About five years ago I received, out of the blue, a magazine called “The Way Ahead”. That really turned out to be a career defining moment for me, because while I initially had no idea what it was, the articles, covering issues important to young professionals in oil & gas, really spoke to me. Had I known at the time the magazine’s mission, that wouldn’t have surprised me as much: “The Way Ahead” is the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ (SPE) only official publication put out by and for young professionals (SPE members less than 36 years of age).
I was just starting out my career at the time, and it was truly as if everything I was thinking at the time was captured exactly in the pages of that first issue I received.
I do remember disagreeing with one of the articles, so I wrote a letter to the editor explaining my point of view.
To my surprise, he liked it so much he offered me a spot on the editorial board!
From there, I assisted in putting together two of the magazine’s sections, then was promoted to lead one of them, and then finally was chosen to be the magazine’s editor in chief, a position I will retire from at the end of next month.
For reasons I’ll go into shortly, that progression has been hugely helpful to my career, so I want to use this post not only to explain why anyone interested in the oil & gas industry should read “The Way Ahead”, but also to make the case for why it is so important to be involved in industry activities outside those of your full-time job.
As a tool for someone looking to become educated about the industry, I haven’t found a more accessible source of information (and I read a LOT of what’s out there…) presented so easily. Indeed, while the sections – ranging from interviews with well known industry CEO’s to articles on how to improve your “soft skills” – stay the same from one issue to another, the theme of each issue is different. Each issue is then a tightly focused package, centered on a topic such as unconventional resources or entrepreneurship in the oil & gas industry, seen from the different perspective of each of those sections.
To me the magazine also demonstrates very well how capable the industry’s young professionals are. Indeed, while this was an initiative supported at the time by the president of the entire SPE, it was really the young professional editors who made it happen, and continue to make it happen today, ten years and thirty issues later! You can check out the tenth anniversary issue as well as all the archived ones here: http://www.spe.org/twa/print/
For me personally, the magazine has been much more than just a source of industry information:
- I broadened my network tremendously. One of the most amazing things about the magazine is that no editor is a full-time writer, but we all have a very full-time industry jobs, in places around the world. Despite the time zone and location constraints, I still developed some very good relationships with past editors, and wouldn’t you know it, the people volunteering to go the extra mile for “The Way Ahead” are now those who are in leadership positions with the greater SPE and the industry generally. I have no doubt that being plugged in to this network of high achievers will help me greatly as I navigate my own career path!
- I made some new friends. You’ve probably noticed that once you leave university, it can be very hard to make new, good friends. Sure, you’ll make some decent acquaintances, but are they really friends? Well, I’ve spent so much time working on the magazine and so closely with certain people that I have made a small number of good friends. The fact that they happen to be in the industry so that I can bounce ideas off of them or discuss the latest big field discovery is a nice bonus.
- I gained publishing experience. Being recognized today is about building and advertising your brand through “content marketing”: the more well-written, pertinent content you put out there, the more you build your chances of being recognized as an industry expert. Yes, I had written many papers before joining “The Way Ahead”, but never in such a format for a publication. The experience I gained working with my fellow editors and the SPE staff has been invaluable, and if I have managed to build up a modest following for my work since then, it’s because of what I learned working with the magazine. In fact, my role and work at TWA was a big part of my pitch to the Chronicle and FuelFix to start this column.
- It boosted my management skills tremendously. One of my top priorities when I took over the magazine was to increase the number of editors, both to spread the workload when people’s full-time jobs picked up, and to improve the overall quality of the magazine. That campaign has so far been extremely successful, to the point where at last count I realized that I managed 45 people located around the world! It will be a while before I am granted that kind of responsibility at work, and yet I feel completely ready for it immediately, given my track record not only of producing the magazine on time, but also spearheading some “back-end” initiatives that have helped make the publication stronger. Furthermore, I have really figured out what management style works for me, as well as what types of people I work best with, and how to address the types of issues that come up when you are managing a large, , culturally diverse and geographically spread-out number of people. Business school may have taught me the theory, but TWA is where I have put most of that management knowledge into practice. It’s been a trial run for my future role as CEO somewhere…
If this sounds good to you and you want to join the team, you can send us your resume and one page cover letter to spethewayahead@gmail.com. We review applications on a rolling basis, so there is no deadline to submit your materials, and if you are chosen, you should find out shortly after we receive them. Please note that we are looking for professionals with some current tie to the industry, or university/graduate students studying something oil & gas related.
I should say that while I’m talking about TWA specifically, you would certainly get this kind of experience if you volunteered anywhere within the SPE and stuck with it: find something you enjoy helping out with, stick with it, and before long you’ll be reaping benefits that will last your entire career.
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