Networking
Professional Network
A process of mutual people exchanging
information and ideas with individuals or groups that share a common interest
such as a career. Networking may fall into two groups which are social or
business. In business networking you need to build a good working relationship
with other professional colleagues to increase your future business and succeed
within your career. Ivan Misner is an entrepreneur, business man,
philanthropist and bestselling author he is also the founder of BNI the world’s
largest business networking and referral organisation. "The process of developing and activating your
relationships to increase your business, enhance your knowledge, expand your
sphere of influence or serve the community." Misner published ‘The World’s Best Known Marketing Secret’ back
in 1999. Also I have messaged Ivan Misner online and I am waiting a reply.
Networking is a positive and useful tool for
any business or career minded person as long as you use it to your own full
advantage. You should always have a goal and objective you are aiming towards
and only take from networking what is appropriate for your own gain.
Communicating with work colleagues and especially parents is
a subject I never thought too deeply about but it is just as important as the
children, I now spend an extra 10-15 minutes each night talking to parents or teachers,
weather it is based upon work situations or just socially. Parents like to be
updated and hear their child is improving and the little comments you inform
parents, guardians or grandparents, makes a big difference.
Cooperation
Cooperative learning was
unknown in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s but now cooperation learning is one of the
great success stories. It is closely linked with Game Theory which shows why
two individuals might not cooperate even if it means it is in their best
interests to do so.
Game Theory is a study of
strategic decision making made by individuals or group and it focuses upon the
results of cooperation and the decisions to cooperate or not. This idea was
developed by mathematicians to understand problems in economics, political
science, and psychology, as well as logic, computer science, and biology. It
has three main concepts:
- An outcome: result of a particular choice.
- A payoff: benefit associated with outcome.
- A player: individual/group that has a set of choices. Depending on which choices are made, two or more outcomes are possible.
Whether it is an individual or
a group they have to list all possible outcomes and their payoffs for each
player. They then have to analyse the impact that each players possible actions
will have on each player. Finally taking this analysis decides which choices
the players will make so as to get their preferred outcome and best payoff.
The prisoners Dilemma Game is
another theory which was invented around 1950 by Merrill M Flood and Melvin
Dresher. It is about two prisoners who have both been arrested and all the
evidence has been shredded but the prosecutor wants to nail someone so offers
the men a deal of a reduction on their sentence to squeal on each other.
Realising that they if they both cooperate and keep their mouths shut they will
both just do a year. On the other hand it is very tempting to squeal and have 6 months knocked off your sentence but if you both squeal you could both
end up doing 4 and a half years. So the
dilemma starts do you cooperate and both do a year but it is so tempting for
you squeal (defecting) and end up only doing do 6 months. Who’s to know if the
other prisoner was thinking of squealing leaving you to do 5 years so what is
the best theory to minimise your incarceration.
The simple question is to
cooperate or not cooperate or trust or not to trust. This is the dilemma across
many crucial issues in your social life, business or in any situation when your
thoughts about the payoff or outcome start a ‘prisoner’s dilemma’.
Robert Marshall Axelrod born
in 1943 is an American political scientist. He has spent his life work on the
evolution of cooperation. In 1984 Robert Axelrod identified the importance of
the notion of cooperation and has continued to research the benefits of
cooperating fully with others until you reach a point of maximum benefit and then
to ‘defect’. Is it best for players to cooperate and make mutual gains or some
players would exploit each other or even neither would want to cooperate. This
project has had researchers trying to find a strategy to use in situations in
economics, psychology, sociology, political science, and mathematics and it
seemed that the best they could come up with was ‘TIT FOR TAT.’ ‘TIT FOR TAT’ means using a strategy of starting
with cooperation, and from then on doing what the other player did on the
previous move. It is believed that Robert Axelrod’s theory on ‘TIT FOR TAT’ was the most successful
strategy not only in human environment but in a whole range of life.
Affiliation
It
has been found that teenagers spent 75% of their time in the company of other
teenagers and this makes them much happier and content in their lives. Humans
have always had the tendency to seek out company from other humans as we need
to reproduce and it makes us so much stronger when we have the benefit of the
comfort and strength from another human being.
It’s
the same when we are all interacting on the web, we find strength and comfort
with the thought that we have friends and associates that we can contact at any
time. We also have the choice of how much contact we have as we can have many
times when we want privacy and need time on our own to think and contemplate our
lives.
When
it comes to the internet many businesses can enrol as an affiliate or agent to
promote or sell the product that they produce. They are given many links and
contacts that can lead them to more opportunities which helps expand their
business. It will also connect them to all internet marketing methods such as
regular advertising, search engines, email marketing and display advertising.
You can enrol into some affiliate programs that have been especially built to
promote and market their own kind of service which brings together mutual
companies that can exchange ideas and information to improve that type of
business. This yet again makes us much stronger when we join together and we
get the best ideas and help when we can all interact together.
Connectivism
I have just watched Networked Student about connectivism
which I found on my reading list and I think that connectivism has finally sunk
in and I totally understand the power that we have in networking.
A student can search the web for the information on the
subject that he is studying and he would then learn to pick out the best sights
with the best information. He would post this information and his own ideas on
his book marking sight, he would find other students that are studying about
the same subject and swop what he has found for what they have found. They can
swop ideas and site information which widens the student’s base of knowledge
and as he contacts more students his net of information gets wider and wider.
Next he starts to search for blogs and although this is more people’s opinions
it gives him a the chance to offer his own opinion and that means that this is
more information and that makes him so much more knowledgeable on his subject.
The student can connect with anyone that he feels has more
information, he can connect with the best professors and business people as you
find that people love to share an interest especially with students as they are
coming up with fresh ideas. He starts to build a tower of information and can
go on to become an expert but knowledge never ends as there is always something
new to learn. This is how I feel about teaching and I am constantly learning
and the knowledge comes all areas apart from this course I have learnt from
other teachers as well as the children I teach.
Connectivism is the learning theory for the digital age.
This means that we must acknowledge that we live in a world of
multiplicity. Every community or
individual has a font of knowledge which we can bring together in a network of
connections, which in turn others can use to uncover patterns, make sense of
the connections and then make new connections.
I am very passionate about being a teacher and I believe
that I must be totally connected to do my job the best I can. I will need to
build up a personal network of friends, colleagues and acquaintances to discuss
and contribute ideas and plans so that we can deliver much better lessons. It
is still very important for face to face contact but it can be so much more
effective and quicker to connect on SNS and bring all the knowledge together to
make a much deeper pool. This deep pool of resources can then connect all
teachers and make it much easier for them to find and allow this knowledge to
reuse and remix therefore coming up with even more ideas and so constantly
making this pool deeper and deeper.
Social Constructionism
I found social constructionism hard to get my head around,
I understood what I was researching into but understanding the meaning of the
world we have formed, named and built is a large topic. Us as human beings have
named everything we can see with our eyes, hear with our ears, every emotion
etc… We have given it a certain name and made it what it is. But if we weren’t
here, and tree wouldn’t be a tree but it would still be here on earth which is
a concept hard to imagine.
When it comes to professional networks and networking we
obviously use what we feel is the best but they become what they are because we
are all interacting. Us as teachers, students or however we are connected in
the dance world spread the meanings, methods or information worldwide and that
is how the dance world builds stronger and larger.
To bring this into a dance term, the French created ballet,
plie, tendus, par de chat, port de bra, grand battements, petit jete and the
list goes on are all French words they have named them and we have kept their
names the same worldwide. Plies means to bend (in English) which describes the
movement we perform at the beginning of our ballet lessons, but who came up with
the word bend? And so on.
Communities of Practice
Humans have always come together with similar interests or
occupations as when you do you would normally be of a similar character. When
you start training and learning for your occupation you would always start as
they say ‘at the bottom’ and work your way up so whoever was there before you
would show you the ropes and teach you your job. This is communities of
practise because then as you learn you can add your knowledge to the situation
and this in turn helps others.
Dance is a very physical hobby or career for some, you
wouldn’t become a professional dancer by reading lots of books on dance but
watching and taking part is where you learning the feeling and placement of
your body. You cannot become an expert by researching into your topic for many
things such as dance or midwifery for example, you learn in the experience to
completely understand that situation. They job can bring all types of issues or
complications and only when you are under pressure in that situation you will
react and learn.
Ethical Considerations for Networking
Networking is a new and improved system for social and professional
interacting with friends, family and co-workers. It is a much easier way to
contact each other and is also instant however with all these new technologies
for social networking it is important we keep the professional role or social
bond we have with each other, for example parent-to-child,
co-worker-to-co-worker, doctor-to-patient, seller-to-buyer etc..
Networking has so many advantages for its users of instant
contact to anyone in the world, a feeling of well-being, happiness, feelings of
life satisfaction but it also has its drawbacks. There have always been basic
concerns on privacy, identity, friendship, as well as copyright and
intellectual property but now the wider worries are potential availability of
users, data to third parties, facial recognition from uploaded photos and the
ability to collect user data from people and businesses without their
permission or awareness. We hear of so many people and businesses that have
been totally destroyed from what has been put on to the internet. It has caused
deaths, family breakups and the collapse of many companies with the outcome on
SNS. There are many debates about computers and information privacy but it is
all too difficult and it all has to be re-examined again and again. Facebook
has taken much criticism of its privacy practices but it is still the most
popular member for all to use.
We must all take responsibility for what we put on the
social and professional network and accept that it is like a loaded gun in our
hands and that anyone can fire it whether it’s at someone else or even at ourselves.
As I am teaching various ages it is my duty to protect the children from any danger,
which is including networking so I have to be careful with names, photos and
anything resembling a danger on line or off.
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