Sunday, 22 April 2012

3a - Part 2 – How I connect with my Professional Networks.


I feel that I am perhaps a little behind in the ways in which I connect with my professional networks. I am more likely to connect face to face, my tapping on an office door and having a conversation than to use a social networking site such as facebook, I regularly use email if I have queries and need to contact someone directly.

I think that there may be two reasons why my methods of connections differ to the ones that others use.

The first reason is that I am employed in permanent contracts, I don’t need to regularly connect with an agent, to put myself out there or search out new work in the same way that I would if I was still performing on temporary contracts. My working life is fairly settled and so I don’t network for the same reasons. If I need information from a member of my network or they need anything from me it is usually specific, and doesn’t need to be shared with multiple people and so a phone call, face to face chat or an email are more appropriate methods for me to use.

The second important factor I think is that I live in Devon, I don’t usually need to communicate with people who are very far away from me, my networks are on my door step and as much as I hate to admit it the pace of life here is slower, I don’t need to keep up with constantly changing events using twitter as I am more likely to get my information first hand. I think this makes the way I communicate more personal, and I feel this can only be a good thing. Having said this though, exploring new ways to network are important to me, I have come to a point where I would like to search out new areas, ideas and opportunities and think that I can use networking to help me with this.

So the ways I currently network are;

Face to Face  
I am always knocking on doors, asking people if they have five minutes for a quick chat about something and I regularly attend team meetings with the whole of a staff team where we can all sit and discuss issues that affect us as a whole. I am a big believer in face to face contact, you can read so much more about a situation or how someone feels than you can from a post on a social networking site and to me this is important.
I also think that when you are standing waiting for a class to begin and a parent or student wants to have a chat, this openness is good for business. People get to know you this way and it develops a kind of trust between you, even perhaps a sense of loyalty which in business these days is hard to find and even harder to keep.
We are all so wrapped up in technology these days that I think we forget about the personal touch and this to me is a real shame.

Facebook
I have a facebook account, this is where I keep in contact with friends, people I went to college with and old teachers and co-workers. It is always interesting to see what is going on for other people, when they share their career progressions then it can spark ideas for yourself, and of course bring about the possibility of new work. I have a number of friends who have gone on to choreograph, produce or start their own dance schools, having regular contact with these people mean they share opportunities with me, if they need a class covered, need a dancer for a show or vice versa then it is the easiest way to contact people en mass. For this purpose it is extremely valuable. 
Because like I said previous I am currently employed under contracts and therefore work for other peoples businesses, I don’t have a facebook page that is solely professional. This is something that I have been considering changing. I have never considered advertising myself, but as I develop new ideas about how I want to move forward with my career it is something I am thinking about, a way to meet new people and keep this on a professional level has a number of merits, it would also allow me to add students (something I don’t feel is appropriate on my social account) which would allow me to advertise any new ventures that I come up with for my career progression.   

BAPP Blog
The BAPP blog is my newest network. I don’t feel however that it is my strongest. I don’t comment a lot on other peoples work, I have blogged before on this, and I think I feel that I am not worthy to comment on other peoples work, I don’t know any more than they do. I keep saying that this is something I will address, as I am aware that the network is only as good as the connections, and frequency of connections made. If I don’t talk to people, it is highly unlikely that they will communicate with me, and I think this is an important point, in any kind of relationship there has to be something in it for all people involved, for this reason I don’t feel my blog is overly successful. But I am hoping in completing this section of the module I will gain a better understanding and confidence in building and using new networks and be able to improve the strength of them.

Twitter
From the previous work done on Web 2.0 technologies I was encouraged to open a twitter account, to see what I was missing and to find the value that other people seem to find. I have to say that I haven’t really found it all too valuable in the sense of developing meaningful new networks. A lot of the people I have on my twitter account I also have on facebook and so I get much the same as I do from that. However it has allowed me to find some classes and opportunities for further study and education that may aid my professional practice, I have been looking for things of this nature on-line for sometime but it seems that companies and dance professionals are making use of sites like twitter to advertise rather than conventional methods. This has made me aware that I have another option for sourcing information, for finding people and when I begin to develop the next steps in my career another option for advertising, I was late to catch on but it seem that this is the way a lot of people are using twitter.

Linkedin
I have just discovered linkedin, it was through Paula’s post on the libguides that I found a SIG I was interested in and it just happened to be on linked in. I am really excited about this site, and about making new links with people in an area that I am interested in. I am very new to this, and again I haven’t had time to really have a good look through or to comment, however it is something I want to make use of in the future.
This brings me onto another point, I find it so difficult to make time for everything, keeping up with networking in so many ways and on so many sites is very time consuming, and I find I can literally spend hours trying to catch up on what has been said. I can see the value and I want to connect to my networks more, but how does everyone fit it in?

Email/ Phone/ Text
The pressure of time is possibly why I still like to pick up the phone and ring or text, when I ring someone I get an immediate response, or vice versa. I know this limits my communication to just one person, but sometimes this is all that is needed.
I also send a lot of emails, it means I don’t have to read a lot of information on someone’s social networking site to find out what I need to know, I can send the email, and get on with something else while I’m waiting for a reply.

I like things to be direct, I am a straight forward person and I think that is why I still rely on face to face networking, and phone calls etc. And if I’m honest most of my meaningful connections with my networks are always based in these kinds method. From reading other peoples blogs I am aware I may be on my own in this conclusion, and I wonder what I am missing? Is it because I don’t have my own business and so don’t need to advertise, or because I don’t look for changing work as often as other people who are perhaps performing? If anyone has any thoughts I would be really interested as I do still feel like I am missing something important?

Moving forward I am determined to make more connections, not necessarily to add more people but to communicate more with the people I do have in my networks in more and different ways. I am determined to keep trying and working on networking using such sites as twitter, facebook and linked in. For me it’s still that idea of working with the unknown until it all starts to make sense for you. Perhaps by making more time and actively making the effort to think about what others are saying and being confident to add my opinion I will gain new value from it, It comes back to that idea again about engaging with something in order to learn something new, there is little point in being part of these networks unless I actively engage and see what I get back. I know it must be important, as everyone is doing it, but for me at this time it about trying to make sense of it and how it fits into my life and my professional development.

Ideally when I reach the end of that process I will have a stronger network, where I am more of an obvious and valuable presence, and where I have a skill set that allows me to communicate in a more varied way. I want to have drawn in valuable members of my extended network closer to the centre so that I communicate with them more regularly allowing me to create relationships that not only allow me to create opportunities for myself, but to be part of a community of people that are valuable to each other. I want to push myself forward in this area and to develop my self as a professional with an online identity.

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