Campus Session on Web 2.0

 Do web based technologies enhance Professional Practice?

Today we were presented with the above question. The task set to us was in small groups to break-down and discuss the question, find evidence to support this and then come up with a 5 minute presentation using power point and then a 45 sec summary of our findings.

Our group started by breaking down the question by coming up with our own definitions and opinions.

WEB BASED TECHNOLOGIES
We found these to be sites such as Wikipedia, Casting websites, Google Docs, YouTube, Flicker/Picasa, Blogs, MSN/Skype, Email, Review sites etc.

ENHANCE
Our definition of enhancing your career to us meant improving your chances, developing your career options as more sites equals more auditions. It is what can benefit you as long as you keep up-to-date with the ever changing technology.

PROFESSIONAL PRACTISE
* Managing your career- yourself or your agent
* Marketing yourself
* Way you conduct yourself in your professional career
* Personal to the individual

Web 2.0 Pros and Cons:

PROS
* Rating sites can be very good for the consumer to see what they are getting and can be good for the business to show how good they are
* Companies can market on sites such as Face book
* Casting sites can help you find work/auditions
* You can research anything on search engines
* Now communicate internationally through email/Skype
* Email- fast, easy, green, saves money, instant
* Can work from home

CONS
* Comments/reviews people write can be detrimental
* You can be tagged in anything which could be damaging
* Could be scam/bad websites
* Google takes any info and stores it, how do you know the info is correct?
* Hackers on internet, reach personal info
* We are dependent on technology
* Loss of personal communication
* Only seeing what you present, not real person

We then chose three web based technologies to look at further and base our presentation on. These were:
* SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES i.e. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter
* CASTING WEBSITES
* GMAIL/GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE

We found evidence from published materials as well as from our own experiences. I talked about the social networking sites. To this I used my personal experience with Face book. On my last contract with Belinda King Productions for Cunard the cast had to sign a release form before we joined the ship. This stated that we would not post any pictures of us in costume on any website or social network site. In the past many dancers had posted photos of themselves in costumes but they didn’t want those getting out due to copyright.

I found that doing this task made me think in a way I hadn’t before on technology we use every day. I was recently asked to become friends on Facebook with my agent something I wasn’t too keen of. Not because I have anything to hide, but I think personal and professional should be kept separate. For me personally I came away with an important question:

- Should we have separate social sites- personal and professional?

Again it is up to the individual but I think in my industry it is an important part of personal management and I am going to set up separate Facebook account since I have agents and promotional work come to my account.
So, our overall conclusion was that we are at risk of becoming dependant on technology i.e. if your laptop breaks down or you can’t get internet access and we have to watch out for bad websites, hackers and the loss of communication. However we feel Personal Professional Management is the key. The use of Web Based Technology does enhance professional practice and as long as you manage yourself the right way it can lead to more opportunities and chances of work.