Professional organizations offer opportunity to connect in a casual manner and build lasting relationships. Opportunities to learn and network abound. Currently, I belong to the Alliance for Women in Media (AWM) and Advertising Women of New York (AWNY) which celebrates it’s 100 anniversary this year (2012). Funny, my other membership is also 100 this year: Girl Scouts.
In May, I was the featured member on the Alliance New York Chapter homepage. Here is my guest post:
I cheered when Women in Radio and Television changed its name to Alliance for Women in Media. I had spent my career as a woman in radio first (as a News Production Assistant at WINS) and then moved into television both on air and behind the scenes in New York, Providence and Melbourne, Australia. As media shifted so did my career, and I found myself producing and reporting Internet video for Forbes.com and being a part of a global web editorial management team. We had studios, editors, camera people, and journalists as part of a larger digital print-focused news organization. We had audio podcasts. It was radio and TV, just for a smaller screen. I was no longer a woman in radio and television. I was a woman in media, no longer limited to broadcasting.
After Forbes, I joined the Bonnier publishing company as Director of Digital Media for Working Mother Media, taking with me my passion for the advancement of women, and supporting them in the demands of working and raising a family. Focusing on women’s stories, service articles, social media outreach, blogs and bloggers, we created an ecosystem of support and value. And now, onto my next move, where I am working with content-driven online and mobile-based companies to create engaging strategies including text-video-multimedia all tied to sharing via social media tools. (helenjonsen.com)
Never before has the media touched us so personally. We carry it with us in our smart phones. We listen and watch wherever we want, whenever we want and that changes how we as providers of content and advertising proceed. It is such an exciting time to be in this business.
Just as my kaleidoscope career changed through the prism of different platforms, cities and countries, the Alliance changes, too. A diverse group of members both in New York and on the national level brings ideas, networking, learning and warm camaraderie in an industry that can be highly competitive. By meeting other women in many different functions, from sales to editorial, from radio to the big Internet portals, we can stay up to date with how media as a business functions and stay in front of the changes on the horizon. That diversity of knowledge energizes me.
Both the March panel discussion on “Your Digital IQ” (my post on that event here) and in the 2011 Alliance for Media Foundation symposium on “Media Branding to Women” offered insight into how deep and wide social media has become part of our work and our personal lives. Both were deep dives even for those of us already immersed in it.
I enjoy being at AWM events, for the intelligent panels and programming, and for the peer-to-peer networking. My other joy is meeting our student intern guests or mid-career women who are new moms trying to figure out how they will manage careers in such a demanding business. Informal mentoring in these settings is wonderful. We all have so much to share and learn. AWM gives us the opportunity to do just that.
For more on the AWM click here. or tweet at @allwomeninmedia
