Soar like geese: building developmental network relationships for scholarship.

Have you ever wished you knew someone who could help propel your career, or new idea, to the next level? Who could support your next grant initiative or otherwise direct you toward your professional goals? Most of your moments of wakefulness are preoccupied with thoughts such as, "If I could meet only a seasoned researcher who is an expert in pain genetics, then by association and osmosis I would excel beyond expectations!" * Well, wishes are unfilled dreams. If you can dream it, you can make it happen, with strategic networking and scholarly tailgating. The major ingredients in actualizing dreams are getting started and responsibly taking charge. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." Incrementally planting relational seeds will foster a harvest of relationships that can propel you to the realization of your professional dreams. Scholarly Tailgating Like geese, people who share a common direction or relationship can get where they are going quicker and easier than those who try to go it alone. Geese migrate in V formation. As each bird flaps its wings, uplift is created for the birds that follow. This formation adds at least 70 percent more flying range than if each bird flew alone (Lissaman & Schollenberger, 1970). Benefiting from another scholar's uplift is scholarly tailgating, the process of networking to create an aerodynamic lift for one's career and capitalizing on the expertise of others to help professional dreams materialize. Realized dreams for nurses and other scholars are established by creating relationships where individuals bond, share common characteristics, beliefs, and values (Higgins, Chandler, & Kram, 2007), wherein "birds of a feather flock together," network, and benefit from each other's aerodynamic uplift. My purpose in writing this article is to inspire and motivate doctoral students and graduates to include networking in their repertoire of professional relational skill sets. Throughout this discussion, I use the terms developmental networks for developmental relationships and connectors for developers interchangeably to represent social networking interactions at work. Practical Suggestions The lived experience of the doctoral nursing student who yearns for mentors and professional identity development has been reported in the literature (Heinrich, 2005). To achieve continued success, it becomes necessary for doctoral students to develop diverse network relationships. Networking must begin the moment there is a need or desire. An old proverb states that when the student is ready, a teacher appears. The yearning, expectant student must actively pursue the desire. My pursuit was activated during the early period of my doctoral education. Our professors encouraged our cohort of doctoral students to participate in a regional research conference offered by Southern Nursing Research Society. After I committed to attend the conference, my goal was to meet at least three individuals who could become springboards for my professional and research endeavors. That was the beginning of a conscious awareness of professional development networking. I updated my business cards to include doctoral student status and my research interests and took cards with me to distribute at the conference. I worked the conference floors, interacting and sharing research interests and contact information. I returned from the conference with multiple business cards and three major leads to researchers in my area of interest. Within two days of returning from the conference, I sent emails to my new friends, thanking them for sharing their expertise and offering to share my expertise with them. For those who requested bibliographies and other information, I sent those items promptly. This response reminded my new colleagues of our meeting and led to the exchange of a mail distribution list. …