The Networked Professional

What is a Network? In general, I understand its meaning but have never seemed familiar with its function. Until I came across to the networked professional reader and the additional readings, I started to think what is my current network? How it is important to my professional life? Sadly, I was unable to attend the campus session about this mode as I was engaging in the practical workshop for my styling project at London College of Fashion. So it sort of ended up with no-one to share thoughts with and discussed ideas were raised during the session. I felt I was in the middle of the road and unsure of whether I was on the right track, I looked at Natalie Less’s blog as someone whose ideas and thoughts I always respect and trust, as I looked her blogs all the way through the course. After reading her blog, I found it was really insightful to view the interesting ideas she discussed in her blog and I knew I could rely on her blog for a thorough analysis of the sessions. Also, I looked at Stephanie Thomas’s blog, a peer who started the course on January. Interestingly, she did exactly the same thing as looking at other peer’s blog about networking. From this, I immediately realized that this is the network I am in and these people who stand at the same level as me and their blogs are sources for receiving information/ideas from. This led me on to consider the importance of networking and how it is playing or will play in my current and future professional life. I feel I am just starting to become more aware of my current networks and what they consist of. In the reader, there are various concepts of professional network to help me identifying my networks and how I can improve them.

Before going in to details of the concepts of the reader and applying theories in to practices, I thought it would be better to follow the advice of Alan as since the beginning of the course, I hadn’t really thought of my networks in this way so I decided to draw myself a ‘mind map’ of my current professional networks. Below it is:

While looking at the ‘mind map’, I realized that I have more networks than I thought and I am part of networks that I didn’t really realize I was a part of. Most importantly, to keep contacting with these networks, there are number of tools that I use every day to maintain the connection as much as possible to expand my networks. Also, the number of tools available to us to engage in professional networks seems is increasing, such as the increasing use of technology. It is obviously to see that technology and the world wide web is progressively becoming the most important tool in participating and discovering networks. Here below are the tools I currently use to keep connection with my networks on a day-to-day basis:

• Email
• Mobile phone
• Facebook
• Model Mayhem Web
• Blackboard
• Web 2.0 

I have realized that now I mainly use these tools for communication and am often contacted via email and facebook by an employer or someone who studies at the same college and seeks for help or any other cooperation purposes. For example, on other day I received an email from someone who is a film producer asking if I was able to do some prosthetic make-up for his fight scene and I accepted this job offer. I have realized that is a network I am going to work to maintain by keeping in contact with the film producer as this could lead me to more work opportunities. I could say this example relates to the theory of connectivism and in relation to professional networks, it proves that the expansion of technology has changed and improved the way that individuals to connect and learn from and within the network. While reading the reader, extract from Siemens, G. (2004) helped me to understand more in depth of the theory:“Over  the  last  twenty  years,  technology  has  reorganized  how  we  live,  how we communicate, and how we learn. Learning needs and theories that describe learning principles and processes, should be reflective of underlying social environments”. For me, I would probably not have been contacted by an employer if I don’t use email so could not have gone and meet the other people or the other students who could lead me to a future expansion of my networks.”

There are also many other tools that I mentioned earlier, such as facebook, mobile, and the contact books which all help us to expand and maintain networks. They help me to get contact with people quicker and easier. Apart from these technological tools I use often, the traditional way of connectivism is still another important tool for me and I find talking to someone face to face allows two sides better to communicate, also it can answer questions easily and immediately.