On CAREER Solutions: Next Chapter New Life we hosted Terry Starr and Bradi Nathan, who co-founded an online community called My Work Butterfly. As two savvy former media mavens, they knew the place to start was with a survey of women nation-wide to further understand the issues faced by returning to work mothers and working mothers. Born out of their own working mother experiences and what they learned from this step created My Work Butterfly. More than social networking, it has resources dedicated to support this group of multitaskers ranging from 10,000 job postings to a psychotherapist. The thing that anyone standing outside this group looking in should notice, is how avidly this demographic supports each other through networking. Now, this is what networking should be. These women are facing down some major challenges and who do they turn to for help? Each other.
If you think about the last time you went to a party, these women tend to find each other in a New York minute. They quickly lay out their situation with kids, family and work which leads to copious amounts of resource and advice sharing. We’re so nervous about networking, especially if looking for a job and yet this group has it down to an art form. It’s time to follow around your favorite working mother to listen and learn. There are loads of questions and laying out problems followed by sharing of personal experiences or sharing names of people they think can help. In other words, networking at its best is finding the common ground and then sharing anything you think can help that other person. You will be paid back in full if not then, at some point. It is sharing and helping.
As these two gals said, while this is a community it appears to be rapidly becoming a movement. This community and all of the support it provides to working mothers has put together the best networkers in the world, whose skill sets include organizational capabilities and the ability to multitask. That is a powerful combination. You’re going to sit back and smile someday in the future when this movement is imprinting itself on the social fabric of the work place.
