Personal Learning Networks

 This week’s topic got me thinking about my personal learning networks (PLN) and how I have been in keeping them alive.

When I was undergrad, I did my first 2 years in the Panama Campus and then I transfer to Tallahassee. I remember my first week on campus, I went to an event hosted by the Career Center on how to find summer internships and there was one word repeated during the session: Network, network, network. Pretty much every single professional event you go, this is the number one recommendation. Building networks helps you to find different interests, meet other industries and meet interesting people who might open new doors to you. As an introvert going to networking events was hard, it literally drained all my energy and I remember getting back home and just not want to interact with anybody.

Actual footage of me coming back from networking events

 

In college, I feel it was easy to build networks I had my business fraternity who did different events with companies, there was the Career Center and there was always something going on Campus that call my attention.

As a young professional now, it has been a little bit harder. Once I graduated, I moved to Costa Rica which make it harder to create a network as I was in a new country. My main focus was to find a job as soon as possible, so I did what everybody did: check LinkedIn, check websites where local job postings are published. The first connection I created was with one of my neighbors who offered my first job here as an assistant. I decided to keep looking and finally I got my current job, as a learning planner with a consultant company.

Once I started this position, I think that’s when I started to develop a Personal Learning Network as it is explained by the videos Dr. Bennen shared. I wanted to learn from my peers, I wanted my peers to see me as a resource and I wanted people to recognize my work. In a consultant company mentorship and sponsorship are the main two things, so I knew I needed to make connections to find my mentors and sponsors.

My first connections were my local team, once I received my onboarding I started to interact with the team and see how their operating model and also to learn what drives them, what they do like about their job, if they could change something what it would be. Then, the next step was to learn from the global team. We are currently 60+ colleagues based in North America, Europe and Asia. From the global team, I wanted to connect with the managers and basically ask them what trainings I should take, what will be the best steps to grow in my role. Basically, the first year I was trying to create connections that will help me growing in my role. After I felt very comfortable with my tasks, I could feel that my network was limited because I continue to reach out to the same people.

To try to diversify I joined the Emergency Response Team in my office, but this turn out to be more work than I expected, so I decided to leave it. At this point in my life, I was going through a very stressful situation and the last thing I wanted was to engage in network events (online or in-person), so without growing my network I did feel very stuck, and I felt that I was not learning or progressing at my job.

So, what did I do?

I asked for help. My department has a system that helps you to connect with life coaches and the sessions are completely confidential and this was exactly what I needed it. Being able to talk with someone about my aspirations and I wanted to accomplish during my time at my company helped me to get out of the stuck zone and started to be more proactive.

The coaching sessions happened at the end of last year and when 2021 started I took action by reaching out to people who I knew would help me in my professional career specially as I pursue my career in instructional design. My goal was to meet them and get to know their professional career, but at the same time I wanted to be a contributor. This is how I got involved in 2 projects that are out of my regular job duties, but it has allowed me to be more energized, meet more people outside of my department and be more intentional to reach out to people in LinkedIn.

From my experience, I learned you never stop creating a personal learning network and it is important to learn to pivot and reflect what you would like to accomplish to be more intentional on how to build your network.

Now, I would love to hear from you what is your experience with developing networks? Do you find it exhausting or gives you energy?