- Welcome to the Knowledgette webinar on Leveraging Professional Societies. I didn't initially plan on incorporating professional societies into my overall career plan, but I quickly learned the value of participating in them and I'd like to share some of those key aspects with you today. One key factor I realized early on was the value of active participation in terms of job security. It's impossible to predict what the oil price will be. It is a cyclical industry. Predicting the timing of oil price crashes is difficult. Huge companies can get merged out of existence. What your true job security is is it's your network and professional societies are amongst the best ways of building a strong personal network. You get to demonstrate your capabilities to others outside your employer, so if you're working side by side with fellow volunteers and they see what your capabilities are doing, you have people who can vouch very strongly for you. Your friendships with them mean that often they will share important leads or help you get hired by their employer, at the same time, enhancing your job security with your current employer and your chances of getting hired with a new employer. You're developing new skills and strengthening your resume. Professional societies give you a chance to develop leadership skills. You get practice giving presentations and opportunities to write publications. And along the way, it's great fun. You get to make strong friendships with fellow volunteers and leaders in the industry. We have many choices of member societies. I didn't initially pick getting involved in SPE, which is one of the largest, but I was volunteered for one of the committees. What you find is even though it says Society of Petroleum Engineers, many of societies like Society of Petroleum Engineers welcome people whose training is in a wide range of disciplines. My initial training was in geophysics, so it was not a society I joined while I was in school, but my first supervisor strongly urged me to join SPE. You also have big discipline societies that handle multiple industries. Examples of those are IEEE, ASME, and also some societies like the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, emphasize that it's exploration of many types, not just in the petroleum industry. There's smaller specialty groups. I've found that the Society of Core Analysts when I realized that papers of interest to me when I was active in core analysis were not getting published by other societies. The Society of Core Analysts is affiliated with the Society of Petrophysicists and Well-Log Analysts. That group also deals with papers that may be too detailed for a broader group, such as SPE, so there are many niches through the spectrum and you may end up, as I was, active in a range of them, but it's a good idea at a certain point to focus on one. For many years, I focused on SPE. There are also groups that focus on women's issues, but they don't restrict membership and participation to just women and welcome men. Examples of these are the Society of Women Engineers and the Association for Women in Science, and while one has science in its name and the other has engineering, both welcome women in STEM disciples, that's science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, in general and do not really differentiate whether you're a scientist or an engineer. I've been involved with both groups. There are also groups, as with the women's groups, they welcome everyone that focus on ethnic and racial concerns. Examples are the National Society of Black Engineers and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. I'd like to point out the differences between member associations and trade associations. Trade associations are organizations of companies. The company gets to pick the representatives. You can get many of the networking advantages there, but if you change companies, you may not at your new company, be the representative there. So the seat at the table goes with the company. Examples of these are the American Petroleum Institute and IPECA, which is a global oil and gas industry association for environmental and social issues. There are many different trade associations and you can do good networking, but as I said, you are not a member, your organization is. Professional societies, in contrast, have individuals as members. Sometimes companies can also be members, but the primary factor is that you as an individual can be a member. Examples include SPE, AAPG, SEG, AGU, GSA, IEEE, AIChe, ASME, and many more. So the rest of this talk is primarily about what you can do within professional societies. In short, don't just join a group and pay your dues. Be active. While you can get a great deal by attending meetings and reading societies' publications, the true value is being active, developing your personal leadership skills and building your network. There are many ways to get involved, and in this, it's follow what you're good at and what you enjoy doing. Some people love working with people, your natural salesman. For them, the local group where they get together face to face on a regular basis can be the best thing. Local groups are always looking for new volunteers and good places to get involved may be volunteering for the Young Professionals group, for program chair, treasurer, to organize an event. Local groups can have many events and what it takes are people who are willing to do the work to do the organization. There are lunch and dinner groups, golf tournaments, fundraising activities. So there are countless ways to get involved on the local level, and local members can then move up to the international or national level by being representatives for their region. On the national or international scale, there are also standing committees, which is how I first got involved in SPE, conference organization committees and their publications, and I've been involved in all of these. One key advantage of publications for those who have limited mobility, in downturns getting permission to travel can be difficult, but you can do publications from your home at the time that works for you. Another key aspect about publications is if you're interested in publishing your own work, you get to understand the system much better. And when you understand a system, you can make it work for you. A key thing is understanding what reviewers are saying when you get the criticisms back on your own paper. People often don't recognize that they can create a dialogue that they have to address the issues that they've been asked, but they're not being asked to redo the research entirely. So in being involved in the system, you enhance your ability to get your own publications and/or your abstracts for meetings accepted because you understand how the system works. Over time, volunteering becomes a way of life. You develop an amazing network of good friends and you get to know the other leaders in the industry, not just in your own age group, but the older ones as well and those people can be fabulous mentors for you. You develop the ability to get things done. You know how to initiate new projects within the system and programs of interest to you. You can recruit your fellow active volunteers as powerful allies. Another factor is you gain recognition. As a friend of mine said when I was thanking her for nominating me for SPE honorary membership, she said, "People who win awards get them "because someone has nominated them. "You have many people who might deserve an award, "but if they're not nominated, they don't get them." So since then, I've been very active in nominating others, but awards are wonderful credentials, as are various high status titled positions within these organizations. So they're great resume builders. And another sidelight there is that the annual meetings become wonderful reunions with old friends. As I started this, job security is a very important motivator for being active. As I've personally found out, you can get another job even when oil prices are low. I did so even though I could've stayed on with my previous employer, but I wanted to do something different and I got a fabulous opportunity at a time when oil prices where at a bottom. The best jobs are never advertised. People get them by networking. Your friends may have information on who's hiring. They may be able to persuade their own employer to hire you even if there isn't an open position, and you can get recommendations from people who know your work abilities from outside your organization. So in short, volunteer to have a more successful, rewarding, and enjoyable career. Thank you.