3d - Critical questions and issues that emerge

The last task from this Module brought the issue of networking and professional relationships which is extremely important for our careers as performers. By finishing them, reading Reader 3 and all other texts and going on other students Blogs, made me think about my current sources and network and how could I improve it.

 From the sources that the students comment, any was totally new for me. From the concepts presented, I was part of them but never really understood or was really aware about them. I believe that what the last tasks brought to me were the capacity to analyse my current professional relationships and how could I enhance my current network and also how a good network can be crucial for a successful career. I recognized that my current “data” is unorganized, limited and not updated. Nowadays I am graduated, with further experience, with new goals and new plans for the future. By reading other students blogs and observing better Web 2.0 sources such as Facebook, I recognized that nowadays, those are the main ways to keep connected with professional contacts as well as a source to promote your work. I have said before how I wasn’t updated from those sources until this course and how recently I began to use Facebook as a professional network (literally this year). However, I still believe strongly that the most important way to be updated about dance, get new contacts and promote yourself are in actual face to face conversations, courses, performances, social events. I still avoid Twitter, Linkedin and some others. The most sources you have, better is your network and chance to promote yourself?  Or maybe keeping an organized with more focus sources actually makes your network better? I think I agree with the second one and I believe that the biggest change that the last tasks brought to me is on how I could keep my network productive. Reading Reader 3 helped me on that as well. The involvement required to be in a certain community, the participation, the capacity to share ideas, the capacity to recognize the limits about a relation and if it is beneficial are examples of tools on how I would like to change my current situation in networking.

Ethical considerations were currently reminded during the whole Module. Della Estlin, Pip Spalton and Kim Morrison wrote very interesting reflections about it, and because they came from different backgrounds and have different jobs, other situations such as Internet in relation to student and teachers, were brought. At the same time that keeping a good and organized network is important for a successful career, ethical considerations are crucial. A comment on Facebook which might get a wrong interpretation or is unappropriated can really affect your job. The Media nowadays provided a revolutionary type of communication and we are all dependent on it. But also brought major problems such as cyber bullying and lack of privacy that were not part of the society before. The main issue that I think it actually happens nowadays is that the sense of what is social and what is private changed a lot. Some Facebook profiles are actually diaries nowadays. Some may begin to do two profiles on Facebook for example (a professional and a social one). I don’t really agree with that. I think I would like to show my personality, opinion and my reality for my professional contacts as well as I don’t need to hide them. What I don’t think should be published would be for anyone else, as Internet is a really easy way to get information and spread it out. I think is still important to have a sense of privacy. However, I might change my opinion later as I recognize that ways of networking and privacy are changing on the past few years.