forward managed many teams and often had either librarians joining my team in early years publishers later years, and had to kind of go through the same exercise with them as well. Great Thanks so much, Joe. Yeah, no that's great.
I have follow up questions, but I don't because we have a lot to talk about today. Rebecca, you. Hi, everyone. I'm Rebecca McLeod. I am the managing director of Harvard Dataverse science review, and I've been a member of SSP for several years, and I'm president in fact, following in Leicester's footsteps of Sue and more recently of Heather Staines.
So my big pivot story career pivot was moving from a publisher role. I worked at MIT Press for 20 years, and at the end I was head of journals, moved from that role into working for a service provider. And, you know, sometimes you even if it's a great environment or a good environment, sometimes you have to make a change if you want to expand yourself or you want to gain different experience.
So I was hired in this publisher role because I knew publishing was my background. There were many. There were other people at the time in this organization who worked in, you know, the customer service, publisher relations, but they didn't necessarily they knew the product, but they didn't have the publishing background. Anyway, so I made that change.
It was a tough I have to say. It wasn't. It wasn't easy. Different culture. Because I wasn't at AUP anymore. I couldn't I wasn't speaking AUP committees. But I learned new skills, and I gained a different perspective and learned about different stakeholders in the scholarly publishing ecosystem.
So it was something I'm glad that I did. It wasn't easy, but I can talk about that more later. Great Thanks, Rebecca. Gabe Hey, everyone, I'm Gabe harp. I am currently working for a local startup here in Maine called Oak I, and that's really a bridge while I seek my next full time role. And I've gone through a lot of changes in my journey here. I've worked at a lot of organizations in the industry Elsevier, Springer, nature, MIT Press, and so on.
But I'm going to I'll bounce off of Rebecca's example. She talked about leaving the MIT Press. I'll talk about joining the MIT Press. So basically about seven years ago, I realized that I had been at one organization, Elsevier, for almost 15 years. And it was a great place to work. Wonderful culture, very supportive. Excellent job.
Career opportunities. And yet I started to kind of feel this internal itch to see what else is out there. But also I had started to recognize a pattern of people I respected, who were at fairly senior levels, being laid off, not specifically at Elsevier, but just across the industry. Periodically I would see this, and I realized that I didn't want to spend my next 15 years at the same organization, and I especially didn't want to find myself being laid off after having been at only one place for decades.
I was worried about that prospect. And so basically I left a very stable, great place and I took what was a very scary leap at the time for me. And I joined the MIT Press, and that was a wonderful place to be. But what actually happened after that, those, those years that followed leading up to today were really tumultuous for me. I worked at four different organizations, went through two acquisitions and eventually got laid off last year, which was, you know, the prospect that I was hoping to avoid in the first place.
But I have no regrets. I learned so much. I met so many great people. I got to work with both Rebecca and Heather in different capacities, and I also learned what it is to transition from one organization to another and then another and another. And so I'm happy to talk more about that as we dive into the panel.
Thank you. Great Thanks so much, Gabe. And I was thinking as you started talking, and I know Heather was at MIT Press as well. Sue, you and I are, I think, an odd, odd person out on that note. Yeah, Yeah. Sue and I worked together. Sue was at.
Yes Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. So you and I worked together, Lori. So we can. We can. Yeah, I know, so there's one degree of separation there. Yeah zero. Great Heather. Yeah so, Hi, I'm Heather Stevens.
I, as I just said, I work with Lori at Delta bank. And in the past, I've worked with at MIT and intersected with Rebecca and Gabe. I also feel like I haven't been the chair of every SSP committee, but that's only because, like, there's a lot more committees than there used to be. But I've probably been a member of SSP for more than 15 years. And it's made a huge difference in my life and my career.
I've had a lot of pivots. I mean, I had to pivot before I even started as an academic who couldn't get an academic job. And I will say, I think the situation is much worse now than it was, you know, in the 90s. But my first job was as a book acquisitions editor, which I really loved. But one of the challenges in publishing and probably other industries is that the more you move up, the less you get to do the thing that you really love, which might be why you started to do the job, you know, in the first place.
I was fortunate I was with a small division of Reed Elsevier that we got involved in, you know, what we called electronic publishing. And I could see the potential as a former academic of, wow, if you could search books electronically. And I kind of wanted to do that. So I moved over, you know, into the journal space. But I will say I sometimes have sought out a change, and sometimes the change, like Gabe mentioned, has been thrust upon me.
So I feel like I'm more often. I'm pivoting so many times that maybe I'm like a Downhill Skier. But I've learned a lot in publisher roles, vendor roles, startup roles, and, you know, just we say it all the time, but it's the people. And I met some of the people before I was an SSP member. But it definitely sped up after that. And it's hard when a pivot is thrust upon you. But over time you can kind of appreciate the opportunities even though it doesn't always feel good.
So I'll leave it for that for now. Great Thank you. Well, that may pivot into this next question really well, Heather, which is how do you find the motivation and inspiration to make a change mid-career, air. Whether you're making that change on your own, or it is thrust upon you. And then even if things are stable and rewarding, but there's just something in the back of your head that's saying it's time for a change.
You know, Rebecca, you alluded somewhat to that in your opening about being somewhere for 20 years and just kind of knowing I might be happy and satisfied here, but shouldn't I be thinking about something? Something more? So, Heather, I'm going to pass back to you to start this one off. Yeah I mean, this is a tough question because I think we're all so busy doing all the things, you know, that we have to do.
And particularly in this, whatever this phase we're in now, you know, after COVID, it's OK if you're just doing all the things or as many of the things as you can do, and you don't feel like you have the bandwidth, you know, to look forward, that is absolutely fine. And sometimes you need to do that for yourself. But I think, you know, I try to ask myself, what are the things I'm doing in my current role that make me the happiest that I might like to do more of?
And what are some of the things that maybe don't thrill me, that I might ideally like to do less of? And, you know, sometimes there are opportunities within your organization to get involved in task groups, new initiatives, you know, cross departmental teams where you can, you know, go a little bit outside of your daily routine. So I always encourage that.
Certainly if you want to try something that is a little different, SSP and other organizations have volunteer opportunities. I'm a big standards person, so I got involved in niso standards groups from the beginning and met a lot of folks that way. So that was kind of like exhilarating and just, you know, all the opportunities to read about new initiatives, see things at conferences, lifelong learning. You know, sometimes you just have an interest.
I I'll throw this out as an example, because here's a person that I really worship and admire. It's chavie chohan, who some of you may know. I remember 5 or six years ago when she said to me, I'm really interested in AI and I'm going to become like an expert. And I didn't know her very well. If I had known her a little better, I would have like not had a flicker of doubt.
But, you know, so there are people who have pursued an interest and now they are really one of the top, you know, go to folks in the field. So don't think you can't learn something new and really, you know, have that be, you know, part of your resistance. So number of different pathways you can use to kind of get excited. Absolutely Thanks, Heather.
Rebecca, do you want to take this one next to. Oh, you're on mute Rebecca. Sorry about that. So as I mentioned earlier, I had been at MIT for 20 years. It was a great place for me. But you know, it's funny, when I was thinking about making a change, I talked to a career coach and they said, for someone who's a very you're a diverse candidate, your resume is not very diverse.
Because even though I had different roles at MIT, it was in the same department and journals in the same place. So I think it particularly when my kids were young, it was a good time to be there, because sometimes when you're managing all different kinds of things with your balancing with family and work, you may not want to have too many crazy things going on at work, but in order for me, I wanted to advance. But in order to advance, I didn't think I was going to be able to advance where I was.
So I unless I gained different skills. So that's how I made that pivot. And again, it was challenging for me. I went from also being like the top boss in journals, not to be the top boss for my ego. That was hard. So certain decisions I just couldn't make or and it was a different but but what it exposed me to increased my network because I met people that I wouldn't have met before staying at MIT.
And again, I gained a new knowledge about the, the, the industry. But I want to echo what Heather said about the importance of volunteering, because I do think when you get involved in these different committees, whether it be SSP or some other organization, you can gain new skills and you can do things in a way that because it's not for your employer, it's a bit more not easy, but you're more relaxed, I guess.
Right and I really think working on committees you gain new skills, but you also forge really strong connections with people that you may not have, but connections with people that you can then have conversations with. Be mentors, mentees away from your employer. I think that's really important. So that's what you had mentioned, Heather, about working on computers.
I think that's really important. Yeah great. Rebecca, I mean, I think we all I know that resonates strongly with me. I can remember being on the marketing committee, and there were people on the marketing committee who were not marketers, but it was something that they liked to do. And I think every SSP committee probably has the same, you know, annual meeting committee are not meeting planners.
Right but but we all enjoy those things. So Yeah. So Sue, do you have anything to add? I was just going to add to what Heather said. So well, which is that I think you gain inspiration and idea and ideas from your colleagues at SSP and other organizations and just be tuned into the world. And you may realize that something is happening out there that sounds awfully interesting, and you follow it.
And all of a sudden, you know, the time seems right. And or maybe gradually the time seems right and you move in that direction, even within your current job, you had that responsibility. You bring it to the company. Yeah great. I'm going to move on a bit. It's on the same theme and give you a chance to kind of answer this.
And this next question combined, I would say, and it's specific pain point of being laid off or made redundant and looking for a new opportunity. So a bit more urgent of a need here. But it can also apply to folks who are working but looking for new opportunity and just feel like it's time they need to move on. So Gabe, starting with you. What are your best tips for finding your next adventure?
That's such a great question, and I'm sure my fellow panelists have other ideas as well. I'll distill this into a few, and I'll focus on the layoff piece first, since that's kind of the journey that I'm going through right now. I will say, like, I was intellectually prepared, like I knew this thing might happen to me. And I could also read the tea leaves in the situation I was in.
But when it happened, I found myself completely unprepared emotionally. And so my first tip is to just pause. Don't jump right into a new job search unless, like your circumstances really require that. If you can take the time. It's really important to take the time to grieve because like it really is a big loss emotionally and in terms of professionally, like your confidence and not to mention all the anxieties that come with suddenly I don't have a paycheck, I have bills and family and so on.
And those pressures are going to push you to jump right into the job search. But actually, if you can take that time to kind of ground yourself and find balance and find what's important to you, that's sort of my number one tip. And talk to people in this process, whether it's your network, your friends and family, therapy is very helpful. That's that's part of that grounding process.
Very concretely like I'm actually following a specific methodology right now. I'll put this in the chat, but it's called Never search alone. This is a book by Phill Terry. The entire process is free other than the modest cost of the book, so I'm not like I'm promoting it generally because it works. And I know this because Heather and I worked together or collaborated through part of this process a few years ago, and it revolves around the concept of joining what's called a job search council, which is usually like five or six people, sometimes people, you know, often strangers, but who are also going through the same journey.
And it becomes like a support group. But it there's also a 10 week methodology. They have a slower track if you're in a job and looking for a new one, but the 10 weeks are for people who are doing sort of full time job seeking, which is what I'm doing. And it starts with having a listening tour. This is different from networking. It's different from going out and applying for jobs.
It's about really understanding some of these questions. We've talked about. What is it I actually want to do? What do my skills bring to the marketplace? What kind of job should I be going for? And then you write what's called your candidate market fit, which is a sort of concise statement about what you want to do, but also where you fit into the hiring landscape. And only once you've done that is when you should dive into the job search and start applying and networking and interviewing.
That's the methodology. Again, it's hard to resist the urge to go ahead and try to start finding a job right away. But the downside of diving right in is that you may take a job that just doesn't suit you or doesn't interest you, and that that has its own potential side effects. So my last point is just reach out. Like, I've benefited so much from mentors and other people who've given me so much time and wisdom and support.
And so I try to give that back. So like anybody here who's attending reach out to me anytime now or 10 years from now, if you ever want to talk about whatever journey you're going through. And I'm sure my fellow panelists may agree as well. Thank you. Thanks, Gabe. Heather, would you like to add to that one? Yeah the job council that Gabe mentioned was extremely helpful for me for a couple of reasons.
One, there was a set aside time for a online call each week. So it gave you like a little bit of structure and time to be accountable for the things you're thinking about. But also you could get feedback. I did mock job talks. I explained publishing to people who really didn't know publishing. So it was really a great opportunity. I talked to a lot of people who have lost roles because this has happened to me three times.
And much like Sue found, there's a lot of adjacencies. You know, you can work for vendors, you can work for libraries, you know, for publishers. There's just so much going on. And many of us really have our focus narrowed to like the space that we know. And opening up that I tell people you have unlimited opportunities. So what you really need to do is kind of narrow it down.
If you're not acquainted with any recruiters, the time to become acquainted with recruiters is before you need them. Before you think you might want to use them. They're every recruiter I've ever met has been fantastic, and they kind of know what the trends are in the industry, and they'll reach out to you for suggestions. And and so it's a nice way to kind of, you know, have someone's ear.
You know, when you need it. They're always happy to talk things to you. I've had recruiters talk through job offers with me and say, you should ask for more. You should, you know, here's where you can. They really know what's going on in the industry. And then the other thing you know, I'll say is that the talking to people is important, but there there's the people you would talk to anyway.
And if you just talk to the people that you always talk to, you're going to just kind of be pitching the same ideas off of each other. So when you talk to people, they'll suggest, hey, have you talked to so-and-so? Or do you know so-and-so? And I found that next circle out and the next circle beyond that, what do they call it? Weak ties versus strong ties were places where I got suggestions I might not have thought of myself, and had great conversations with folks that I knew, like a little bit in passing, but I'd never taken the time to have a one on one, you know, sit down with them or coffee.
And so just kind of going where the discovery journey leads, you can be like a very fulfilling aspect of it, just in and of itself. Thanks, Heather. I just wanted there was a question in the chat about specific recruiters. And I don't know that we want to talk about specifics in that way, right now, we are going to all put our either LinkedIn or emails so that we can.
And we Susan did list one that we kind of all see around and know. If you do a search on scholarly publishing recruiters, you'll probably get a short list of those as well. But one on one, any of us would likely be happy to point you in some directions as well, just with this question. Rebecca or Sue. Anything to add?
No, but I have there's a question earlier that was about parenting. About parenting. Yeah, I but between MIT and when I went to ours, I did take a little time off and in order to get back in, I guess that's the question I, you know, reach out to former colleagues, people you worked with before you took the time off. Again, I think networking again, if you want, if you have time to participate or volunteer on a committee, if you're feeling that you're not getting enough of a feedback or, or interest from, from employers, I really think that's important.
So that's how I would say I would say get, get reach out to your former colleagues, join a volunteer, you know, volunteer on a, on a, on a committee and then network. And I know we're having young children. It's hard to do that. But any employer should be like thinking, hey, take, you know, time to parent. That's an experience that's invaluable. Right so and not only coach might help too I mean that that helped me a lot, because I was looking at myself in a certain way being at MIT for so long, and I needed someone else to help me position or I don't know what to say, brand myself in a different way.
And sometimes it can be a career coach that's not in the industry, so I think that might be helpful. I felt like I was in therapy when I went to this career coach, so maybe you can try that. Yeah and I think just to broaden it out, you know, parenting is one of the things that we think of when we think about a break. But there could be elder care, there could be medical reasons, you know, you could have a partner who, you know, needs to move elsewhere and you can't work in that country.
Or, you know, there's so many different reasons why people take a break and, and might find it hard to get back in or stay, keep their head in the game, if you will. So all right, I'm going to move on to the importance of networking. And we, all of these questions are kind of morphing into each other. So we've certainly talked about networking.
So tips and tricks for networking. You know what you've learned about building your network and maybe being involved in mentoring or having mentors, especially at mid-career and all of those types of things, you know, who should you be looking to network with and how do you make the time to invest in these connections? And and I don't know if any of you are consider yourself introverts or anything along those lines.
So that can add an extra layer of complexity to the networking game or the networking opportunities. So Sue, I'm going to start off with you. Sure well, you know, I can't say network network network network enough and it is harder for people that are naturally introverted. There's no question about it. There are other ways to approach it, but it it's really challenging.
But if you can make yourself do it, it's really pays off. I do a ton of mentoring, and it's really one of the things I do in retirement. I think I have seven active mentor mentees now in countries all over the world, and some I've been working with for more than seven years. So a long time relationships. And so I focus a lot on building networks. And I often talk about SSP because even if their company isn't part of the organization, they can join as individuals and as reasonably priced.
So I urge them to do that. And aside from that, so closer to home, I want to talk about something that Rebecca may follow up with, because she's probably a founding member of. And I was close to a founding member of something called Boston women and information network. Bwin and bwin is ongoing, and it's probably, I don't know, Rebecca, has it been 30 years, 20 years of librarian?
Yeah although we don't meet as frequently as we used to. No, I know. And librarians, vendors, and publishers in the Boston area. And the only requirement was that you were a woman. That was how we managed it in the beginning. And and we had meetings once a month. And we used to talk about taking off our or putting down our sort of pretend briefcase outside the door and coming in just as people to support each other.
And I can tell you, I know my own, in my own case, that I had people take me by the hand at my first Frankfurt, and I did that to someone else who's now head of a big publishing house. I mean, we did these things for each other. So that's really a tremendous support. And it particularly as I pivoted from librarianship, look within the information industry. But I was focused on the library market.
And then I moved to the publishing side and I needed contacts, I needed help, I needed to understand what makes publishers tick. And I got that from my bwin network. So local networks, even especially when you're working from home, which so many people do. Yeah that's great. I will say, I just have to say this as an aside, because I know Sue for quite some time, that if you talk to people in the industry who know Sue, so many people feel that Sue gave them a helping hand and all of us are here for that reason.
And speaking on this panel today. But, you know, I'm always in awe a bit when I talk to people who knew Sue and Oh, yes, she helped me move up and a lot of people. So we all need help. Yes people help me. Yes same thing. Rebecca so I'm one of those introvert extroverts. I was painfully shy as a child, so people would say, like what?
I go, yes. So when I'm acting outgoing, I'm not. Yeah sometimes it's an act or sometimes I'm forcing myself. So networking is much easier now. But at my earlier stages it was hard. And you just have to push yourself and get out there and there's all kinds of networking. Again, I'll talk. I mean, I keep on I'm a broken record about volunteering, but I think that's really important, volunteering on SSP.
But also, you know, you can network outside of the industry. You know, if you have a passion to do some kind of whatever work or involvement. And it also you can get skills there by the way. And also it helps them get out of yourself I guess or become less introverted. I think peer to peer networking is really important. I know that people like Sue, who mentored me and given me, you know, tricks, and tips along the way.
But I also think having people who, like former colleagues of mine have been really important for me during my career journey. You know, many times I just need a sounding board, like, what do you think of this? How should I approach that? So it's not like a typical did I already skip the question? But I'm talking about mentorship already, so it's fine. These two merge into each other.
OK we'll go back and forth on that. It's not your typical like someone of many years mentoring and early career. I really think that peer to peer is really important. And then, of course, you know, now when I feel like I'm the oldest person in the room, most the time, you learn a lot from the younger people, all the time and mentees. I'm always like, Oh, you know.
So one thing I always say work with people from with all different ages. I think that's so important. You just gain a lot of insight. So Yeah, network, network, network as Sue says. But and I know it's challenging times because of being virtual for many people. So I think you really have to be even more kind of strategic and mindful of how you go about it.
Absolutely absolutely, Gabe. It's hard to add to what Heather and Rebecca have said, but quickly, I actually found also, as an introvert at heart, the virtual element makes it easier in some ways because you can attend a webinar and then, you know, connect with the other attendees, or there are a lot of asynchronous or online forms that don't require the in-person interaction, which sometimes raises more social anxieties.
I also just want to Thank Heather because there was a moment for me many years ago at probably an SSP event where there was a lightning networking activity leg speed dating, and I was incredibly uncomfortable, and she kind of gave me the courage to just go ahead and try it. So, you know, put yourselves out there, embrace that discomfort, and don't really think about it as networking per se, but just, you know, connecting to other like minded people.
Yeah, I will say so. Heather, I want to hear your perspective. But before I do, I just want to say, I mean, we all have learned to network. Heather, to me is a master. Heather, why don't you tell everybody. How many LinkedIn connections you have? Sorry that's rude. She has thousands.
So OK, I'm just going to say I started this is a little LinkedIn aside. I have no share in the company and, you know, whatever. I started in like 2007 on LinkedIn, and when I was changing from the acquisitions job into the more tech job, I wanted all of my authors to go on LinkedIn because I didn't want to lose them. I didn't want to lose track of them.
And it was like, you know, Facebook really wasn't that kind of a thing yet. And so, I mean, to have a Rolodex that updates itself, I will say there's so much like sponsored stuff on it that I think it's less useful, you know, than it used to be. But I am a self-described LinkedIn whore, not safe for work, but meaning that like, yes, I would love to link in with people. And so you can see when you linked with someone, if you click on the little contact info thing.
And you can go, Oh, it must have been in such an event or it must have been here or there. So there's more information that you can glean from that than just that. And I'm not going to say how many people, but it's more than 5,000 more than most of us. But I Yeah, I probably spend too much. I don't I will say I don't pay for it, but whoever's listening, if they threaten to take it away from me, I would have to pay for it.
But like Rebecca, I did not talk. I did not talk. My people in my high school are like, what? You talk for a living. Like we can't even, like, picture this. It turned out, once I started teaching, you couldn't kind of shut me up because I had a captive audience. And in those days.
But there's, like, really small steps you can take if you want to start networking. And, you know, one is start with speakers. You know, if you've been at a virtual event, reach out to the speaker. They they're obviously they're speaking because they want to talk about something us included today, if you're at an in-person event, go up afterwards to the speaker or find them in a break.
You know, again, that's like a really low risk. Opportunity to interact with the speaker. But somewhere I read, if you're at an event. Go up to people who are talking together because they either came together, which means they're probably open to talking to somebody or they just met, which also means they're open to meeting new people. And it's much easier in a group of 3 to get a conversation in than it is with a larger group.
So if you try it, you can figure out, like if that works for you. But I have found that that is wonderful and I usually give myself I need to meet three new people at every event before I can go into the corner and talk to my friends. Sometimes you can find a few people talking together and you can like cross that off right away. But there are like little practical things you can do to try to get started.
Great Thank you. So we're going to just dig a little bit deeper into mentoring. We've talked about the importance of that, but I'd like to talk about how you get the best out of a mentorship relationship and how can mid-career folks find and best use mentors. And so I'm going to start with you, if that's OK, on this one.
Sure, sure. Well, as for finding a mentor, there are lots of ways to do it, but an easy way to do it is through SSP. And Thanks to the generations fund, I think that's going to that. And our fellowship program will be funded for a good long time. So that is that's one route and all the publishing organizations have them. I do a lot with STM, for instance, still to this day.
And I you know, I think so much of the mentoring relationships really are chemistry. And so some, you know, I would say 85% of the time and I've had so many mentees, it works really well. And then but there are some times when it hasn't been perfect. It's not bad. It's just it doesn't click. And sometimes it's cultural.
And although, you know, I work with people from many different backgrounds, but how to use. The other thing you asked about Laura was how to use your network. And when. I have needed to, for whatever reason, made a decision that I wanted a different kind of job or in one case, the job, the whole division I was a part of a spin off.
It ended. You know, I literally have this image of firing up my network. It's like it's like a visual for me. And I'm pretty networked all the time. But firing up my network is something different. I mean, that's when you're talking to your closest colleagues and friends, but I think it was Gabe that talked about their degrees out and out and out.
And really conventional wisdom is you're not going to find that job from that first group, but it's who they talk to. And then they in turn talk to and be open to meeting with them. I think that was really good advice. And the other thing I'll say is that I have always tried to leave on, even when I, when this division was let go, and I was sad to leave the company of many years leave on good terms.
And I must say that I've sort of taken along with me and used as references and for job searching company founders, my boss, my boss's boss. You know, it's not just peers, but it's all directions. I think that's really important. Great Thank you. Rebecca, do you want to talk about mentoring? Well, like, I can add much, but to Sue said. But I think when you are looking for a she said new opportunities or different skills, you want to seek out someone who might fit.
And I think the chemistry is important because you never know. You could look like on paper it would be perfect match. But then maybe the personalities don't, don't, don't mesh. So again, when I think I had said before about the mentoring, it's not just someone who's had more experience, it could be someone who's been in the industry as long as you have, but comes from a different part of that ecosystem.
I don't know, I've had different, I guess, mentors, peer mentors, people who've worked in the industry longer. But I also talked, you know, I've had working mom mentors who don't even work in the industry to, you know, get strategies and how to, you know, even cope with everything. I always feel like it's like taking a lot of mentors to keep Rebecca together so I don't have a nervous breakdown.
So I think that's just looking in all directions. As a mentor and as right now, being a mentor has been really been worthwhile. Again, I learned a lot from my mentees. Great great. Yeah let's see. Heather, do you want to weigh in? Yeah I mean, just to add on, what's been said, I've. My career has been very zig zag, and I often get when, like SSP or another organization is signing a mentee, they'll have like someone with a kind of an unusual situation where it's not easy to pair them up.
And so I get into a lot of those and I have learned so much. And I think looking at it as a learning opportunity, where they're mentoring you about what they do or what the challenges are at the point in their career or what their department. I learn a ton. I've had official mentees from every continent in the world except Latin America and Antarctica. And I've had unofficial mentees from Latin America.
So if you're in Antarctica and you're listening to this, I need that on my bingo card. But I just think that it's such a wonderful, you know, experience. But I will also say tell people if they made a difference for you. Like Gabe, I had no idea that speed networking thing made a difference. And that just makes me that, like, warms my heart to hear that.
And I think maybe we don't do enough of that telling people, you know, when they make a difference. Because that might be the encouragement you need in your role to know the people you've introduced around and send on. So I'll just say, tell somebody today that they made a difference in your life, whether it's professionally or personally. Yeah, I think that's great.
And it also what you said before, Heather also reminds me that you can learn in every situation and if you position yourself to be thinking that way, that even if you're the mentor, there's things for you to learn and you can be learning from people at any time. People who report to you, people you report to people from different areas of your life that have absolutely nothing to do with scholarly publishing. You can.
There's always things to learn, and if you're open to that, you know, that's part of that mentor relationship. Gabe, anything to add here? Just that nobody's too experienced or too old to be a mentee as well. I think we all benefit from serving both as mentee and mentor, so it's incredibly rewarding. So did you have something? Yeah, I do I, I heard about something really interesting a few years ago that was one of the big publishing houses that has junior people new to the profession mentoring senior.
And I think that is really cool. And that just shows that nobody's too. And they learn a lot. So nobody's too seasoned or too advanced to learn something from someone. Absolutely, I would agree. All right. We're getting close to the end here. So we've got one more question that we want to just go around and ask folks for about any last words of advice, helping folks to navigate mid-career opportunities, potential change, you know, maybe even touching on some of the realities of making a change at mid-career, which are benefits, you know, a certain level of income coming in or responsibilities that you might not have had.
You know, in your early 20s when you first started out that you now have. And they weigh into that, making that change, too. So, Gabe, last words of advice to pick one, just to give tactical advice. Do try to keep track of your accomplishments and especially like measurable achievements as you're going, because it's hard to kind of recreate that years later when you suddenly find yourself looking for a new job.
So save your performance reviews. Save, save like some of the data points, because that's what you're going to need when you're preparing your applications for future jobs. Great Thank you. Rebecca Yeah, I've been thinking about this like there's so many different things to say. But ironically, I have to say my advice to people, I guess, in my career.
Don't let your job define you. Does that make any. You know so I and because I think in your early career you your job will define you or you let your job define you. And as we get older, as we move, advance, move, along the way, different things happen, you know? So they say life happens. Or either with children or parents, aging parents. So sometimes, you know, you need to focus on something else.
So I guess at this point just if you're at a spot and if you're happy you have other things going on, it's OK. You don't have to always be like on that treadmill. You know, you can get fulfillment again, volunteering either with SSP or other organizations. But I think that's just my thing. Don't, don't let your job define you. You're more than one job or one position. And then I think if you have that confidence and know that, then you can do anything.
That's great. Thank you Sue. Well I echo what Rebecca said and that is even truer as you get towards retirement, you really need to make sure that you have other things in your life. I was just I was also going to echo what Gabe said. Keep your resume up to date all the time. Keep if you're interested in staying in the industry, keep current.
I always advocate reading the Scholarly Kitchen every day. That keeps you pretty current. But more than that. But that in and of itself is helpful. And and you just asked Lori about things in mid or late career that it could be good or change. And I always give it's part of an introductory exercise I do with a new mentee is to really think of what's important in your life and, and what matters most to you.
But I always give the example of, you know, of being at a job coach and having to force rank that and saying that, you know, my kids are young, so any job that's more than a half an hour from my house, I'll never take you can pay me $3 million and I will not take this job. I can't, you know, for various personal reasons. And, you know, fast forward a few more years. It was maybe 4 or five years.
It wasn't any more than that. I went to work for c-c-c, which is a good hour from my house, you know, on a good day, you know, 45 minutes to an hour on a good day each way. And it was fine because my life had changed in some ways. So absolutely. Remember, things change. Absolutely nothing's forever. Right?
Heather, do you want to close us out on this? Oh, so much good stuff. Try not to be intimidated. You know, by folks. Most people you know, there are some people out there who are a piece of work. You know, we all want to avoid them, but most people are just people. I remember the first time I was at SSP and I went to the chef session and I was like, Oh, my celebrities on the stage.
And I, you know, I think I got up all the courage to talk to Joe Esposito after and I think to myself, like, I should have realized that they were just people. So don't be try not to be intimidated. And then I tell my mentees, listen to people when you meet them, just because it doesn't seem immediately apparent that what they're doing has an effect on what you're doing, as your role might change or their role might change, or they might hear of something that's perfect for you, or you might be able to connect them with the person that you meet 10 minutes later.
And so there's nothing worse when you're at a networking event and you tell someone what you do and you literally see the light go out of their eyes and you think to myself, they can't wait to find somebody else to talk to. Don't be that person. Don't do that. Someone might have grown up in the town where you grew up in. They might have the same pet or the same charities that you're interested in.
Listen and give people a chance, because that's why we're here, is for the people. Well and we all, I think many of us have always said, you never know when this person might be your next boss, your next direct report or your past are going to cross in some other way. We are a small industry, so good, good advice. Very good advice. All right.
One thing I'm just going to add it just came into my head. I've had a lot of pivots and changes too. And and so so I've had to, like, bite my tongue and let our great panelists talk about many of these things. I know when I was in a career change, at one point, a mentor of mine had said to me before that career change ever happened years before said to me, if you're ever out of work, go to an SSP conference. And it's an expense, and it's an expense that if you're out of work, you might not have the money for.
But you can also find local and regional and maybe online events that are less expensive. You've got to invest in your career and it's just a great and you know, it might not just be SSP, of course, there are other organizations, but make that effort to be out there and circulating because it's an important thing. And it goes with that networking. All right. We're going to close out for today.
We've put our email addresses in the chat. And please feel free to connect with any of us on LinkedIn as well. We are happy to continue these conversations with anyone who would like to speak further on this topic. One on one. Perhaps you've got some questions you didn't want to ask in a, you know, in a large forum. So thank you for participating in today's SSP webinar.
Thank you to our wonderful speakers who were very willing to share their stories. And I think that really makes us all feel connected. Hearing those personal accounts. So thank you so much. We encourage attendees to provide feedback on today's webinar and provide suggestions for future webinars. Please complete the evaluation via scanning the QR code or the evaluation link you will receive.
Use the evaluation link link you will receive at the end of the event. Save the date for the SSP annual meeting schedules to be scheduled to be held in Baltimore may 28th through 30th, and registration will be open soon. Thanks again to Silverchair and access innovation, our sponsors. Today's webinar was recorded and all registrants will receive a link to the recording when it's posted on the SSP website.
And that concludes our session today. Thank you all. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Bye bye everyone. Thanks, Lori. Thank you. Thanks, Lori.
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