I hope that Elizabeth doesn't mind my piggy-backing on her statement in this thread to make some parallel observations. [In general, NOT in response to Margie.] <<----- Original Message ----- From: "eshown" <eshown@comcast.net> If we feel that we are having to make an awful lot of attributions in our presentation, then our inner-self is likely telling us that we need to use fewer ideas from other speakers and use more material of our own development.>> This statement applies on a broader scale. We all have to start somewhere, whether writing articles, teaching, or offering services. To be the most successful, we should offer our own ideas, knowledge, experiences, lessons learned, discoveries, unique qualifications, the applied knowledge we learned in our education from other sources. I think it's a pretty correct observation that the interest in professional genealogy has been a head-long rush in the past few years. A correlation has been that some folks have also been in a head-long rush to establish themselves. These old saws probably sound corny - You have to start at the bottom, you have you pay your dues, you have to work your way up. But in life they are pretty much true. As entrepreneurs, we don't have a supervisor's annual performance report that evaluates our progress. We probably don't participate in team discussions about how our products or services can be improved. We probably don't have a vetting process for what we write about ourselves or our products and services. If we don't find outside sources to help us with these things, then we have to step back, take a third-party stance, and really scrutinize what we're putting out there. We have to ask ourselves the hard questions. If I read a bunch of books/articles/blogs/journals, combine the thoughts/words of the other authors and re-word them, am I reeeeallly ready to write about the subject? If I take a class on a subject that is new to me, and took very good notes, am I reeeeallly ready to go offer my services teaching that subject? If I am trying to build a client base and I see services or specialties for which I have no education or experience, is it reeeeallly OK to tell folks I am qualified, a leader, the client's best resource? An example - If we must visit websites of established professionals and plagiarize their descriptions of their services in order to tell our potential clients what services we want to offer, then we don't have enough experience or knowledge about the service to offer it. If we cannot define the service or specialty in our own words, if we cannot use our own knowledge and experience to describe how we will provide that service/specialty to our clients, are we reeeeallly ready? IMHO, not paying enough attention to these questions can come back to bite us. All of us want to be on a fast track to establishing our careers. BUT - we have to be aware of the mine fields if we rush head-long without those honest appraisals. Otherwise, we risk a cloud of doubt on our honesty and integrity, alienation of colleagues and clients, possibly ruining a potential career. best regards, Dee

I don't know the situation of the OP, maybe she is a professional trying to make a go of it, and maybe she is not. I just wanted to say that there are many small genealogical societies that have members give presentations on different topics, and most of these members are not professionals. For instance, my local chapter has a member who is encharge of planning the program for each meeting. Some times he has a speaker come in, others it is a vidoe he thinks may be of interest to the group, and other he talks about things he has learned. He is not a professional, nor does he ever intend to be. To me, if he explains about Elizabeth Shown Mills Fan Club, or Dear Myrt's Pinball Principle, it is simply exposing the members to ideas that will help them in their research. He isn't really teaching the principles, he is telling people what is out there to help them, and they can go explore it further. It would be different if he were a professional and taking these ideas and presenting them as his own, or really teaching them. He hasn't taught on any of these subjects, I was just giving an example. Melissa Smith Skype: saddlebred26 Twitter: @saddlebred26 <http://www.twitter.com/saddlebred26> Facebook: Melissa Smith <http://www.facebook.com/saddlebred26> On 1/31/2013 8:10 AM, Dee Dee King, Certified Genealogist wrote: > I hope that Elizabeth doesn't mind my piggy-backing on her statement in this thread to make some parallel observations. [In general, NOT in response to Margie.] > > <<----- Original Message ----- > From: "eshown" <eshown@comcast.net> > > If we feel that we are having to make an awful lot of attributions in our presentation, then our inner-self is likely telling us that we need to use fewer ideas from other speakers and use more material of our own development.>> > > This statement applies on a broader scale. We all have to start somewhere, whether writing articles, teaching, or offering services. To be the most successful, we should offer our own ideas, knowledge, experiences, lessons learned, discoveries, unique qualifications, the applied knowledge we learned in our education from other sources. > > I think it's a pretty correct observation that the interest in professional genealogy has been a head-long rush in the past few years. A correlation has been that some folks have also been in a head-long rush to establish themselves. These old saws probably sound corny - You have to start at the bottom, you have you pay your dues, you have to work your way up. But in life they are pretty much true. > > As entrepreneurs, we don't have a supervisor's annual performance report that evaluates our progress. We probably don't participate in team discussions about how our products or services can be improved. We probably don't have a vetting process for what we write about ourselves or our products and services. If we don't find outside sources to help us with these things, then we have to step back, take a third-party stance, and really scrutinize what we're putting out there. > > We have to ask ourselves the hard questions. If I read a bunch of books/articles/blogs/journals, combine the thoughts/words of the other authors and re-word them, am I reeeeallly ready to write about the subject? If I take a class on a subject that is new to me, and took very good notes, am I reeeeallly ready to go offer my services teaching that subject? If I am trying to build a client base and I see services or specialties for which I have no education or experience, is it reeeeallly OK to tell folks I am qualified, a leader, the client's best resource? > > An example - If we must visit websites of established professionals and plagiarize their descriptions of their services in order to tell our potential clients what services we want to offer, then we don't have enough experience or knowledge about the service to offer it. If we cannot define the service or specialty in our own words, if we cannot use our own knowledge and experience to describe how we will provide that service/specialty to our clients, are we reeeeallly ready? > > IMHO, not paying enough attention to these questions can come back to bite us. > > All of us want to be on a fast track to establishing our careers. BUT - we have to be aware of the mine fields if we rush head-long without those honest appraisals. Otherwise, we risk a cloud of doubt on our honesty and integrity, alienation of colleagues and clients, possibly ruining a potential career. > > best regards, > Dee > The Transitional Genealogists List was created to provide a supportive environment for genealogists to learn best practices as they transition to professional level work. Please respect the kind intentions of this list. > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to TRANSITIONAL-GENEALOGISTS-FORUM-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >