Professional Communication technologies

Exploring the uses of technology in a workplace.

I am guilty of going through everyday life, using my smart phone and various social media applications without truly realising the endless possibilities or knowledge I have at just a click of a finger.  It was after reading reader 1 however, that my mind was opened up to a number of subjects that had actually never really come to my mind. 

Being only 20 years old, I would say I am slightly naive as I myself wasn't a professional in practise in the days when social media and other even older sites such as wiki or google were a dream for the future. This probably being the reason why I take these benefits for granted at times and don't actually  appreciate how lucky I am to be a performer in this generation. 

I am an active user of both Facebook and Instagram, and since I became a professional in practise and in fact read through the Handbook, I realised just how important the Web 2.0 is to my workplace in order for me to share my work to a wider audience as well as view other people's work to benefit me and help me grow as a dancer.

The first social media application was recognised in 1997, (ironically enough, I found out this information by simply typing in 'when was social media invented?' on google) this meant that around 20 years ago (probably even less than that) performers could only show their talents on a stage where people needed to pay money for a ticket. Many performers would agree that we aren't in this industry because we want to be rich, but rather because we have a passion for what we do. If we only wanted to have money, this industry definitely isn't the one to go in to. For this reason I can only imagine how hard it must've been to be a ballet dancer in the good old days as only the richest people could afford a ticket to see the best of the best actually perform. Nowadays theatre tickets can still be pretty pricey however, luckily for this generation, myself included, I am now able to research and expand my knowledge on so many different dance styles and be able to keep myself up to date with the standard of dancing all around the world, from the comfort of my own home without needing to spend a penny. This is a privilege that millions of people take advantage of every single day with some of my favourite dancers for example, receiving multiple million views on their youtube videos. Saying this, its not just dancers who view these videos, I have many friends who study completely different subjects at university and yet still show an interest in watching these videos, not only that, but they have an opinion on them. I find it so interested to talk and share ideas with people who have never been trained in any styles of dance because they show me a whole different perspective to what I see. Hamilton (2000) talked about how the reduction of barriers causes an increase in participation, and that is what led me to realising everything I have written above. If these videos online were not so accessible, or easily shared, many people who are not directly in the industry would not have a clue about dance, unless they paid money to go and see it in the theatre.

This is where the point of collective intelligence sparked some ideas in my head. People from all different backgrounds and cultures are able to expand their knowledge on all the various genres of dance by being able to exchange thoughts, ask questions and expose you're own work to be open to discussion, by the use of the Web 2.0. This enables dance to be constantly evolving and improving. Additionally people are kept engaged and eager to carry on learning from one another which creates diverse relationships between people who would not normally interact, simply because they share the common interest of dance. 

Aside from all the positives there are also negatives behind the use of the Web 2.0. The ability to hide your identify behind a computer screen, can cause many people to say things that they would not normally say to someones face. This could be things like commenting horrible/rude things on other peoples work which do not contribute to any sort of discussion that would help the community learn, but rather be hurtful to person who has shared the content. Thankfully, many sites enable users to delete certain comments or block users who do not contribute to the evolution of the site.

Personally, i believe the ability to share my talents and interests on the Web 2.0 will be beneficial to me in my career for multiple reasons:

- I am able to read feedback from a large audience to help me improve as a performer.
- I can view other peoples work from all over the world and discuss my opinions of them and in tern make friends and open my mind up to other opinions.
- I am able to make a platform of my self whereby possible employees can search my name and see my previous work. Meaning I have created almost like an online showreel which is easily accessed,  however under my control on who can and cannot view and comment on.

Thank you for reading, I would love to hear other's opinions on these topics to please leave a comment!