 Are we ready? Let's do this. Let's go. Welcome to the Educause Rising Voices podcast where we amplify the voices of young professionals in higher education. I'm Wes Johnson from UC Berkeley and I'm joined by and I'm Sarah Buska from Stanford University. And we're part of the Educause Young Professionals Advisory Committee, aka YPAC. We are in here and we'll be your co-host for this show. We're looking forward to hosting everybody. Sarah, how are you doing? I am doing fantastic today, Wes. We are recording our first podcast episode, our first one. We've been talking about this as a YPAC for a long time and the YPAC has been around since 2016, although I don't remember talking about it back then, but we're here. We made it and it is a Friday afternoon and here we are. Beautiful Friday out this way. So I guess before we get too far, maybe we should tell them a little bit about what YPAC is and then head into the topic. So would you like to do the honors? You're our fearless leader for the YPAC committee. I figured you'd be the best to do it. Thank you, Wes. Happy to. So for folks who may know and may not know, the YPAC or Young Professionals Advisory Committee was founded in 2016. I became aware of it around 2017 actually at one of the EDUCAUS annual conferences in Philly and have kind of been involved ever since, but more formally have been serving as the chair of the Young Professionals Advisory Committee for the past two years. YPAC's purpose is the refold to advise association leadership to serve the young professional community and to cultivate and grow our community overall. What a great mission it is. I'm proud to be a part of the group. Speaking of members of the group, we do have a guest here. Maddie, would you like to introduce yourself? Hello everyone. I'm Maddie Rankin and I'm an instructional technologist at McHenry University and this is my second year in YPAC and I'm happy to be here. We're happy to have you too. Do we want to jump right into the topic, y'all? Sure. Let's do it. So first up, we thought we started a little fun. So I'm going to ask the whole group and I'm not going to go first. I want to hear y'all's answers. There, what's your superpower? What is my superpower? I, oh man, you know, I feel like we all have a lot of superpowers, but I think lately my superpower has been just reminding myself of the conviction I have in myself and my abilities to remain calm, to always be collaborative, and to, you know, think of the bigger picture. And to be very organized. I really pride myself in how organized I am. It's a real, someone actually told me it's my love language organization and I really take that as a compliment. That's awesome. So, Wes, what is your superpower? So my superpower, so I'm super into like superhero stuff. So I'm just going to tell you all that out right out front. Batman is my favorite. So I like to believe that I don't have a single superpower. I'm just a regular human that's just really good at doing a lot of different things. I know that's a little prideful to say with Batman's my guy. So I'm going to go with the Batman answer. There is no one superpower on the conversation of many different things coming together that's good enough to get the job done. Go off, Wes. You own your truth. There you go. There you go. I don't own it. What about you, Maddie? We got Batman. We got super organized. What about you? What is my superpower? I would say probably empathy and it does serve in my job role. Actually, I can understand, especially instructors, situations on like a basic level. I kind of use that as a frame of reference during my interactions with them. For instance, the other day, I was talking to an instructor in nursing and she was just having a heck of a time with setting up this Zoom meeting board class and she was like so frustrated with having to add all of the class members into this Zoom meeting mass participants. And I said, you know what? It's beginning this semester. You're going through it. I'm sure you have several classes. Let's find an alternative solution here and make your day a little easier. So I suggested that we use a team's course connector, which is an integration that my department set up a few years ago. And that just went so well for her. So understanding how much she has going on and stuff. I feel like that's one of my superpowers, I'd say. That's a great one. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. I found that empathy can be a very disarming way of handling some hard situations too. Sometimes someone's very frustrated and just saying you understand to go a long way and change in the whole conversation for sure. It really can. And I also wanted to just give Maddie a shout out because another super power of hers, I think that she has, is bravery because she attended the annual conference last year. And I think this is probably a good segue into our topic, but it was Maddie's first annual conference that she attended last year. And I think we all know as part of this Edukov community that attending that annual conference, the first time, any time, it can be overwhelming, right? There's thousands of people there. There's vendors. There's people talking about all these things, things going on. You're probably in a city or place you've never been with people you've never met. And it can just feel really confusing to navigate. But Maddie did it with so much bravery and so much grace last year. It was so impressive just to see her get out and network. And that's the big reason why we've invited her to join us on the podcast today to talk about networking and how do you do it? And I think, well, maybe I'll pause there and ask Maddie if you have anything you want to add because I'm saying that you were brave, but I'm curious how you felt. Like, were you freaking out when you came? Because you didn't look like it. Oh, I was absolutely terrified on the inside. I mean, shoot, I was traveling by myself from my school to a state I had never been to, Colorado, a city I've never been to, Denver, and this conference full of people who are, you know, super high in the positions and people starting out just all sorts of different people. I didn't even personally know. Much less getting out of the airport alone was a struggle and a half because there's a whole shuttle and everything involved. So it was a lot. But it was quite an experience, quite a learning experience and totally worth it. I remember my first conference experience as well. And it was very similar in that it was just a lot to travel for the first time to a new place. So I commend your bravery because I went and after the first day, I kind of took a break after my first walk in. The next day I just ate in my hotel for a day. Wasn't quite sure what to do with myself 10 years ago. So that's all right. I totally understand. Honestly, it was WIPAC, not holding me together, but like also holding me together because I had the young professionals hub available to me. And it was a nice place to congregate with my peers, my people I talk to almost every day here in this group. It was nice to see everyone in person and be able to connect and have kind of a home hub to hang around with between sessions. So that was super nice to have. And I would say, even if you're not in WIPAC, it's a nice place to congregate with other young professionals. I even met some people through that hub that I connected with online. That's awesome. Thanks for just indulging me diving right in. But when I think of you, I just think of bravery. Of course, yeah. I mean, and this was your fresh out of college shape from undergrads. So this really is like whiplash almost too because you went through the last years of school through the pandemic. So to go from being so isolated in the pandemic to go into this massive conference that feels overwhelming even for seasoned people like me and Wes and other folks on the WIPAC, it still feels overwhelming. I think any of us would be lying if we said it didn't. I remember last year running between venues to try to get to all my things that I had going on and regretting that I overbooked myself because I always underestimate just how crazy it gets. Yeah. But yeah. But my first experience at the annual conference was actually in Philadelphia. And that's fun fact how I met one of my best friends was at Philly at a young professional's constituent group meeting in 2017. And I remember being just terrified to walk into this space because I didn't really see a lot of people who looked like me who looked, you know, like they were maybe in their 20s. And apparently there's this young professional's meetup happening and it was on the schedule. And it was like one of the last slots in the day at like three or four p.m. You know, I'm like, I don't know how many people are going to show up, but here I go showing up anyway. And I walk in and I see this kind of long row of chairs kind of in the middle of the room in the back, completely empty and just one woman was sitting there. And I was like, you know, I'm just, she looks nice. I'm going to walk up to her sit next to somebody because I've been alone for most of this conference. And I sat next to her and we just immediately hit off and started talking. And we're still really close to the same fact I was just talking to her earlier today, we're talking about how we're both going to be at the annual conference again this year, sharing our dates, when we're going to meet up, how we're going to spend time together. And there's just like something so wonderful and magical about this conference. If you do the networking, right? And I'm just curious, you know, to hear from you two, like, how have you done the networking right at the conference? Or is there a right way to do networking? What are your thoughts? Well, I don't know if there is a right way. There's multiple ways to go about it. I think, personally, the more natural, the better. The more authentic it feels. I was honestly on a train ride, I think, back to the airport. And I saw a man wearing one of the name tags for the conference. And I just struck up a conversation naturally, like, Oh, man, when is this train going to take off? Oh, by the way, I see your EDUCAUSE name tag. Did you go to the conference? And he said, yeah, he was more in the cybersecurity side. And we just started talking. And eventually, I even, like, shared my contact information, just in case, you know, wanted to come first after that. I think the more natural, the better. For sure. Yeah. Even if it's, you know, someone sitting next to you, waiting for a session to begin, you can, you can make it not weird, you know, you can be like, Hey, how's it going? I'm from this school. Like, it doesn't have to be, you know, like unnatural and awkward. Yeah, I totally agree to add to that. First, the name tag is a solid strategy. I've used that a couple of times. You see the EDUCAUSE tag. And there's instantly at least one thing you got in common, right? You're going to the conference. So that's been a solid one. I found that the most successful I've had at the EDUCAUSE conference was the last year's one. So the different one was my second one. I went to one very early in my career. And 10 years later, I came back. And the difference between that first one and the second one is I actually had prioritized just networking in general ahead of the conference. So there was a lot of connections I started to make before I got there with folks who were a little bit more involved in me as part of the reason why I joined YPAC as well. I also signed up for my first panel. And what that did is it kind of created these opportunities where I was forced to interact with individuals. And so there were people that I met. And then after hanging out with them at EDUCAUSE, I would meet five other people who happened to be in the same group. I made a lot of assumptions that we were in the same panel, that we were facing some of the same issues that I would sometimes throw some of my questions at folks in the audience that were with me. That led to some connections. And then just doing my first panel myself, sticking around at the end to actually allow folks to ask questions. I'm living a long way. I made some folks I still talk to today. We made some true friendships through that process. And I'm very excited about now that I've actually joined YPAC, I joined this year. I'm excited about connecting more with this group and then expanding out from there. So I will say a lot of it helped me was doing some work ahead of the conference knowing that I was going to the conference with networking as one of my top priorities. I didn't want to just show up and learn the technology. I wanted to meet people. And so I had to invest some time ahead of it because I just wasn't as good as striking up a conversation off the name tag alone. Some of them were dead so I had to do a little rough. It's a bold strategy, I'll say. Yeah, a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see how it plays out. You're right. Only millennials will get that joke, I think. But you know, if you do get it to our listeners, well, you're smart. We see why you're here. I'm curious for the group then. So we all seem to recognize that networking is an important thing to do as an important part of the career. I can tell you early on, I heard networking, networking, networking from my higher ups but never got anything beyond that. So I'm curious from y'all, why should a young professional care to network? Why not just show up to the conference, get the information I need to do my job and go back home? What's the wind here? I think it serves a couple of purposes. One, again, you can meet different people that you've never met before and make some solid friendships and relationships there. And two, we can also learn from those relationships. Maybe they know of tools you've never heard of. I've even made a connection at the conference last year with another instructional designer at a different school and she introduced me to more Microsoft products I had not heard of and some other options for training and such. So I think it can serve several purposes for sure. I agree completely with what Maddie said and to add another layer on it. I think many of us have heard growing up or from parents or from other employers or just around the whole, it's not what you know, it's who you know phrase. And I think, you know, as a young professional, especially when I've kind of heard that, especially when I was an undergrad, I didn't fully understand it because, you know, when you're in school and undergrad, you're so focused on your studies and what you know that the who you know piece seems almost irrelevant or like something that's so far off in the distance in the future somewhere that it's a future you problem. And I think when I reflect on even my undergraduate career granted this was a long time ago. But I really wish I would have been more intentional about keeping up with more of my professors, although I actually still do keep up with one of my Russian professors, which that's a beautiful relationship. But I wish I would have done more. I think there would have been a lot more opportunities and I realized it when I was in my super senior year of undergrad. And, you know, graduation was coming upon me and I realized, oh my gosh, I have to find a job and everyone in my class is looking for a job at the same time with the same skill. How do I, you know, differentiate myself? What gives me that that leg up or what gets me in the room or what gets my, you know, application to the next round quicker. And you know, there's things like internal referrals, right? You have to know someone to refer you. And that's what where I think, you know, networking is just simply necessary. And a lot of folks kind of have like that, you know, like knee jerk reaction to it, especially for shy since, you know, in technology, stereotypically, I think many of us are. But I think, you know, we have to do it. It's some people, I think, call it, you know, the necessary evil. I frankly love it. I love people. I love talking. That's why I'm here on this podcast. But it's also overwhelming and daunting. But I think it's a true skill for young professionals and anyone to learn how to network. And for me, what I've realized is I've had to learn who I am and what my preferences are and how I like to engage and where I'm comfortable and then find places to make sure that I can, you know, maximize that. And also but learning to be a little bit dexterous with that too, because you have to be comfortable maybe striking up a conversation off of a name tag, and you also have to be comfortable with reaching out to people in advance. And you have to find ways to create those opportunities as well. And a shameless plug, YPAC is a great place to do that, right? We have our own community here about 15 members on the YPAC where we can connect and network amongst ourselves and offer that. So I guess another shameless, one more shameless plug and I'll stop here is edge of cause volunteering. I think that's a great way to build your network in a safe space where you can really contribute, you know, your superpowers, your scale of things that you know in a community where you feel comfortable. Yeah, totally agree. And just knowing that you're going to be involved with something volunteering, YPAC, whatever it is, it just makes it a little bit easier to connect because you have folks who intentionally come together to do something at edge of cause. It just opens a lot of doors for that. I totally, totally agree. It makes me think about and then we can move on. It makes me think about, you know, I'm going to do a lot of comparisons to music on this thing because I'm a music artist. And one of the most awkward things with networking and music because it's so literal and in your face, is you always want to do trade shows. So you're purposely meeting with other artists, regardless if y'all have an organic connection or not, but it's to get the show in the city that you're not from because, you know, they got to draw there and they want to connect with you to get a draw in your city. And there is this, at least for me personally, this kind of awkward human element of just thinking of connections in that way. So sometimes when I, in the past heard leadership say networking, networking, networking is not what you know is who you know, it makes it sound very transactional. I got supposed to come in and have something to give to the network of this person to take something back. And so I know for some, it can be a little awkward to, when you hear it that way, you may think of networking in a more negative, transactional life. That's not what it is. There is an organic piece too, but there is a benefit to connecting with others. What I just wanted to speak to you that that's been my experience before in the past. I love that. I love that you connected that to music too. And because the music is so important to you too. And I love that you've made it, you know, made it work for you, made it framed it in a way that makes sense to you. I think that's like the challenge for all of us, right? Is how do we, how do we, you know, be comfortable with it? How do we make it work for us in the best way that feels the most authentic? I think also piggybacking on that, Sarah, that's well said as well. Sharing interests and hobbies with other people is another great way to connect, such as I also am interested in music. So I can network even more with Wes, offline here, and you're like, Hey, what kind of music do you listen to or produce stuff like that? Like make it more natural. So it's, it's a more authentic connection there. That's, that's really what it comes down to, I think. Maddie, Wes album of the year upcoming. You heard it first. You heard it here, everyone. Love that. I guess we can jump to our, our next question if we're all, if we're all right. So tips on how to start building your professional network. So I don't know where to start. I'm just gonna start at your cause. We definitely can go back down that of the explain how that's beneficial to you or any things additional or other specific things we could do within the context of the conference in between this conference and the next conference to build the network. Yeah, I think at the bare bones, definitely have a LinkedIn profile. That's one of the best ways to build your online presence. It's a great way to connect with other people. It's basically like Facebook for professionals. Another way, I mean, besides educause, I mean, definitely have an educause profile, et cetera. I find that attending community group events is a great way to build my network as well. I take note of any conversations I have and zoom meetings with people and try to connect with them on LinkedIn as well. I think finding other listservs and other groups online on other websites that are related to your profession also is a great contribution. Those are great. Wes, do you have any? Yeah, I'm trying to think. I just started networking all like last year. So I'm trying to get it together. I get it. I get it. I think that's such a relatable answer, though, because sometimes it ebbs and flows. I mean, how I networked before the pandemic changed vastly from when the pandemic was in full swing into now as we're kind of coming out on the tail end. But I will say I have done more networking in my career during the pandemic than I think I ever did before. And that's because things just became borderless, right? I mean, all of us were at home, so all of us were online. Folks who had access to being online at least. And I found that to be so kind of relieving. I felt like, okay, I have access to everyone now. It felt like such an equalizer. I sent so many cold call emails during the pandemic. And I got responses to all of them. I mean, I sent dozens. And actually, I still keep in touch regularly with some of those people. In fact, I just caught up with two of my really close colleagues and women. We do a monthly kind of check-in call. We did that yesterday. And we're still in touch. And I met Carolyn and Sarah just through email introductions that just kind of started proliferating. And what I did is I just would look at actually the EDUCOS website for open positions, look at people who were sending open positions on LinkedIn, and I would read positions that looked interesting to me. And I wanted to learn more about and things that I might aspire to 10, 20 years out. And I just sent these people an email. Most of the higher ed, right? Public accessible information. So I just sent me a few people email and say, hey, your job's going to be fascinating. Would you be willing just to talk to me about it? Two lines. Not overthinking it, not asking them to be my mentor. But everyone responded. But people want to tell you about themselves and what they want to do. And I got so much just rich information. And it was, I truly felt like I was just gathering all of these perspectives and just like a sponge, like soaking up all of these learnings. And I was reaching out to people in Arizona, at Purdue, in California, at North Carolina. That's actually how Kate Hash and I know each other. And she's on the WIPAC. You know, just kind of all this organic stuff that just started happening. And it didn't stop. And I think that's one thing I love about our community so much is we all are here to support each other. And you just reach out. It's kind of incredible, you know, how far that can go and how much support you'll find coming your way. And, you know, I think that's really what my advice would be, I think, is just do something. You know, just don't be afraid to just put yourself out there. You'll find that putting just like even your toe out there can lead to a lot more than you think. That's great advice. I would throw out there to one, one antidote, one little story. So I've got two young children, a seven year old and a 10 year old. And they probably know more about networking than most adults that I know, they seem to be excellent at it. So I'll tell you all stories. I used to live in Georgia, we were at a park. And I just had, you know, they're in, they're probably like five and seven or something like that. So young parent, all my friends don't have kids. I don't have any parent friends right now and COVID's like right around the corner. So I'm looking around the park and trying to find a dad that I can relate with and connect with. I found one that looks like a cold dude, but I'm too shy. And, you know, we don't, he don't want to come to me. I don't want to come to him. So my kid notices, he's like, oh, look, there goes someone. You can go hang out with dad while we go play. I'm playing with his, you know, with my friend, which was his son, apparently. And I was like, oh, no, man, I'm not going to go over there. And within five minutes, my youngest brought the guy over to me and said, my dad wants to talk to you. So we met and became friends. But he just did, which is something I wasn't able to do. But my five year old was quite good at it. I love that. That's amazing. That's honestly the bravery I was thinking about when I mentioned Maddie's bravery earlier. It's just like taking that initial step just to put yourself out there. And I think, you know, the way, if you think about it from the reverse is if you're that person in your case, Wes, that other dad, you don't, it's uncomfortable to not be receptive to it, right? You don't want to see this interaction fail where human beings were wired for social interactions, you know, like, there is mutual desire to have this go well. And that something that helps me kind of frame it well is, okay, I'm putting myself out there. Other humans can recognize that you're putting yourself up there. So then they want it to go well. And at least that initial reaction will probably go well. Will you talk again? Maybe not. But the likelihood of them just turning around, like in this case, the likelihood of that dad just turning around and going the other way was probably low, right? Right. That's a good point. Yeah, I never thought of it in that light. I think about that too when I do public speaking, because I had someone say to me, you know, everyone in this crowd is going to feel so uncomfortable when the speaker is awkward. And they're rooting for you. They want you to do well. They want you to see it so that they can feel comfortable and not watch someone be nervous. You know, like they are your biggest fans, your biggest supporters. And that really helps me just kind of, you know, take off, take off the edge a little like we're all doing today, right? I'm taking off the edge a little. We're recording a podcast. It's our first one, but we know everyone's rooting for us. I think that's your superhero team. Your super power in there, Sarah. What was that, Maddie? I think your super power also is speaking, Sarah. You're such an eloquent speaker and it shows going off of what you said, though, about people rooting for you. I know one of the speakers at the conference last year was having a bit of a coughing fit and someone actually brought her cough drops to help her go on with her speech. And I just thought that was so amazing. And everyone claps during the whole exchange. It was wonderful. It was just like a beautiful glimpse of humanity right there. I love that. Yeah, see, no one wants to see someone fail. It's just not, no one wants to say it's uncomfortable for everyone. That's beautiful. Right. That's a great way of putting it there. No one wants to sit in the crowd and go through that either like on either side of the crowd, right? The stage or the crowd. No one wants to go through that awkward moment. We all wanted to go well. Everyone wanted to be good. Yeah, totally. Yep. I remember my twin sister just do a quick 30-second story. I have a twin sister and she did a TED talk. This was years ago now, but she did a TED talk. It was at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she went to undergrad and she invited me to see, you know, everyone came to see it and she got on stage and I felt so incredibly nervous. I don't know why, maybe it's a twin thing because I was feeling like, as if I was on stage speaking and I was feeling like I just was rooting for her so deeply in my core, but also feeling so nervous in my core. It was one of those experiences where I was holding my breath and I go, I hope she does well and she just knocked it out of the park. She was phenomenal and as she started going, you know, those first 30 seconds, you're like, I don't know, but then she started going and I felt myself like fully relaxed and, you know, totally just celebrate her and feel so proud. But I felt like I was on that roller coaster, you know, in that experience too. And I think most people in audiences feel that. I felt it more intensely, I think, because it was my twin. But yeah, I don't think I've ever felt more nervous for a talk than I did watching her give her a drink. I don't know how that makes sense. Twin empathy right there. Yes, I know. It's crazy. I think I remember that moment so viscerally and so clearly and that's kind of when it hit me like, you know, oh, people feel this way too, sitting in a crowd and on the stage to go both ways. I forget that so much. Yeah, yeah. So we covered, we've covered a lot of really good stuff. I'm going to attempt to summarize what we're getting to the what advice do we want to give folks to network effectively at the annual conference and I want to catch on to some of the tidbits, the nuggets that we've, that you've supplied so far. So I've heard one, be brave. So let's, let's tap into Maddie's superpower. Let's be brave. It's okay to walk up if you see that name tag. They're at your cause, just like you are. They'll talk to them getting involved in at your cause before, during, and after or make it a lot easier for you to connect and just be intentional about the fact that you want to network. Sounds like some things that have come up. Is there anything that y'all want to add or I'm out of this? I think also joining the not speed dating, but, you know, speed networking events they might have available. That's a great way to have more one-on-one conversations and then it's not so intimidating because you're already in that space that that environment to have that sort of a conversation with each other. I think I'll add two more. One shameless plug. Come to the Young Professionals Hub. We are there. We welcome everyone. This is not a hub that's only for young professional people. This is for everyone. It's a space to gather. It's a space to meet people and you are all welcome, our listeners. And finally, initiate. Just initiate a conversation. Introduce yourself. Say hello. That's sometimes the hardest part, but as soon as you just introduce yourself and say hello, you'll strike up a conversation. Absolutely. I think those are great tips. We should, so we'll put a challenge out to all the listeners, anyone who listens, right? You go up and you meet one stranger. Go meet one person at the edge of cause event. If you're there this year, go up, tap them on the shoulder, say, I see you got your name tag. Have a conversation with them. You'll probably be surprised how much you got in common, for sure. Yes, I love that. And then let us know how it went, listeners. Yes, stolen or socials. Yes, you come tell us in the YP hub or box. You can also share any ideas for different topics that you may want to hear on this podcast. We are watching. We are looking forward and we want to hear from y'all because we want to make sure we have items that you want to hear out there in our community. Sure. So I guess we are wrapping up now. Do we want to share that we will be at your cause doing that episode? Sarah, do we want to tell them anything about that? Yes. Thank you, Wes. We will be. So we will be recording a podcast episode live in Chicago in a production studio that one of Ezra Cause's very own and very best will be helping us with recording. So we hope to see you there. It'll be kind of like a fish bowl. So folks walking by can literally look in, watch us wave, say hello, make us laugh and mess up. All of that will be welcome. And we look forward to seeing you all there. And you can follow us on the Ezra Cause platform or wherever you do get your podcasts. And we look forward to seeing you next time. Wes, do you want to close us out? Absolutely first and foremost. Thank you to Maddie for joining us for being brave enough to come on our first episode. We very much appreciate both your knowledge and your time. It's always an honor to work with my co-host Sarah. And until next time, we are the Ezra Cause Rising Voice podcast. We will be back next month to give you more information. Thank you. Thank you.