I enjoyed our lunch-time meet up last week sooo much.  It gave me exactly what I wanted / needed:

- stimulating conversation
- a laugh
- contact with the wider world
- reassurance
- food for thought (and a nice halloumi salad for my tummy)

 I remember talking to a woman who had tried to start a similar group a few years ago and she said they quite quickly ran out of things to talk about.  That just doesn't seem to happen with CWIC.  Perhaps it is because we come from multi-disciplines. Perhaps it's because we only meet once a month and there are different people there every time.

It also surprises me how readily we talk about 'women's issues'.  In my experience these are 'risky' topics in general company and with people you don't know.  A bit like talking about politics or religion.  We heard about an engineering firm and a contractor who both run programmes to improve awareness and support around gender issues (I wonder if there are architecture firms that do this).  We talked about unconscious actions on all sides - how women nod in conversation to show they are listening and encourage the speaker, how men nod to say they've got it, now move on.  We noticed how, although we all made a point of shaking hands with men at a meeting, we hadn't shaken hands with each other (bar one).  So then we did shake hands with each other and we realised it gave us a chance for eye contact and to give our name and to hear the other person's name and I, for one, resolved to make sure I do this more often.

 

It strikes me that women are aware that they communicate differently and struggle for ways into a conversation with a group of men.  Out of work and in a balanced gender group the conversation topics can be more varied.  But, just as I have found myself talking about hairdryers and 'not having enough time to exercise' with women, so men can bond over formula 1 and whichever current sports tournament is on. There's a really interesting summary on male/female conversation styles here.

England's Natasha Hunt (scrum half) in last year's Rugby World Cup

I remember consciously deciding whether to join the pre-meeting rugby banter  once.  These were my options:

1. try and join in:" no I didn't watch France, Ireland but I did see them play Italy and I thought their line-out's were scrappy and Italy should've won"
possible outcomes - shocked silence, competitive probing questions which reveal I'm really just repeating what my Dad said, being thought 'laddish', being brought into the conversation and settling down to the meeting

2. join in with self-depreciation, "oh I don't know anything about rugby, it's not my thing" maybe risk a joke about funny shaped balls
possible outcomes - shocked silence, condescending reassurance, being brought into the conversation and settling down to the meeting

3. silent paper shuffling, writing the date in my notebook and drawing a pointless margin
possible outcome -  nobody notices,  others find you aloof, someone starts a one to one conversation, everyone settles down to the meeting.

Sadly, despite being a quite rugby fan I don't know much about women's rugby and didn't feel like challenging the majority so on that occasion I went for option 3.






 

SMART NETWORKING

One of the exciting things about the emerging group of Cambridge Women in Construction is the potential connections between us.  These may be future working relationships, shared professional interests, friendships or specialist contacts.

We are probably all aware how useful it is to network with others in our industry but actually doing it is another matter.  There is no getting away from the fact that women are in the minority at a construction event.  Some events are even geared around traditional male interests such as rugby.  How do you start a conversation?  How can you make sure you are making useful contacts and your card won't go straight in the bin?

How often do you come out wondering why you bothered?

picture by Richard-G reproduced under creative commons license

There has been a good response on the CWiC survey to both informal gatherings and networking events so I'm planning a second get-together for June.  In the meantime I have provisionally organised a Smart Networking Workshop so we can learn how to make the most of these and any other meet-ups we attend.

The workshop is scheduled for Tuesday 15th May, at 6.00pm to 8.00pm.

It will be in Cambridge and

places will cost £22.

I need at least 15 people to make it viable so could you please email me at cwic.contact@gmail.com to let me know whether you are interested?  There's more info on the workshop below...

The overall aim of the workshop is to provide tools to delegates which will enable them to attract more business. It is an important part of the marketing mix needed in order to be 'fishing' rather than 'hunting' and to concentrate on a client base by niching as a marketing strategy as well as know where to find them.

-Understanding how, why, when and where to tap into your business networks,

-Feel More confident face to face and using social media,

-Learn how to Smart Network by prioritising, niching and targetting,

-Learn how to confidently work the room,

-Develop a winning elevator pitch,

-Learn how to give compelling presentations and love doing them!

-Adding Social Media to Your networking mix: Twitter, Facebook business page, LinkedIn, Blogging

-Attract people to your business using a marketing mix

-Complementary E-book 'Understanding Social Media' is included on completion of attendance.

-Nadia Cenci is an experienced confidence and performance coach and will be using Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) throughout her session on face to face networking as well as showing you how to prioritise your networking time.

Originally delivered through Business Link, with excellent feedback, Nadia continues to offer this to all businesses in the East Of England as well as in-house if companies prefer that option.

 This workshop has been designed for small to medium businesses to gain more customers and to enjoy effective networking.