#ciu111.1

How can you use social media for your career? What strategies can you use? What is unprofessional on social media?  -(Dena, 2015)

These questions that Christy wrote in her blog are quite intriguing. 

I would use social media for collaborating or networking with other professionals, job hunting, as well as showcasing my work.

One of the most common unprofessional behaviours that people tend to do on social media was communicating inappropriately such as talking improperly (e.g. swearing) and displaying unsuitable content.

After I did some research online, I found four strategies on how to manage your social media professionally.

1. Know your audience and be interactive.

2. Provide value content for your audience

3. Go deeper in conversation with your audience.

4. Expand your social media presence.    

I think that these tips are very useful for me. I would implement these tips in the near future for professional reasons. 

The tip I found most helpful was to be in depth with your audience. 

I like this tip because I think I can always benefit from understanding my audience better. My future blog will benefit from it as it will provide interesting content specific and appreciated by my audience.

References

Pascale, A. (2014, March 5). 7 Tips for Managing and Maximizing Content in Social Media. Retrieved 17 July 2015, from http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2332197/7-tips-for-managing-and-maximizing-content-in-social-media

As social media becomes a larger and larger part of the day-to-day lives of people, businesses must be more and more careful when it comes to protecting their global image. Since information these days is completely shared among all audiences, any slip up or mistake can spread like wildfire and destroy a company’s reputation. 

Probably the biggest ever example of this in the video game industry, is a man by the name of Phil Fish, creator of the game FEZ. Phil went quickly from ameteur games designer to internet celebrity in a matter of days, and he didnt quite know how to handle this sudden change. Before being famous, Fish had an explosive personality, frequently getting into heated arguments with people on forum websites. When the ‘forum’ quickly became ‘the world’, his actions were being scrutinized on a much higher level than he was used to. Now when Fish commented on criticism, it wasn’t just “Phil being Phil”, it became a stuck up producer who went mad with fame shaking his behind at the consumers.

This is an important example, because it highlights the delicacy that must be undertaken when presented with a large audience of potential buyers. You have to act civil and organised, treating them as if they have walked into your little family owned corner store. Nobody’s going to come back to your little store if you act like an asshole, they’re just going to move on to another one.

An important thing to take into account when producing media for the mass market, is making sure that not just the central majority can get access to it and can enjoy it. In these days of equality, more and more creations are modified in order to include various minorities, and allowing large scale productions to reach an even broader range of consumers.

The most common example is that of giving access to people with disabilities, such as vision and hearing impairment. Many modern games take that into consideration, with many dialogue heavy games, like Mass Effect and Tales of Xillia, offering full subtitling for their games, allowing those with difficulty hearing to experience the narrative to the fullest. One of the latest Nintendo releases, “Splatoon” for the Wii U, is heavily focused on colour, with majority of the gameplay basing itself around the colouring of stages. However, Nintendo has taken into account the large percentage of the population that suffer from colour blindness, 8% of men and 0.5% of women  (Color Blindness, 2009). The game features many options that change the in game colours to things that are distinguishable for all sorts of different variations of colour blindness, allowing everyone to experience the game just as well.

Accessibility

In terms of accessibility I believe that the blog has covered different disabilities which some people would have as consumer (within the industry). Those specified in Christina’s blog are:

Mobility

That the product should allow consumers to have the freedom of free movement which means they should not be restricted of their ability to make use of their skills.

Vision and Auditory

According to the blog,  the statistics for people who are visually impaired are one in seven to one  in  twelve.  However, for a group of people who have hearing problems or their hearing is impaired can find a visual film that have closed captions. Given that there is a disparity in information received by people with visual or hearing impairments, I feel that people who have either disabilities should have more options.

Diverse teams  & Events

I do realize that you have to be aware of the cultural society we live in to accept the people as they are  instead of  just focusing on specific type of people to work with. That includes accepting people for their skills and their ability to work together as a team for any projects/ events that requires in depth collaboration.  

Conflict Styles and Competition

I am aware that you need to have a clear understanding of the conflicts that arises in your career. the types of conflict that may arise through collaboration are:

Interdependence, incompatible goals (where the goals between two people or companies interfere against each other),  Communication problems (this often occurs when people can’t collaborate efficiently because of the language and cultural barriers, the time zone  between people)     

Bibliography

iamtulus, & SlideShare, 1p. (2011, April 7). Organizational Behaviour - Conflict [Powerpoint]. Retrieved 10 July 2015, from http://www.slideshare.net/iamtulus/organizational-behaviour-conflict

Bacal, R. (1998). Conflict prevention in the workplace: using cooperative communication. Winnipeg: Bacal & Associates.

Dena, C. (2015, April 20). Week 5: Inclusive Design. Retrieved 9 July 2015, from https://medium.com/self-directed-practitioners/week-12-inclusive-design-9df8f239653b

The Phone Call

I believe that  receiving a phone call from a company for a interview can be a nerve-wrecking and exciting experience for some people. After all, the phone call is one of the initial stages of job hunting.  

The phone call is usually informative, particularly about the interview process and its scheduling time.

In relation to my own experience, I received an email regarding the schedule of the interview. The main reason why I  received an email instead of the fore-mentioned phone call was because I was overseas. At the time, I felt excited because to me, it represented a stepping point for pursuing my ambitions. 

Interview Questions

The intentions of the interview questions are to test whether the candidates are better suited to the role.

Candidates feel nervous for the first time because they are interviewed by someone they had never met before and they have to convey their responses in a professional manner.

My first interview was an anxious one because it was important to me and I wanted to do well.

From the Pixar interview category in Christina’s blog, my interview was a mix of Behavioural,  Situational, and Video questions.

I found that during the interview, I felt that the questions ranged from easy to moderate. For some of the questions, I had my responses prepared beforehand in case if I had any difficulties.

The Sneaky questions

The intentions of asking “sneaky” questions is to find out more about how the candidates handle high pressure situations and how advanced their problem solving skills are.   

I had one of two similar questions during my interview that got me thinking for awhile before answering them because it was stressful. I would believe that the candidates could feel stuck when answering related questions.

For an example,  “If you were a part in a car, which part would you be and why?”  (Dena, 2015)

My answer: I would be the accelerator because I get things moving. 

This week’s lecture was focused primarily on the levels of employment and the various places you can find yourself on the corporate ladder. When you enter the workforce, it’s important to consider where you want to end up. Do you want to work from home? Are you able to travel for work? Knowing what you want is the first step towards getting what you want.

Of course, selling your soul to the big businesses isnt the only way to develop a dream and fund your imagination, the 21st century has plenty of alternate pathways towards reaching your goals. You could run your own studio, which is risky, but can pay off if it works. You have to shoulder all the difficulties with running the business, but you have full creative freedom, and can make whatever you like, however you like. You could fuel your project via crowdfunding, a more recent phenomenon that has given rise to many dream projects. Crowdfunding involves pitching your product before a crowd of prospective buyers, and they give you money to produce it. In return, you must offer rewards or promises that makes their payments worthwhile.

Week 2: What do animators, audio engineers, game developers, filmmakers, web developers, and graphic artists share in common?

There are similarities between different disciplines of the creative industry. As Christy Dena (Dena, 2015) covers in her article, there are 10 key points that Rosalind Gill’s study found that best depict work life traits that a new media worker has. They are entrepreneurism, short term, precarious work, low pay, long hours, keeping updated, self-learning, informality, industry-wide inequalities and exclusions, no future and having passion for one’s work.

From what I have learnt from the article and further discussion, I understand the collaborative nature that we share in the creative industry is important. As no project can be done by one person alone, it is imperative that we are comfortable with other people. This is why networking is an essential asset to working in the creative industry. We know people and their skills through their ability to communicate about their work. I would like to grow my confidence in collaborating and networking with other professionals. I find it a valuable skill, and a key asset for surviving in the creative industry.

Entrepreneurism is the ability to come up with ideas. As being a creative professional, I recognise that ideas are important as they drive the industry. I like developing my own ideas, and will seek to keep being inspired to drive my creativity. As the article stated, being entrepreneurial or creative is a mindset. I would like to grow habits that fuel this mindset throughout my career.

I also believe that DIY learning improves your ability to be creative and collaborative as a learning attitude. We can always find room for improvement in our personal and professional skills. Additionally, as most of the industry tools and systems used are regularly updated, it is important to have this attitude towards learning to remain a relevant and skilled employee. I would like to keep this attitude throughout my professional career as it is a highly valuable outlook to have.

References

Critics make the world of art go round. From fine art to video games, literature to television, stage theatre to film, the artistic world is at the mercy of those with a journalistic high ground. Creators of art rely on critics - academic analysts and reviewers alike - to provide feedback, insight, and publicity for their works.

It’s a symbiotic relationship. Critics thrive on the work of artists, which they consume and analyse. Artists depend on critics to reflect on their work, interpret it, deconstruct it, rip it apart and judge it for the world to see. Whether dripping with negativity or wrought with praise, a critic’s careful analysis of a piece of work can be just as important as the piece of work itself. Thus, as artists, it is important to maintain a good relationship with those in a position to define our work in the eye of the public.

Reviewers, the media, and the industry of journalistic critique is one of your most important keys to success as a member of the creative world. Reviewers will experience your piece of work - be it a game, an animation, a film, a song, anything - in the way it was intended to be experienced, and give a judgement on its artistic merit so that their audience (which is also your audience) can decide if it is worth their time and money to invest in your product, whatever it may be. These people are known as “opinion leaders”, whose thoughts on certain works can help guide public perception of the thing you have created, and play a huge part in determining whether your piece will be a memorable hit, or if it will be destined for the bargain bin at a supermarket. It is important to understand and respect the power your reviewers hold, and be sure to maintain a professional relationship so that they can be aware of your products and give timely reviews before their release. This means sending review copies of your products out to reviewers so they can experience it without needing to pay for it, and publish a story about it so that their audience might become your audience. This means keeping in touch with reviewers, making sure they know how to contact you and in the case of game development, perhaps even give them previews of early builds and access to exclusive news about your game. This is an honest way to drive media attention to your product, which results in improved audience anticipation. Provided the end product turns out at the level of quality promised in the press, your work should become successful as a result.

However, it is also important to understand that negative feedback happens. Sometimes, your product launches and despite all your best efforts, it is panned by critics. This is bound to happen in everyone’s career at least once. Something in the production misses the mark and you don’t quite capture your vision the way you had intended. In this case, it would be unwise to lash out at critics and claim that they “don’t understand the game” or “misinterpreted the film”, or try to claim that “this music isn’t for you anyway”. This kind of damage control is dangerous and can quickly result in the public ridiculing you not just as an artist, but as a person. When facing negative criticism, the best way to react would be to simply learn from the experience, take the feedback on board and try to improve on it next time. Audiences and reviewers alike relish in the artist whom actually takes feedback on board and improves their work; “It’s as if the developers heard every criticism we had for the first game, went back to the drawing table and improved the experience from the ground up in every way possible.” The moment a reviewer gets the chance to say something like that is the moment the audience flocks to your product, desperate to drink in all those improvements.

Finally, there are the critiques. These pieces will deconstruct your work in ways you thought impossible, breaking it apart and interpreting it in whole new ways you never dreamed of. Usually, if your work is critiqued and analysed on this kind of level, it is an utmost form of flattery. It means your work has become so culturally significant, such an important part of the period in which it was released, or such an interesting work in general, that someone decided it was worth their time to pick and prod at it and truly understand what makes it just so good. In other cases, it may be to discover what makes it so bad, and that’s okay, too. You should pay attention to critiques, but never try to correct them, as a person’s interpretation is their own, and even as a creator, you usually have no right to try to adjust those views. Offer insight when it is needed, and answer questions as honestly as possible when asked, but never expect someone’s interpretation of your work to completely line up with your own. This is one of the trickiest parts of accepting the public perception of your work, and where a lot of artists truly fumble. If you can work to appreciate everyone’s views on what you make, you will only evolve as an artist.