Monday 19 November 2012

Task 3B- A Critical Reflection on “The Networked Professional"




What is meant by a “Professional Network”? A Professional Network is a ‘work related community held together by either close working affiliation or more distant but common work interests or needs.’ In layman’s terms this is a conglomeration of people that are brought together with similar interests or hobbies.

When reflecting on how I personally benefit from different forms of networking in task 3A, I realised the impact this has had on my own professional career to date; on my successes, my career path to date and ultimately on my self-esteem.

After further research about the concepts of Professional Networking I discovered that Cooperation can play a vital part in your career. However this is dependent on how much the individuals choose to invest in this .The ‘Game Theory’ goes some way in explaining how co-operation can be mutually beneficial to the individuals/ teams or may result in one ‘player’ succeeding at another ‘players ‘expense. Co-operation is reliant on both people feeling that they are benefitting from this relationship. Robert Axelrod (1984) recognized the value of cooperation and working with others to achieve maximum advantage, and then to ‘defect’. ‘The Prisoners Dilemma’ is a good example of the Game Theory. Axelrod explored different ways in which people decided to co-operate or not. It investigated players getting mutual gains from  cooperation, or one person manipulating the other and also the option that neither players would cooperate. ‘Tit for Tat’ seemed to appear every time. Axelrod (1984) described tit for tat as ‘The strategy of starting with cooperation, and thereafter doing what the other player did on the previous move.’ I have certainly been aware of this occurring in my own experiences. As part of the Musical Theatre performing world I believe I have a strong network of contacts. However there is a certain individual from College that I have supported in the past; either through informing them about auditions or agents and then found that they have not reciprocated. Eventually that relationship is broken as the individual is no longer a useful contact! It very much feels that in this particular instance it is “all take and no give”. Co-operation has to be mutually beneficial in order for it to continue and thrive.

Affiliation is the relationship between you and others. Crisp and Turner (2007) stated; ‘Affiliation is a social process that provides us with a network of support that will help us when we are in need.’ As I am a very sociable and outgoing character who wears her heart on her sleeve, I fully embrace this statement. It is so hard to be in the performing arts industry and do it alone. Contracts are short and extremely difficult to find and then get. It can be a very isolated career if mutually benefitting relationships aren’t formed and affiliations not made. In fact I would find it virtually impossible! You need that network of support around you. You need that agent who gets you the one- off closed auditions with less competition.

You need your friendships and contacts from different walks of life, to guide you to different auditions and castings. You even need friendships outside of Musical theatre to boost your self esteem and put things into perspective. These are just a few examples of affiliation within my own personal life. It is proven that we as humans enjoy affiliation with others. It is social and helps us form close relationships (Crisp and Turner, 2007 pp226). Homeostasis suggests there are preferred levels of affiliation (O’Connor and Rosenblood 1996) and they link it to whether you are an introvert or an extrovert. As an extrovert these close affiliations enable me to persevere in this challenging industry.

I was not aware of Social Constructionism before looking at reader 3. I came across the statement ‘Accepting the world we experience, prior to our experience of it, without meaning does not come easy.’ Social Constructionism is about how meanings and explanations are created from the world. From interaction and affiliation we can make meanings that can add to our professional practice and network. Crotty, M. (2005) ‘What, then, is constructionism? It is the view that all knowledge, and therefore all meaningful reality as such, is contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction between human beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context.’ In other words theory is constructed and people have to connect with objects in the world to get meaning out of them. This refers back to task 2, where reflection was studied. It is saying that you have to observe and reflect to learn and understand and create a meaning out of it. Humans construct meanings of the world from their experiences. We essentially create future networks and it is important that we commit to them.

Connectivism – How you connect and learn. Connectivism is all about how we collate and sort through information and extract the important information needed . The ‘Network Theory’ tells us how nodes in a network interact. Connectivists suggest that traditional ideas of teaching, i.e teacher to student’ need to be adjusted or discarded. This all links back to task 1 and web 2.0. Technology is growing exponentially and growth has led it to new types of learning. The information we can find on the Internet is beyond what a human brain knows. Therefore I feel it would not be wise to not use web 2.0. However look at the students who are kinesthetic learners (task 2c) the students who like doing. They are not going to learn just off the Internet. I feel it is important to get the balance right. Yes we do have to be extremely computer illiterate these days but it is also to be taught my someone and actually do the experiments yourself with a teacher at hand. We advance from our experiences and learn a lot from them so why take this away? In terms of networking connectivism is fantastic. It allows you to make contacts you wouldn’t usually be able to do without web 2.0. It is even allowing me to do a university course via blogging. Without it we would be lost but it is imperative to get the balance right.

On many occasions I have got together with a group of dancers after an audition and discussed our experiences together. We will all have a different perspective of the same experience. This is also known as a ‘Community of practice.’ People with similar interests come together and learn from each other’s experiences. I do this almost every week without realising it! Learning happens socially in this instance (which is what I do best!) Lave and Wenger (1991) ‘The social structure of this practice, its power relations, and its conditions for legitimacy define possibilities for learning.’ This statement suggests that this way of networking is extremely powerful and results in learning. This Degree course has enabled me to develop a new network of friends; we are all studying together and often meet up to discuss our new knowledge; this can be termed as ‘situated learning’. We are all connected in our new endeavor and shared vision to succeed. We are beginning to use shared specialist vocabulary and knowledge .Our meetings result in new learning being developed and all of us are benefitting from this ‘Community of Practice’. Being part of a ‘Community of Practice’ is helping to shape our professional future and may well impact on our success.

This task has made me realise how valuable social skills are and how valuable professional networking is. If indeed you believe in evolution and survival of the fittest, surely it is the most talented, the most resilient, the most positive and ultimately the person with the most successful and productive professional networking infrastructure and therefore the most opportunities, who will succeed. So perhaps I will alter my concluding statement from task 3A to ... It is what you know, who you know and how you co-operate with them that will ensure success in this challenging industry.

References

Axelrod, R. (1984) The evolution of cooperation. London

BAPP Arts Reader 3- The Networked Professional 2012-13

Penguin Crisp, J & Turner, R. (2007) Essential social psychology. London

Sage Crotty. M. (2005) The foundations of social research: meaning and

perspectives in the research process. London

Sage Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning. Legitimate

peripheral participation. Cambridge

1 comment:

  1. Refering to your paragraph about Cooperation, I realised myself that we can all benefit through cooperation depending on how much we decide to invest in it. Is true that 'Tit for Tat' can work as a strategy as is more likely to receive when you give; the tricky bit here is to be aware that people might not give anything in return and even worse, they might 'harm' you to succeed and get you out of their way. Especially in the performing arts industry people are much more competitive and don't see that being selfish will get you no where. So when you realised that the person that you've been giving all this information to, never gave you something in return did you feel that there was a reason why he/she didn't? (for example did he/she saw you as a threat?) Do you easily give information help to other performers since then?

    Anastasia x

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