The Hermit in Conference Season
The Hermit—turning inward for internal wisdom; take time for introspection and listening to your own inner voice
Updates from the Captain’s (b)Log
reflections on doing meaningful work with a rogueishly piratical refusal to accept the status quo
The Hermit is a good tarot card reminder to myself at the middle point of a busy fall season of professional conferences. As a lifelong extrovert who is steadily needing more introvert quiet time to balance things as I get older, conferences are a bit of a tricky spot for me. I’ve worked steadily and consciously to move away from being as driven by FOMO. Instead I try to remind myself of this:
Whichever experiences I have are the experiences that make up my life. Other experiences are fine, but they’re not mine. Which is also fine.
Conferences can be where that gets tricky, both professionally and socially.
Since I started working for myself, the temptation is always there to do just that little bit more networking or chatting. To put myself out there just that little bit more. To join that one more dinner or drinks invitation. All in hopes that the next person I talk to will be the one who’ll lead to a new (paying) project.
To be honest, even writing that out is making me feel an itchy little flush of vicarious anxiety.
That’s not how I want to spend my time or how I want to think of my connections with colleagues.
Sure, attending conferences is more about gaining prospective business opportunities now that I’m a consultant than when I worked in-house, but it’s not the only thing I gain from them.
I love knowing who’s doing interesting things in museums (most of the conferences I attend are museum related). I love catching up with friends I haven’t seen since last year’s conference. I love seeing how projects and careers develop over the years as I return to the same gatherings over and over. I love exploring cities I wouldn’t necessarily have visited before and seeing what oddball museums are there to find.
That means I don’t want to be constantly keeping my “business networking” filter on all the time.
If you’re a human design fan (of which I am a very casual one), I’m a splenic projector—it sounds like I’ll spray white blood cells all over you or something, but I promise I won’t. It means I’m a strategic, intuitive guide who can see connections in things around me that others often miss (that’s the projector part), and that I have to know when to be quiet and listen to my inner voice to hear the intuitive click of ideas coming together (that’s the splenic authority bit).
All of that is very on point for me. And very in line with The Hermit as the tarot card I drew to prompt this post.
So, I’m taking these reminders to heart for myself (and they help you, too), as I continue on through the rest of the conference season ahead of me.
Listen to my body’s requests for water/food/sleep/quiet & give my brain a break
It’s OK to skip the noisy drinks reception for a more intimate conversation with one or two people
Trust that the conversations I’m having and the relationships I’m fostering are filling my cup, whether or not they lead directly to paying business
Remember that business connections sometimes come from mysterious and random places, not intentional networking
After all, the splenic projector’s recommended strategy is to wait for a clear invitation before devoting full energy to something new. That’s a tough one for me to remember—hello from this Type A productive eldest daughter—but often a good curb on my tendency to throw everything behind a new venture that’s entirely unproven.
Dispatches from the Helm
a recent concrete highlight from my work that can hopefully help you in yours
In the rearview mirror now is the Managing With Care workshop I co-led with my SEED Trio fellows, Rebecca Shulman and David Bowles.
It was a day for mid-level managers in cultural organizations to collaboratively explore what compassionate, effective management can look like. Throughout the day, we encouraged them to build and define their own Management Credo, a unique statement of their management beliefs to guide their actions.
If you manage people and want to try writing your own, here are the guidelines we gave:
Your approach to management (what you do and why you do it)
Concrete enough to guide your decisions and actions
Succinct (aim for less than 100 words)
Specific to you. If someone who knew you were given anonymous management credos, they’d ideally be able to match yours to you.
We’ve got a fun way of doing this that uses artwork as a prompt, which several people mentioned they found easier than developing their credos out of thin air. So, sure, if you want to try this yourself, go for it. Or, if you want to hire the SEED Trio to run an internal management day for your team, we can make it “multi-sensory”, “dynamic”, “thought-provoking”, and “a perfect blend of theoretical background knowledge and practical application without the ‘practice-on-the-spot-and-let-me-critique-you’ approach” (all descriptions from participants’ evaluations of this workshop).
It was nice to hear from folks that the whole day worked well for them. I’ll leave you with this one from among the group:
Professional development can sometimes feel intimidating for me, and I tend to shrink back and observe, but the tone of this workshop was welcoming and felt approachable from the moment I walked in. I felt my contributions to discussions—really everyone’s contributions were validated and woven together to create meaning/value for all participants.
Flotsam & Jetsam
one random bit of fun (could be pics of Lila the dog, a recent podcast fun fact, a bit from one of my many strange areas of nerdy interest, or something else)
After letting my previous hair color and bleach grow out, I’ve finally got new color, inspired by autumnal sunset vibes.
It brings me ongoing joy to play with my hair color like this, and new looks always come with a moniker. I’ve had Mermaid Hair, Unicorn Hair, Sea Witch Hair, Nebula Hair, Rainbow Brite Hair, and more.
Small Treasures
a resource recommendation or creative prompt for you
I made you something fun that’s my meta level resource rec this month. As some of you may know, I love card decks for the introduction of some randomness and intuition to move people along a process. That’s led to me collecting quite a few over the years, and I’ve now put them together into one Card Catalog that’s shareable with you.
Enjoy perusing the physical and digital goodies over there. I’ll keep adding to it as I get more decks.
Peer Pitch
space to recommend someone else’s thing—maybe yours
No one submitted anything to me this month, but you can submit one for the November issue.
On the Horizon
something coming up next for me that I’m excited to share with you
2 conferences down, 2 to go. Here’s where I’ll be before I send you my next monthly missive.
MCN (the Museum Computer Network) in Seattle, WA (Oct 21–23):
pulling tarot cards and offering Uncertainty Oracle advice if you find me
NEMA (the New England Museum Association) in Mystic, CT (Nov 4–6):
presenting Ride the Waves of Uncertainty Without Losing Yourself on Nov 5 (3:45-5:15pm)
pulling tarot cards and offering Uncertainty Oracle advice if you find me
I write these updates using Ellipsus, an online platform for collaborative writing. They’ve got a feature that lets you share the revision history of your writing, so here’s this issue’s documentation of my non-AI writing process.
