Networking, Networking, Networking…
Since networking will be one of the most essential elements of our future business and incredibly important for employment, we learned about the lovely institution, that is networking events. Whilst I personally despise these artificial setups, I am well aware that they are necessary to further contact in the business world.
Northern Film and Media: ScreenSkills – Spotlight on TV Drama
For this reason, on Tuesday, Hannah, Chloe and I went to a networking opportunity with Northern Film and Media held in Newcastle – the ScreenSkills – Spotlight on TV Drama event. We left Hartlepool with the train at about 16:10 and arrived at the venue roughly an hour later. After the entrance opened, we signed ourselves in, got our nametags and then… we were just there.
Turns out, it is really hard to network if everyone expects you to but no one wants to make the first move. Especially the British way of networking was something that completely surprised me and caught me on the wrong foot. From my home country, I was used to a much more open and liberal networking mentality that is approaching people frankly. Since everyone is expected to network anyways and everyone is uncomfortable doing it, Germans usually decide to go all-in and be extremely open and direct in their approach.
If you are an extrovert person, this also means that you don’t wait around for someone to approach you, you just turn up like it’s the most natural thing in the world and introduce yourself to any group regardless, as if you’ve been best friends for years. And even if you were a rather shy nature – as I am – you would still do this; you would just first establish eye contact, nod, and then approach. And I thought this would also be the case with the NFM Academy.
Well… it wasn’t then.
All in all, the majority of them seemed to be students like us. While there were a lot of young people about clearly interested in networking and speaking to someone, most of them averted their eyes once we looked at them. Some even completely turned away from us once they had sized us up. Others had, much like us, arrived in groups, which made it even harder to get through, since they would stand in closed circles, not looking at anyone, seeming annoyed.
However, after about 45 min, the actual event started and we were led into the next room where the discussion panel and industry networking talks were about to take place. Right there and then, both Hannah and I got rather disappointed. Whilst ‘all’ areas in TV Drama production had been covered; from script, to production design, to sound, to editing, there was no discussion table set up for either lighting or the camera department, and not even a designated speaker or representative invited.
So when the actual networking event finally started, both Hannah and I were left with no representative to speak to or ask information from. Since Chloe had left off for the Editing Table Discussion, Hannah and I assessed the situation and I tried to find out whether any of the other visitors had been left as we had been. There had been, but as in the beginning of the event, most demonstratively physically turned away from us. This was another surprise for me as I’ve never experienced this kind of behaviour at a networking event before.
After what seemed like an eternity, we were talked up by one of the organisers and we used the opportunity to ask her about anyone that she could recommend. Since she had no immediate ‘technical’ recommendation, she offered us to go attend the Sound Table Discussion and maybe attend the Assistant Directors Table Discussion to ask for recommendations and help. However, before we could even start introducing ourselves to the Sound Table, she remembered, and introduced us to the only guy at that entire event that had ever been working on camera.
We immediately introduced ourselves and try to glean as much information off him as possible, but it soon turned out that he did not have much to tell us, since he only very recently has created his own production company and was still trying to find work as a camera trainee. Sadly, he quickly left after that, which gave us no real chance to establish a proper discussion.
We then finally moved on to the Sound Table Discussion and introduced ourselves to the representative there. After explaining our situation and the recommendation given by one of the event organisers, he sadly seemed more confused and was not able to recommend us anything more than to keep networking outside of our departments. Since this was what we technically did in just that moment, both Hannah and I tried to keep the conversation going, but sadly, the other side did not keep the ball up, which very quickly left us sitting there being ignored, while others were able to ask questions that were naturally more relevant to the speaker, being a boom operator.
In the meantime, Chloe was on a roll, collecting email addresses and information like no one else. When she joined us later on, we decided that we would all go to the Scriptwriting Discussion Table to get some email addresses for Lynley, and to the Assistant Directors Discussion Table after that to get some additional tips on production organisation.
Whilst the 2ndAssistant Director was the most helpful in recommending the studios in which she once started out and how to best organise pre-production in general, the rest of speakers were all rather stumped, since they did not expect camera or lighting interested people to come talk to them about just these areas of interest. However, without any real game plan of ours – neither Hannah nor I anticipated that we would be left without a camera or lighting representative to talk to for the entirety of the event – neither of them could really be blamed.
So when the event ended as announced, I sadly felt that I wasted my evening to a networking event in which I did not even get to apply my previous networking skills at all. Well, there was still the RTS Awards to go and network with the day after that.
The Next Day
Recapping the day’s events, I realised that I was not adapt to the British version of networking, and I decided that I would conduct some more research on networking and gather some tips to apply. Whilst there might be a cultural difference in our networking approaches, it does not release me from learning new perspectives, especially if I want to able to work in the UK industry or internationally. Thus, I ventured into Youtube, the realm of DIY videos, to learn and adapt.
Networking Research
In order to gather as many tips as possible, I decided that I would conduct research on different methods and cultural approaches of networking, which is why I not only looked at UK and German approaches, but also at Australian and American approaches to see how they might differ. Furthermore, I sought to source from different backgrounds and ages, from young female Youtubers to older gentlemen who started out building their business entirely without the use of social media.
From the plethora of videos on networking out there, I primarily sourced these five videos to give me an updated overview on the topic:
Marie Forleo: Networking Basics: 8 Tips to Networking Without Being Fake
Sunny Lenarduzzi: How to Network – Top 5 Networking Tips
Jodie Fox: Business Networking Tips for Shy People
Confidence Triggers: 10 Simple Ways To Improve Your Networking
Brian Tracy: Networking for Introverts [Ultimate Tips] (as linked above)
The Yield
From my research, I gathered nine valuable tips in total, which I ordered as an aid to memorise them better. These nine tips and tricks were:
Prepare ahead of time
Research attendees and
Make a game plan for the event
Be approachable
Smile!
Try initiating contact whenever possible
Always introduce yourself
Be present in the conversation
Listen
Don’t keep looking around
Look people in the eyes
Don’t be negative
Don’t bond over negatives but
Leave on a high note
Give and Receive
Give first (help, connections, etc.)
Receive last
Keep it short and sweet
Keep conversations short
Don’t overstay your welcome
Plan polite exit strategies
Use business cards as often as possible
Follow up after 24h
And finally, make the process enjoyable for everyone involved
Having had this refresher on networking and looking back on the evening, I immediately realised the issues I had during the networking event at NFM.
Lessons Learned
With action point no. 1 of the list above (Prepare ahead of time), whilst Hannah and I had a game plan to talk to representatives of camera and lighting, we did not have a backup plan for what to do. Whilst, yeah, it was rather unlikely happenstance, it made me realise that having an additional plan would have helped us still make the most of the evening.
Furthermore, with the research on attendees, this was kind of impeded by the fact that the official attendees list online was censored by the surname. Whilst I was looking up the list, I immediately realised that I won’t be able to definitely pinpoint attendees by their abbreviated names. Furthermore, since there was no speaker’s list published either, it also impeded the research in that regard. However, I will still take this tip to heart as I do think it is a marvellous way to get started and even tuned into the event.
With action point no. 2 (Be approachable), I realised that I should have taken action and approached people myself, regardless of their impression of being unimpressed. Even though I do not like approaching people with that kind of aura, I realise that I will need to be bolder in the future and just go for it. This also ties into action point 9 (make the process enjoyable for everyone involved).
With action point no. 3 and 4 (Be present in the conversation and don’t be negative), I don’t feel that I will have many issues with that. With my past occupations as temp in both a law firm and at a publisher, I was primed to behave accordingly by establishing eye contact, listening, and being present as well as positive from a very early point on in my career. The same goes for action point no. 6 (Keep it short and sweet).
Action point no. 5 (Give and Receive) however, has been helpful to reframe my notion of networking as a purely egoistical and superficial endeavour. By opening up the perspective of conducting mutual exchange of skills and experience – aka, putting more focus on offering help and services instead of just asking them from others – it not only gave me a practical idea of how to approach others graciously and at eye level, it also reframed my position at a networking event, making me a more of an eager contributor than a sort of petitioner.
Still left are action points 7 and 8 (Use business cards as often as possible and Follow up after 24h). Whilst I neither had the time nor the budget this month to create and commission business cards for both events, I do realise that this is the quickest and easiest way to exchange contact details that don’t require fumbling about with pen and paper whilst standing in a crowd of eager networkers.
Game Plan for the RTS Awards
Having learned from my mistakes, I decided that I will try to add the following to my current repertoire and experiment with the outcome at the RTS Awards:
My plan: Approach at least one person working in camera and/or lighting
Introducing myself by means of an elevator pitch about me
Being proactive in talking to people
Get to the meat of the conversation by offering up my help for possible future projects
Since I don’t have business cards just yet, I will try getting them at a later date.
The RTS Awards
This night left me completely clueless as to how to network with other students. Whilst the evening itself and the awards ceremony were nice to attend, it turned out that it was not a good place for networking. At first, the students from other universities were much too nervous (and much too sober) before the awards ceremony.
During the awards ceremony, two male students from other universities did win a cinematography award in the craft award section. Since my main goal was to approach a person on camera, I decided that I would approach them after the awards, congratulating them and introducing myself. I thought that this might be a rather smart approach while the glee and joy over winning was style topical.
However, the first person I set my eyes to, immediately left as soon as the awards ceremony ended. The last time I saw him on the event, he was on a straight line out. With the other guy that won, he was surrounded by an entire group wanting to talk to him. So I was waiting for him to be able to ‘break free’, or at least have less people calling for attention.
Once he was free and turned to walk towards the bar, I wanted to introduce myself, stepped forward and greeted him with an outstretched hand. Or at least I tried to. For he looked at me totally confused, not stopping in his track, and keeping his hand by himself. He then turned away from me and kept walking before I could introduce myself a second time.
I was totally shocked, to say the least.
In my entire time of working on exhibitions and representing a law firm, I never encountered a person who would so openly ignore someone on a networking event. I would maybe meet people politely decline my questions or excuse themselves for being on a run. I sincerely hope that this is not the general fate of a woman wanting to work in the camera department.
However, after this experience, I decided that I will proceed to start networking with the LVL4 students, with whom I did not yet have any relationship at all due to the workload in both levels, and had a lovely chat with Nicole. Since I realised that I will still need to level up chit-chatting and grow a thicker skin with this rather bold rejection style, I thought that I might get more practice with people in situations that are not professional to begin with, to take a bit of pressure out.
This was not the last networking event for me this year. With my work experience on Girl Fight, I luckily made many connections and friends with (former) students from Leeds University and Teesside University, both within the camera and lighting department, but also in the art department and production. While I might be rubbish in these artificial setups, I seem to fare well on set. However, I’ll learn and improve. I’ll have my come back.
References:
Marie Forleo (2012) Networking Basics: 8 Tips to Networking Without Being Fake [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkqd6T399tQ [Accessed on 27 February 2019]
Sunny Lenarduzzi (2015) How to Network – Top 5 Networking Tips [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfNN3b1dofQ [Accessed on 27 February 2019]
Jodie Fox (2015) Business Networking Tips for Shy People [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmuweKtc3d8 [Accessed on 27 February 2019]
Confidence Triggers (2017) 10 Simple Ways To Improve Your Networking Skills - How To Network With People Even If You're Shy! [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5xTbn6OnAA [Accessed on 27 February 2019]
Brian Tracy (2018) Networking for Introverts [Ultimate Tips] | Brian Tracy [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha6pVAgVVl0 [Accessed on 27 February 2019]