I've always recommended barter when cash is tight.  In an early post entitled The Benefits of Barter, I explained how interest-based barter is not simply for small-fry.

 AT&T used interest-based negotiation tactics and bartering in its 1999 fight with Comcast Corporation for the acquisition of MediaOne Group. All parties were at impasse until AT&T offered to provide Comcast with surplus AT&T cable systems that would fill Comcast's critical need for additional subscribers -- 2 million to be exact. In exchange, Comcast withdrew its $48 billion bid for MediaOne, leaving AT&T as the only potential purchaser in the field.

Interest-based negotitions such as the AT&T-Comcast deal go beyond evaluating the strength of the parties' "positions" (or muscle) by engaging them in a mutual exploration and assessment of everyone's needs and resources -- a process that can create new buisness opportunities or relationships that increase the value of Business A without concomitantly decreasing the value of Business B.

"This type of negotiation begins with all community resources and know-how with the goal of increasing the well-being of all stakeholders rather than assuring victory to one of them," I wrote.

For those of us in the wisdom business, much of what we have to barter is our ability to mentor and be mentored.  The Professional Women's Network of Southern California is, essentially, a "mentoring circle," in which each member teaches, each member learns, and each member connects every other member to her network. 

Now, the Women Lawyer's of Los Angeles is putting its wheels on recovery road by kicking off its existing Mentoring Circle Program to meet the challenges of the coming year. 

For a number of years, the WLALA Career Mentoring Committee has organized a West LA Mentoring Circle for WLALA members to meet and support each other's career development over lively dinner conversation.  These meetings have served as a forum for participants to share stories, goals and advice.  Over the years the women involved in the Mentoring Circle have become a close-knit group of champions for one another's success.

The WLALA Career Mentoring Committee is excited to expand mentoring opportunities for WLALA members by starting a Downtown Mentoring Circle.  If you are interested in mentoring others or benefitting from the experience of other WLALA members, please join us for the first meeting of our new Downtown Mentoring Circle at Bonaventure Brewing Company at 6:30 on January 29. 

Our discussion topic will be career goals and objectives for 2009.  Please RSVP to Jessica Pink (jlpink@allenmatkins.com) if you plan to attend.

Bonaventure Brewing Co.

404 South Figueroa St. Suite 418A
Los Angeles CA 90071
(213) 236-0802

We look forward to seeing you!

Your Career Mentoring Chairs,
Gigi and Jessica

Check it out!  And for women AND men professionals in all parts of the country, you couldn't do better by yourself and your business than to start your own mentoring circle.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!