Bring Value to Get Value Building Effective Networks - Your Career Intel

Bring Value to Get Value Building Effective Networks - Yur Career IntelIn recent years, our communication preferences have shifted from the traditional means of telephone conversations and face-to-face meetings, to connections powered by the click of a follow or connect icon online. While the speed of digital interactivity has amplified our reach in the marketplace, our attention to building and fostering meaningful relationships has diminished. This divide creates opportunity. Cultivating an effective network is a beneficial strategy at every stage of your professional development. Whether you are entering an active career search or researching industry trends and referrals your network is your most valuable resource.The crux of successful networking lies not in how many connections you can generate on social media platforms or the number of geschftsleben cards in your back pocket at an industry conference, but rather the opportunity to contribute value to your sphere of influence. As an executive recruiter in a field that relies heavily on the reach of ones network and the power of connectivity, I often hear sales and marketing professionals ask, whats in it for me?Instead of placing your focus on your gains, turn your attention to how you might benefit others. Listed below are three ways to offer value to your network, which in turn will bring value to youBecome a Connector Recognize opportunities to make introductions and be willing to reach out and initiate the interaction. Connect people with shared interests and career goals, diversify your reach and make connections outside your niche. Utilize the introduction feature on LinkedIn without engagement, your 500+ connections brings no value.Provide Thought Leadership Offer relevant market information, answer questions from members in your group and share appropriate articles. Social networking provides the opportunity to demonstrate your thought leadership skills and sets you fremd from the competition. Consistently update your status on LinkedIn and Twitter be present and engage in online conversations. Share articles, Retweet relevant links and Like status updates.Follow Up and Follow Through Effective networking requires both making connections and maintaining regular contact with acquaintances. Gathering business cards doesnt build a successful network, nor does the click of the connect button. Follow up with an email or schedule an informal meeting. But whatever you do, be certain to follow through on what you said you would. And remember to say, thank youIn the dynamic, fast-paced world of digital communications and our desire to consume information, we often fail to contribute in our haste to receive. An effective network encourages professional growth and drives potential career opportunities. It calls for concerted effort, dedication and a genuine desire to bring value to the greater community. Make these connections, be present and offer your assistance.In sharing thes e tips, Id like to know how you add value to your network and how it has in turn brought value to you.

Intersectional Feminism 8 People Who Embody Its Meaning

Intersectional Feminism 8 People Who Embody Its Meaning The history of feminism is storied, and therbeie have been many movements and theorists thatve spearheaded its agendas in many ways. Intersectional feminism is the belief that many different social ideas (such as gender, race, class, and religion) impact the way that people perceive themselves and are perceived by others. And, in the era of MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and SayHerName, intersectional feminism is mora important than ever.This kind of feminism may sound complicated, but its not too hard to grasp once you think about it. For example, a black woman might be discriminated against both because she is black and because she is a woman. A white woman might encounter problems because of her gender, but wouldnt experience the same sexism because she doesnt have to deal with racism.Here are 8 individuals who embody the thoughtful, tenacious spirit of intersectional feminism.1. Kimberl CrenshawLets start with the woman who coin ed the term intersectional feminism. Kimberl Crenshaw is a scholar and civil rights advocate who wanted to put a name to the many kinds of discrimination that women and people of color face.Part of what inspired Crenshaw welches a Missouri court case called DeGraffenreid v. General Motors. A black woman named Emma DeGraffenreid sued General Motors, saying that the company discriminated against both women and black workers. This made it nearly impossible for black women to get jobs there.However, DeGraffenreid and her fellow black women didnt win that case. According to the court, they couldnt say theyd been discriminated against because of race and gender.In Crenshaws eyes, the courts opinion welches beyond ignorant. Crenshaw herself experienced both types of discrimination, and she noticed that they often combined to create even worse discrimination. When she became a law professor, she started using the term intersectionality to refer to the thing that the Missouri court said didn t exist a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power in every form.Since then, Crenshaw has continued to teach law, give halbstarker talks, and help push SayHerName a campaign that shows how black women are also subjected to police violence into the spotlight.2. Laverne CoxLaverne Cox is a trans actress who has just as many accolades for her talent as she does for her LGBT+ activism. While shes fruchtwein popular for her role as Sophia Burset on Orange is the New Black, shes also produced The T Word, a documentary about trans teens, and shes spoken frequently about what it means to be a trans woman of color.Cox has a ton of firsts to her name first trans woman nominated for an Emmy, first trans person on the titelblatt of Time, producer of the first trans documentary to win a daytime Emmy, first trans actress to pose nude for Allure. Shes gracefully corrected people as influential as Katie Couric, who asked Cox and fellow trans woman Carmen Carrera intrusive ques tions about genital reconstruction surgery during an interview, about the discrimination that trans women of color face.After a trans activist welches arrested in Phoenix, Ariz., on an inaccurate prostitution charge, Cox stated, This really support systematically the idea that girls like me and Monica are less than others in this country.If acknowledging that isnt intersectional feminism, then what is?3. ChrystosChrystos is a Native American writer who identifies as two spirit, and their poetry is just as well-known as their activism on the part of other two spirit and Native individuals.Two spirit is the Native American concept of a third-gender role, so its related to LGBT+ rights, but is not the same. Two spirit individuals are usually formally recognized by elders of their tribe and sometimes fill certain ceremonial roles that no one else can. The term isnt widely known, but Chrystos and their work have shed more light on being two spirit in the United States.Chrystos, who is Me nominee, is the author of poetry collections like leid Vanishing and In Her I Am. They also contributed to landmark anthology This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Cherre Moraga and Gloria E. Anzalda, a collection all about intersectional feminism.Heres an excerpt from one of their poems, I Walk in The History of My PeopleIn my marrow are hungry faces who live on land the whites dont wantIn my marrow women who walk 5 miles every day for waterIn my marrow the swollen faces of my people who are not allowedto huntto moveto beThis kind of powerful, blunt, rhythmic language is what Chrystos is all about. Its what they use to illuminate the pain and the joy of being a Native person who doesnt fit into the gender and sexuality boxes of Western culture.4. LizzoDo you wish you knew a song that made it feel good to be a woman? Not just good, actually, but incredible? If so, give a listen to the music of female rapper/flutist/activist Lizzo.Lizzo uses her socially conscious music to spread a m essage of self-love especially self-love for black women thats so catchy it feels like the most natural idea in the world. Songs like Good As Hell and En Love feature lyrics about her joy in being a plus-size woman of color. In Lizzos world, women are always good enough, black is always beautiful, and the more there is of a person to go around, the better.Lizzo is also vocal about politics. Shes a supporter of Black Lives Matter and Planned Parenthood, among other causes, and she performed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.The most exciting part about 2016, Lizzo said two years ago, is that we have so many strong women of all ethnicities and sexualities crunching this wave of feminism that are going to be fighters on the front line, from Beyonc to Ava DuVernay.Who wouldnt want to follow someone this fearless and positive?5. Bell HooksWriter, teacher, and thinker bell hooks is synonymous with intersectional feminism, and theres a reason for that shes helped define feminism , which can be a topic difficult to describe. Feminism is rooted in neither fear nor fantasyit is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression, she wrote in Feminism is for Everybody, a short, easy-to-understand book that lays out hooks feminist theory.bell hooks was born Gloria Jean Watkins to a black, working-class family in Kentucky in 1952. When she grew up, she became an English professor and took on a shortened, lowercased version of her great-grandmothers name, Bell Blair Hooks. In 1981, she published Aint I A Woman? Black Women and Feminism, in which she explained that black women are subjected to the double hammers of racism and sexism.Though white feminism, or feminism that doesnt acknowledge the experiences of women of color, may seem like its only recently been a topic of discussion, hooks has been criticizing white feminism since the 1980s. She writes in her books that the voices of women of color have been marginalized for centuries. Intersectional femi nism is one way of addressing that marginalization.bell hooks has written in most genres, from essays to poetry to childrens books, so theres no excuse for missing out on her writing.6. Audre LordePoet Audre Lorde (1934-1992) reminded Americans during the Civil Rights movement that black women were a key part of the fight for racial equality. Her poems, essays, and speeches have reminded generations of feminists that the battle for equality is not for one particular group. Women, people of color, and LGBT+ individuals all deserve to be treated the same.In her well-known poem Coal, Lorde wrote,Love is a absolut another kind of openAs a diamond comes into a knot of flameI am black because I come from the earths insideTake my word for jewel in your open light.Like many of the people on this list, Lorde is also known for being an activist who advocated tirelessly for intersectional feminism. Shes famous for writing that the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.In other words, breaking down harmful gender dynamics without also acknowledging racism and homophobia is ineffective. That idea is a key part of intersectional feminism.7. Frederick DouglassYes, there is a man on this list You probably know Frederick Douglass as one of the most well-spoken abolitionists to argue for the freedom of enslaved blacks in the United States, but he also believed strongly in womens rights.Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland around 1818. In 1838, he escaped and made his way to New York city. Douglass became a preacher who both wrote and spoke about the equality of all people, including men, women, blacks, whites, and Native Americans. Hes famous for writing an autobiography that portrayed the injustices of slavery.Thats not all, though. Douglass believed that freedom for slaves was linked to freedom for women. He befriended many ear ly suffragettes, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and was the only black man present at the Seneca Falls Convention. While there, he spoke passionately about why men and women of all races should be permitted to vote.If women were denied the right to vote, Douglass argued, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.Though Douglass and Stanton later had a political falling-out, Douglass remained in favor of equal rights for all for the rest of his life.8. Gloria AnzaldaLike many others on this list, Gloria Anzalda was a poet who used language to assert the worth of her identity. She identified as Chicana (that is, Mexican-American) and queer, and her famous collection of poetry and prose, Borderlands, contains Anzaldus opinions about the boundaries (both hidden and seen) between groups of people.Anzalda was born on the Texas side of the Mexican-American border in 1942 and died in 2004. She became a teacher and feminist lecturer once she graduated college, and she edited This Bridge Called My Back (which featured work by Chrystos, also on this list) alongside Cherre Moraga.In her poem To Live in the Borderlands, Anzalda wrote,To live in the Borderlands meansthe mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred offyour olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heartpound you pinch you roll you outsmelling like white bread but deadTo survive the Borderlandsyou must live sin fronterasbe a crossroads.Anzalda believed that identity was fluid, that many identities could exist within the same person at once, and that each identity was equally valid. That makes her a great example of an intersectional feminist.Throughout the history of feminism and all its many movements to fight social inequality in the patriarchy we live in, there have been feminist theorists fighting for gender equality and against gendered politics . But feminism is more than about inequality of the genders. Its not just fighting gendered issues in the patriarchy we live in, but its fighting the many ways women face sexism and racism and other forms of discrimination in daily life. Theorists have come to define feminism as meaning equality for all voices the voices of women with both physical disabilities and mental disabilities, women in the LGBTQ community, women of color and all women regardless of race and class, age and sexuality.--Elizabeth Ballou is a content marketer atClutch, a research, ratings, and reviews company in Washington, D.C. She writes about digital marketing. She also writes for The Manifest. When shes not working, shes listening to too many podcasts and reviewing theater and video games for various media outlets.