TASK 3b Concepts of the Professional Network

The Networked Professional

A professional network is a group of people who share common interests and come together to discuss ideas and opportunities; this can be an important part of current and future professional life. A person’s effective engagement and participation of a professional network can impact the outcome of success for the individual and also result in development of promotion and a sense of fulfillment and job satisfaction. A supportive network can also lead to a more enjoyable working experience and a greater sense of self worth and achievement.

Concepts of Professional Networking

Cooperation

I am a strong believer in cooperation especially when you are finding your feet in a new job. I am very passionate about my work and always have many ideas, being strong minded it is sometimes hard to cooperate especially when you believe your ideas or ways of doing something are better. When I was younger I would always speak my mind and push forward any ideas I had, however becoming an adult and entering the working world meant I had to learn how to compromise until I was in a position to be able to speak my mind without consequence. Working at a school meant I was working with a majority of older and more experienced professionals than myself which at times would bring about a class of ideas from time to time. Respect and compliance is key in my profession and my early months at the school were very much like the Prisoners of Dilemma game, I had to cooperate and comply until I felt I was in a position comfortable enough to ‘defect’ and go against the gain. This strategy worked very well for me as I agreed and was very polite about ideas in the first few months, I worked on dance pieces and drama selected by others and did the best work possible. Once I felt I had shown enough good work and had gained the trust of my peers and head of faculty I began expressing my ideas and sharing my opinion.

The prisoners of dilemma game got me thinking a lot about cooperation and how having worked in the past for me I should take time to consider the positive effects this could have on future opportunities.

Affiliation

I personally enjoy the benefits of an affiliation and the support that can come from a network of people sharing common interests. I love nothing more than to sit with my performer friends and discuss shows we have worked on and new opportunities. I enjoy my own company but I have always been a very social person and I find I retain information better when it comes from a person through casual conversation. During my teen years I had a lot of different friendship groups for different social gain; I believe this allowed me to dive into different passions and gain experiences that I would not have had through socializing with one group of friends. Adolescents spend 75 percent of their time with other people and a lack of affiliation can have a lasting negative impact (Larson, Csikszentmihalyi and Graef 1982).

 As an adult I now have many different friendship groups and networks of support that I often rely on for answers and help, I am always looking for ways to expand my professional network and my socializing circle of friends. According to psychologists our tendency to seek out others and form close relationships is an inherited trait that helps us to survive and reproduce providing a network of support that will help us when we are in need (Crisp & Turner 2007).

Seeking affiliation can be fraught by discomfort and anxieties as we may not always have the criteria for attraction others seek (Crisp & Turner 2007). Being a very social person means I have not often encountered anxiety when meeting or confronting new people, however my brother is the opposite of me and has always kept a very small social group of friends conversing only with people when needed. This has always been fine for him as he enjoys his own company and that of his very close friends however I know he has struggled going into a professional world when it comes to asking for help.

Theory’s of Connectivity

Social Constructionism

Constructionism- the view that all knowledge and there for all meaningful reality as such, is contingent upon human practices being constructed through interaction between human beings and their worlds (Crotty, M 2005). Learning something new every day through interaction is something I was taught from a young age. If I were to write down every time someone told me something I didn't already know I would probably be surprised at how much I have learned. This is almost unconscious learning through experience and it wasn't until I thought about it that I realized how important it is for development professionally and personally. However this has to make you ask the question, are we gaining knowledge of the world or just a collection of formed opinions of it? Just because we take meaning from our surroundings doesn't mean that they are right, and how do they differ from country to country and community to community. After all it is just jointly constructed understanding of the world, will this differ in 10 years? What we know and believe now could be wrong tomorrow.

Connectivism

Connectivism is a leaning theory for the digital age and suggests that our classrooms, networks and the web are all populated with information from which we learn and make sense. Whenever there is something I don’t understand I will search the web, in fact this is the first thing I do. Informal learning is a significant aspect of our learning experience. Formal education no longer comprises of the majority of our learning, learning now occurs in a variety of ways through communities of practice, personal networks and completion of work-related tasks (Siemens G 2004). Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources, a learner can greatly increase their knowledge by connecting with a network. Dance forums are how I managed to find out about the BAPP Arts course and through specifically designed networks for professionals like myself I managed to find exactly what I was looking for and educate myself on how to achieve it. I will often search for specific forums to discuss ideas I have or find out information I need, they are a brilliant way to get talking to the people you need to and access the information you require. Without networks of professionals I would never have been able to find a course that was right for me.

Overall I found the course reader on networking to be very insightful and it has fuelled my desire to look into this subject further. Upon reading and researching the different concepts of professional networking I was surprised at how many I am already using unconsciously, however it has I feel opened up my eyes and I am now more aware of these strategies and will be conscious when apply them in the future to better analyse the results.