Professionalism and Networking

It’s important in the world of digital media to have connections with other people. I mean, it is social media right? That means you will have to master the 2 simpe elements of professionalism and networking.

Professionalism is a fancy word for fitting into the environment you are going to be in and not making dumb faux pas that can be easily avoided. Keep calm and don’t focus on trying to be professional, and that will actually help you be more professional. Funny how that works.

It may seem like professionalism is supposed to make you act like a robot and be exactly the same as everyone else, but that’s not the case. You’re allowed to have character, encouraged actually. As long as you don’t push any boundaries you think would go too far, try to be as natural to yourself as you can be.

Networking is simply having a conversation with another person and making an impression large enough that they will think of you when the right moment occurs. It’s the same as just making friends by telling that person what you’re interested in and what you would like to help others do. Similar to making friends though, you don’t want to talk the whole time, as the other person has dreams and aspirations that are important to them, and you would do well to pay attention to what those things are

Networking is a 2-way street. A symbiotic relationship that benefits both parties. Building these relationships is important for an industry that needs people with specific skills. Even if these reasons aren’t enough to make you network more, you should know that these people aren’t just business people, they can be your friends as well.

Saying all of this makes me realize that I should get better at talking to people.

Proposal Writing

Proposal writing is extremely important because it is what sells your product to a client. Without a solid proposal, a client could easily decline your offer and you’d be stuck looking for a new client while receiving no income.

Of course there are a million factors that can be taken into consideration when writing up a proposal, but I believe there are two very important aspects you can focus on to succeed. Those two things are to show your competence at what you do, and also show that you have an interest in what your client does.

It should be made obvious to a client that you and your group know what you’re doing. In order to do this, you must have a detailed outline of what your intentions are for the project. You won’t get everything correct as it is only an outline, but it will show your client that you have given their project some forethought.

 

Baking?

Is baking actually the weekly topic? I also just found out I’ve been behind 1 week for every post. I really hope the topic is actually baking because I’m really confused and need to talk about tasty pastries. We had a six slide presentation in class that I think was supposed to relate baking to something so I’m just going to roll with it.

I actually never bake anything ever, but when I think about baking I’ll just head over to You Suck At Cooking’s Youtube channel. His channel is amazing for the quality of the content, and I’ve never actually followed one of his recipes, but the food looks amazing. He has running jokes throughout the series, and generally has strong visual gags or storytelling in each video. Here is a video that actually doesn’t have any baking, but stands out to be one of my favorites because of the great jokes.

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I’m not a huge vegetable eater but he makes it look like just putting them in the oven for 30 minutes can make anything look edible. It’s almost enough to make me want to start making my own food more often. Almost.

Baking is like building a rocket ship. Extremely easy to do unless you don’t have the instructions on how to make the thing. I’d gladly fly a man to the moon over trying to make brownies from scratch. I think you need to put an egg in there? Some milk maybe?

I remember asking my mom what putting eggs in baking materials does for the end product, and she told me, but does anyone actually know? What is the science of an egg that helps create a cake? I think that the true message of baking is, just throw stuff in there at a moderate 350 degrees for 20 minutes and see what happens. If it turns out well then you can say you meant to do it and write down the recipe for later and become a baking master like myself.

Project Management: People, Time, and Money

Project management is a learned skill that’s easier to learn by experiencing it firsthand, though it will be stressful the first few times you need to do it. Keeping track of your resources takes practice, especially when some of those resources are people. We all have busy schedules and completing large group projects can be difficult.

When working on projects with multiple people, make sure you know everyone’s talents in the group. You should know who exactly to go to when you need to solve complex problems. Having a record of what each member of your team does and what the schedules’ are like will allow you to most effectively communicate with your team.

Working in groups is especially hard when it seems like your group members never have the time to meet or are not getting their jobs done. In that case, you need to go over with them how important their part of the job is, and that it’s critical that they pull their weight. If they cannot do this, then you may consider finding a new person for the job.

For other members who are able to meet for important meetings, make sure you always have another date planned for the next meeting. You don’t know what they’re going through in their life so it’s important that everyone agrees on a date. If there is no need for meeting in person to discuss, there should, at the very least, a group chat with all of the members present.

Working with a budget should be planned out before any work is done. Previous experience should help you calculate how much money will be needed for  certain projects, and if you think you will need more, you’ll need to state your reasoning on why. If you have no prior knowledge of investigating how much a project might cost, you may want to get a professional to help you.

Freelancing

The concept of freelancing is one that is appealing to many of us. Having a traditional job can easily get stressful if you’re not carful. Working with customers, coworkers, and bosses can overwhelm some people, and doing freelancing work is an alternative to working in that chain of command forever. Luckily, freelancing is a solution to become the boss that you’ve always wanted to be

Having the freedom to work on whatever project you want, whenever you want, seems like one of the best ways to live your life. You can sleep in the day, work in the night, eat whenever and do anything else imaginable so long as you get your work done. Not only that, but your interaction with people outside your residence is completely up to your discretion, allowing more introverted people to have a nice comfort zone.

The major thing that stops people from diving into freelancing is the fear that without a steady office job, you are in serious risk of having financial problems. It’s completely viable to live comfortably off of freelance work, but you have to make sure that you can keep a steady amount of clients

If you’re not sure you want to try something that risky, you can test out freelancing without much risk while working another job. It might be rough doing freelance work on the side, but it will help you find out if freelance work is something you would want to do as your main job.

The amount of freelancers in America are steadily increasing. The Bureau of Labor There was a study done that determined that by 2020, around 40% of our workforce would be independent workers. As jobs become increasingly hard to find, recently graduating students will look for methods other than traditional jobs in order to start their professional career.