Editor’s note: Today’s post is by Martha Keyes and Rachel Ginder. Martha is the Managing Editor of The Hearing Journal and Emergency Medicine News at Wolters Kluwer. Rachel is Production Manager at Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).
In this post, Martha writes from the point of view of a mentor, and Rachel the mentee.
Mentor
When I was first approached about applying to the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) Mentorship Program to be a mentor, I thought that I was a wholly unsuitable candidate. Who am I to mentor? What knowledge can I possibly impart? How can I positively impact the career of a colleague? It’s true that I have almost two decades of experience in science publishing, and genuinely love my work with editors, reviewers, authors, readers (why do we always leave them off the list?), and colleagues on our scholarly publications. But mentorship? That’s for the Directors, and VPs of the world, right?
I eventually acquiesced, if only because fellow SSP members had been very gracious and generous to me with their time and counsel — and it really was time to start giving back to a community that offers all of us in scholarly publishing so much in terms of education and support. Admittedly, an even more practical quid pro quo intent may have been that it was a small means by which I could “repay” my employer for covering my yearly dues.
I submitted my application online at the Mentorship Program | SSP Society for Scholarly Publishing and was soon matched with my mentee. A colleague had issued only one heads up: “Be prepared. These SSP mentees are brilliant! Mine is smarter than I am!” How delighted I was to find out that she was right. By “brilliant,” my friend wasn’t referring strictly to IQ, but to the fact that my mentee would come to the program with a different publishing background and skills that I did not possess. It all makes perfect sense, of course. We all have different stories and career pathways that result in our own toolbox of experiences and talents acquired over the years. (It’s that variety that makes for the most complementary teams and relationships.) In this mentorship program, I was not to be a teacher, but more the facilitator of a discussion that would touch on topics that would help to fill knowledge and experience gaps for us both.
My mentee, Rachel Ginder, is not an early career novice, but a manager at the top of her game, juggling multiple titles and responsibilities, many of which were unfamiliar to me. We gave each other insight into publishing issues, trends, and quandaries that were not on the other’s current radar. She provided me with a window into the world of conference proceedings and book publishing, for example, and I hopefully gave her a glimpse into the controlled chaos of clinical newsmagazine publishing and editorial board engagement.
Workload and technological challenges, the management and training of team members, creating new staff positions, the scholarly publishing job market, working within a society, or partnering with societies from the publishing platform — all were fodder for exploration. Rachel, for example, highlighted some of the challenges of creating alt-text for screen readers. especially for complex mathematical equations, in preparing for the upcoming European Accessibility Act. I, in turn, updated her on high points and summaries of the occasional webinar or article that she may not have caught. One of my biggest takeaways from our conversation was that this mentorship program fosters unique professional relationships that are not based on manager/employee performance metrics or the commercial dynamics of a publisher/vendor relationship. Neither of us had anything to gain from the other but education and mutual admiration.
Jackie Lord and the SSP team were very supportive and organized from the outset. A mentorship action plan and mentor/mentee goals were established at the beginning so that the relationship started out on firm footing. The SSP team checks in regularly with both mentor and mentee to ensure that they are meeting regularly and that the discussions are fruitful and address at least some of the goals initially submitted.
Rachel and I followed a loose agenda at the beginning, and I made preliminary notes at each monthly check-in to ensure that I was delivering on my end to realize some of her goals. Rachel completed a SWOT analysis early on, which provided excellent conversation starters and discussion launch points (and quite a few chuckles as Rachel and I realized how similar we were in the Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats, and Opportunities “quadrants”). Google docs, agenda bullets, and SWOT graphics became less important as our relationship progressed and we easily slid into a familiar chat of updates on the latest news and challenges in scholarly publishing — at work or in the job market. Yes, our mentorship check-ins began while I was in between jobs — a fact that speaks volumes about both the SSP and Rachel! Neither the SSP team nor Rachel flinched at the fact that I had retired from one job and was in search of another. The current state of the job market, hiring externally vs from within an organization, the process of screening, interviewing, onboarding, SOPs…. You name it! My job search turned into perfect fodder for conversations about the scholarly publishing industry, the most important points being to never let up in our quest for education, relevance, and connection to publishing colleagues.
As laid out in the SSP Mentorship Action Plan, our discussions were confidential and were always respectful of the other’s boundaries and comfort. Perhaps not surprisingly, we never felt the strain of this confidentiality “clause.” There was never any need to name names or disclose details even if it had been within ethical and professional bounds to do so. The challenges (and small victories!) transcended society acronyms, colleagues’ names, journal titles, and vendor contracts. In short, the mentorship program is like a scholarly conference in miniature — colleagues meeting to share information and updates on a profession that moves quickly and encompasses an immense scope of research, workflow advancements, scientific developments, funding upheavals, and technical options. We can’t know it all. We can’t do it all. But we can surround ourselves with great people who each know a piece of it. Together, we create a formidable network of expertise, resources, and good will that help to power us through the next chapters and challenges in scholarly publishing.
I had set two personal goals for my 5 months of mentorship: 1) expand Rachel’s scholarly publications network; and 2) assist her in publishing an article. Well, Rachel, I’m still working on #1, but am so glad that I was able to deliver on #2. As our official mentor-mentee window closes and the next “class” of participants gets underway, my hope is that Rachel and I continue to swap scholarly publishing highs and lows …and never stop learning from each other!
Mentee
As you’re drowning in the daily deluge of calendar invites and slack pings, it’s easy to ignore the messages you sometimes need to see the most. When I saw SSP’s initial email announcing applications for their annual mentorship program, I’ll admit I almost skipped over it in my urgency to complete other tasks on my to-do list, but something told me I shouldn’t file this away in my “maybe next year” folder.
As someone who has been working in scholarly publishing for ten years now, I realize I am no longer in that window of “early career professional”, yet despite having many wonderful colleagues and supervisors over that decade who I have learned a lot from, I had yet to find someone who I really considered a “mentor.”
I blame no one for this besides myself. Networking always falls second to beating a deadline, and even those of us fortunate enough to form strong bonds with our immediate teammates might feel the need to hold back just slightly on sharing our true thoughts on professional struggles or long-term career goals.
With this in mind, I hoped that connecting with someone in a more casual way, where the only true motivation was an exchange of knowledge and ideas, would provide me with an unbiased sounding board and the opportunity to ask for advice from a fresh perspective. Plus, having recently transitioned from a role in humanities publishing to the world of STEM, and nearing the end of my first year as an SSP member, I felt I should be taking more advantage of the many resources offered, besides just attending the occasional webinar.
While SSP offers many ways to connect with others within their network, as a self-diagnosed introvert who is working mostly remote, the idea of having a monthly one-on-one with someone who I could really get to know and dig deep into big picture career questions was highly appealing.
As I filled out the application, I hoped I wasn’t too specific in requesting someone who was an experienced manager and also worked in a production or an editorial role and had non-profit experience at a society or university press. But I had faith that somewhere in this vast publishing network was a person who matched the skillset I was looking for and hopefully wouldn’t mind listening to me talk for 60ish minutes once a month.
I was not disappointed. When I was matched with Martha, it immediately became clear that our monthly meetings were the kind of chat where we needed to keep a diligent eye on the clock…because the scheduled hour passed by in a blink. Even though we had different backgrounds in very different disciplines, she in medical publishing and myself transitioning from the arts to applied mathematics, and we were at different points in our careers, we found our common ground very quickly in talking about everything from the current job market to embracing new technology and managing teams of people. Our talks were not just a midday break to network and exchange ideas, but an opportunity for me to further develop some of the soft skills that are so important in our field: emotional intelligence, strong communication, and leadership abilities.
Scholarly publishing is a fast-paced field, and having Martha to talk to was not just an opportunity to learn new things, but also necessary self-care for myself and my career. Sometimes the years when you don’t feel you have the time to make new connections are the ones where you need them the most. I’m very grateful that SSP offered the structured goals and guidelines that made it easy to reach out and get started on my journey as a mentee. The program has been one of the great highlights of the past year for me, and as we approached the end of the 5-month commitment, I found myself wishing I could fast forward to October and be matched with a new mentor all over again.
However, that is the beauty of SSP…matching with Martha made me realize that the only thing stopping me from making new connections was taking the time to connect. I look forward to getting to know more people in this nurturing community, almost as much as I look forward to many more long chats with Martha.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the Society of Scholarly Publishing for this opportunity (Jackie Lord, especially), Jennifer Regala for the motivation to sign up, and to David Crotty for this platform to promote the SSP Mentorship Program in The Scholarly Kitchen.
