Task 3a: Current Networks

This task is an extremely interesting one for me, because of my recent transition from “dancer” to “dance teacher”. Initially, I thought the way I network as a teacher was completely different to the way I used to network as a dancer, but in actual fact, this couldn’t be further from the truth. I am currently working as a freelance teacher, and therefore finding teaching work is not that dissimilar from finding dance work. Only the other day I taught an “audition” class, i.e I taught a class for an organisation as a way of auditioning to become a regular teacher. I obtained this audition through another teacher working for said organisation that I knew from another teaching job. So it all works very similar to the dance world itself! I hate to use the overused, cliché phrases, but “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” and “being in the right place at the right time” are of course very true.

Currently, my main networking tool is good old fashioned face to face conversation (along with others of course). The reason for this is my current environment. I live in a small town in Yorkshire where a lot of the dance professionals I am currently in contact with are local, and therefore face to face meetings are quite often convenient. Of course, this isn’t always possible and this method of networking is used along side phone calls, emailing, texting and letters. On occasion I will use Facebook too, but as so many others have pointed out, sometimes your facebook profile doesn’t place you in the most professional light!

I have toyed with the idea of creating a website, and definitely plan on getting one at some point in the near future. However, I don’t feel I have enough of a demand for one yet. Strangely though, I keep coming across schools and organisations that either don’t have a website, or have very basic, out of date websites, and it’s a pain. One school in particular that I work for doesn’t have a website at all, and I personally feel the school is constantly held back by this. In this internet oriented world we’re living in, the first port of call when trying to find any service or product is the internet. By removing themselves from that platform, the school is surely missing out on a lot of exposure and business. This doesn’t really apply to me yet, because I’m not yet in the position where potential clients are seeking me out, it’s vice versa. However, once I reach the stage were I am being contacted by potential clients, a website would certainly make me appear more professional and give me a quick and easy way of making a good impression.

I am aware of a few networking tools that I don’t currently use. I have just this second opened an account with LinkedIn, but haven’t really got to grips with it yet and I’m not sure how it works. I will have to have a proper experiment with it and report back in a separate post. I also don’t use Twitter. I am aware of teachers that do to great effect, but these are teachers of adult professional dancers, and therefore there are no ethical implications to them contacting their students through this medium. I wouldn’t be able to do this as my students are children, plus I am currently working freelance and therefore don’t have much of a use for Twitter.

At the moment, with regards to my professional network, I feel like I am utilising my strongest contact in order to branch out my network. Fleur Stevenson is a very established teacher within the ISTD and a few other dance organisations and owns her own dance school. I currently teach for her, and I am tapping into her professional network to embellish my own. I have already gained contacts at East Riding Youth Dance and at a local primary school through Fleurs numerous contacts, and she is integral to the building of my professional network. I am making sure that work I do for her takes priority and that I learn as much as I can from her.

My ideal network would be one with many branches. By this I mean contacts in every area of my work possible. I already have many contacts in the professional dancer world, which are always useful for gaining inspiration for choreography and keeping up to date with current dance styles. I am starting to build up my contacts in the private sector of dance education, and through Fleur these contacts should grow and grow. However, I haven’t yet got many contacts within the public sector of education. I plan to get as involved as I can in East Riding Youth Dance (which is a council project) and with the local primary school I mentioned earlier, and hopefully gain contacts within the public sector through them. After all, my long term career goal is to become at least head of department in a secondary school, so this particular branch of my network is very important.

As Jo Bradley says in her Current Networks post, “Professional Networks require full engagement in order for them to be fully successful and beneficial.” This is absolutely true, and I need to work on being more engaged with my professional network.