European PWN
The other day a colleague forwarded me an email about an open source development project. Great lead, I thought, and tried to respond, only to be sent to a password protected page. Zut alors. But it was a great lead after all, because it brought me to the website of the European Professional Women’s Network, which I had never heard of.
After clicking around for a while I learned that the organization has groups based in every major European city. It is members only at the cost of 100 € per year, and requires applicants to be women working at management level and in the international field (ie. speaking English at at least one other language).
Since going freelance in 2000, I’ve gotten by on word of mouth, random encounters and probably a lot of luck. I’ve never really worked at any commercial development or marketing. I’m at a point in my career where I’ve now had enough experience to know what part of my work really impassions me, and where I’m ready to evolve and refine my offer so that I might achieve greater financial success. Hmm…wouldn’t it be great to have the support and feedback of other professionals to help me shape my ideas?
As I’ve said before, I don’t much believe in coincidence, and after some more clicking learned that there was going to be an informal cocktail event open to non members in two days. Well actually two days from my learning of the EPWN was last night, and so I made my way to the Nicolas Bar à Vin at Madeleine (8e) where I was pleasantly surprised to find myself among about 50 other women of all ages and of all nationalities. There were a number of Americans, Dutch, Chinese, and of course French – I learned that the Paris group makes up over 1000 active members representing around 50 countries.
I haven’t sent in my application yet, but I am thinking that I need to think more seriously about networking. Although most of my readers are probably in the US, I know there are a lot of independent women like me out there who could also benefit from the resources that this kind of a networking group can provide.
A quick tip about the website : in order to access specific information about gatherings in your city, follow the membership link first and select your city from the drop menu. This will take you to that city/country’s site and navigation. (I couldn’t, for example, learn the whereabouts of the cocktail from the main site which kept asking me for password information. But once on the Paris site, a new link appeared for “Open Events”).