Medical Writing Newsletter: Biotech Ink Insider, Vol. 2 No. 17

Networking is the most effective way to market a freelance business or find a job. You can't hide behind your computer, waiting for the world to come to you, and hope you'll be successful. You have to meet people. Fortunately, one of the more useful social inventions in the business world is there to help you--the professional association.

Professional associations bring together people who have common job, industry, or other business-related interest. People

Attending association meetings is a great way to meet people who can be useful in your search for jobs or consulting opportunities.

You might be surprised at the number and variety of professional organizations relevant to the life sciences that you can attend and, if you want to, join. This is especially true if you live in or near a large metropolitan area with an active life-sciences sector. In the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, I belong to a handful of organizations and attend several meetings a month. I'm only limited by time and money, and there are plenty of organizations in the area that I haven't yet explored.

For me, the meetings and networking are the main benefit of most of the professional organizations I'm involved in. Often the speaker is interesting and informative, and I love to hear a good presentation. But ultimately, I'm there to meet people.

A typical association meeting agenda includes time for eating and chatting. You can take advantage of this time to get to know several people, even staying afterwards for a few more conversations. Be sure to exchange business cards with the people you meet. If you're organized, you can record their contact information and conversation notes in your computer for easy access later.

You don't need to be a member of every organization whose meetings you attend. If your money is limited, membership in multiple organizations may be beyond your budget. However, the organization meetings are almost always open to non-members (for a little more money than the member rate). If you're only interested in the meetings--not the organization's other membership benefits--and you don't plan to attend regularly, membership in the organization may be an unnecessary expense that you can bypass.

On the other hand, some organizations are worthwhile for more than just the meetings, and I find that these groups are worth joining. Association membership usually provides access to the member directory, which may be an important source of contacts. Being a member also makes it possible to join members-only email forums offered by the group. You can email other members via these forums, get answers to your questions about the field, and learn from other members' experiences. These email forums can foster a feeling of community with other members, even though they're geographically dispersed. Many organizations have regional and national conferences, and participation in these is another potential membership benefit.

As a medical writer, I think membership in the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) is pretty indispensable. Beyond that, your choices of organizations to join depend on your areas of interest. For example, as a clinical/regulatory medical writer, I belong to a clinical researchers' organization. I also attend a range of organizations with a more general life-sciences-industry focus. Some of those groups here in the Bay Area include the Bio2Device Group, BayBio, and the Bay Area Biotechnology Consultants Network (BABCN; no public web site). I've even attended an Association for Women in Science (AWIS) meeting--a great group, and men were welcome!

With a quick web search, you can find schedules of upcoming meetings for most professional associations in your area. Typically, each chapter has its own web page that gives meeting details, such as dates, times, locations, and information about speakers and their presentations. After you have a chapter's website address, bookmark it so that you can check back for detailed meeting information.

You can find a chapter website by searching the organization's name and location--as in "American Society for Quality San Francisco chapter". Alternatively, you can find the national organization's website (eg, American Society for Quality), and then look there for a list of chapters. Often, it's best to work from the national website, rather than searching by chapter name, because there may be numerous chapters in your area, or chapters with different names. For example the American Society for Quality has San Francisco, East Bay, and Silicon Valley chapters, but the Association for Clinical Research Professionals only has a Northern California chapter (with subchapters).

You never know what kind of people you'll meet at an association meeting, or how they'll fit into your life and profession. I recommend that you attend association meetings as much as you can. It's good for your career, and it's really quite fun and interesting.
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About the Author

Mitch Gordon has been a professional writer for 16 years. He is completing his Masters degree in Regulatory Affairs, to be finished in early 2010. His specialties are regulatory and clinical documentation, and he writes a wide range of other documents that support life-sciences companies.