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13Mar 2018 by Jennifer Askey No Comments

Giving it Away for Free

A fair amount of my headspace has been occupied lately with how or whether business/entrepreneurial language makes the transition to conversations I have with and about academics and academia. One of these concepts is "giving it away for free." There are marketing gurus out there who talk a lot about the strategy of going ahead and sharing the awesomeness you have (as an entrepreneur or business owner), in the hopes and expectation that your people will find you easier that way and that once they have found you and are paying attention to you, you can sell them more exclusive access to your awesomeness. Because this is a marketing model based on generosity, I find it pretty appealing. It assumes that not all of our interactions--in business or otherwise--are grounded…

21Nov 2017 by Jennifer Askey No Comments

Is there a doctor in the house?

coaching, networking, post-academic

I have an acquaintance who is one amazingly smart woman. She has an interdisciplinary PhD in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience and has all sorts of interesting insights into the world and people. She is married to a physician. One day, when her young daughter was musing that daddy and mommy both had Dr. in front of their names but only daddy worked in a hospital, her father told her: "That's because your daddy solves problems, dear. Your mother just thinks about them." He said this with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, but it zings because so many of us academics know the discomfort of not being (publicly) recognized for our expertise. As someone new to the coaching profession, I've had to do a lot of thinking…

03Nov 2017 by Jennifer Askey No Comments

5 Tips for Taking On #AcWriMo

coaching, creative work, networking, productivity

And since you should be writing anyway . . . here are a few ways to approach a BIG writing push during the month of November. You can make your daily goal about time spent writing, number of words, number of items dealt with (annotations, notes, etc.). Whatever makes sense for your biggest priority project at its current stage is a great goal for #AcWriMo. Daily is HARD but it isn't impossible. As we all know, even fifteen minutes per day will slowly but surely amass enough words to move a project from where it is now to where it needs to be next. Commit to at least one writing session per day during the month and stick to it. You and your physical or virtual writing group can keep…

02Nov 2017 by Jennifer Askey No Comments

Turn Good Intentions into Concrete Action with the Energized Leadership Program

coaching, networking, services

You have goals and aspirations; they're easier to meet when you have a team! Guys, I am so excited about this!! My code-word for October has been "collaboration," because, for me, October was traditionally the Month of All the Conferences. For me, conferences are those spaces you go to not only to share your work but to get super excited about what other people are doing. You find synergy at conferences, or impulses to enhance your research, or reminders of why it is you do the work that you do. The problem is that conferences only last a weekend, at most. Then you go home, back into the classroom and the regular rhythm of the semester and all of your energy to Do All the Things begins to fade. Your…

30Oct 2017 by Jennifer Askey No Comments

Feminist Leadership

book review, creative work, networking

Earlier this year, I co-wrote an article on technology, silo-ing, and the affordances of intersectional feminist leadership with my husband, Dale. The book in which that article appears is now out and if you are an academic leader of any stripe, you should really take a look at it. Feminists Among Us: Resistance and Advocacy in Library Leadership. Eds. Shirley Yew & Baharak Yousefi. Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-63400-027-7 Dale and I decided to join forces and write something that addresses our individual passions in a collective way. His interest in library leadership, mentoring the next generation of leaders and managers in academic libraries, and the persistent cultural divide around "hard" technical skills and "soft" people skills in the library combined with my commitment to teaching and…

20Oct 2017 by Jennifer Askey No Comments

Group Dynamics–Creating Your Academic Network

job market, networking, productivity

There was something magical, for me anyway, about graduate school. I was surrounded by smart, engaged people who were interested in things I was interested in (or at least open to); every week brought new encounters and ideas; every semester required me to step up and deliver something unique and, if I was lucky, compelling. Seminars with my peers guaranteed that I got immediate feedback on half-baked and brilliant ideas. The insights of my peers pushed me to re-orient my own thinking. It felt rigorous AND communal. If you miss that intensity, or the knowledge that you are not working on your projects alone, maybe it's time to re-invigorate your professional network. OR, if you're getting ready to leave the ready-made community of graduate school for the wider world of…