Accidental Developments

 This past week I have been focusing on exploring my professional network... and it was by accident.

I've recently found myself 'stuck' in my employment. Through no-ones fault bar the pandemic taking it's toll, I've been on furlough with my part time job for over a year now, and in terms of dance work? ... let's not. 

Because of this I started looking into other areas of employment, which led me to LinkedIn. 

'Connecting the worlds professionals to make them more productive and successful.' - LinkedIn.com (2021).

I had never fully understood the concept, purpose or overall 'point' of the platform, it was almost a bit 'grown up' for me and I felt that it was extremely corporate. Within two weeks however, I've seen my connections grow, and found I'm interested in actively taking part in important discussions that are both relevant directly to my practice, but also relevant to me in terms of impacting my life. Connecting with individuals I never thought would be useful to interact with has opened up a number of discussions. Discussions of discrimination within the workplace, the barriers young people are facing in the current work climate as well as fellow performers coming forward to suggest practical ways to find work with the arts in it's current state. 

It certainly has allowed me to 'feel' more productive, I'm yet to feel the benefits of being successful but we hold out. And whilst I do still feel out of my depth, I am seeing the importance of engaging in the 'professional world'. It has led me to use my creative 'instinct' to start considering how I want to be perceived within my network, and inspired me to begin drafting a sort of mood board to explore marketing themes/approaches that I hope to use through web 2.0. once fully establishing my practice. I am essentially projecting into my future in terms of how I see the BAPP benefitting my career progression, what I will 'use' my learning for and how will I allow others to respond to my 'mission'. I'm currently feeling excited about this which is always nice! 

I'm hoping to next week discuss some of the thoughts I've had on my proposal!