My whole life is online: my two jobs Technical Translator and Online ESL Instructor, my international and Russian friends Skype, Facebook, Online Dating Websites, VKontakte and my school Walden University.
Connectivism is a concept my life is built on. My cultural background is Russian and we are very connected people as our approach to life is very communal. We often get jobs and school opportunities through our family and friends. Similarly I have got an excellent translation job still being a student because my mom’s old friend called her and asked if I might be interested in a position of a Technical Translator with an International power engineering company.
Besides, being a digital native I had no problems to find a job online after I graduated. I live in a small town in the mountains but the bulk of my clientele are people who reside in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Also my personal and professional connections include people from the USA, UK, Australia, Turkey and even Iraq.
I always resort to Internet whenever I have a question or a problem, the widespread term is “Google it”. Also I ask people in my social networks, and I have valuable advisors who help me to find a solution to any problem in the quickest possible way. At the same time I always offer my assistance to whoever asks for it.
All in all, my networking goes on lines of the principles discussed by Michael Dulworth in his book Connect Effect: Building Strong Personal, Professional, and Virtual Networks. According to Dulworth strong, powerful networks have four key qualities: (1) quantity, (2) relationships, (3) diversity, and (4) quality.
After I completed the test that determines NQ (networking quotient) my result was what he calls a “Networking Genius”. It turned out I naturally followed his10 Successful Networking Tips.
Top Ten List of Successful Networking Tips
1. Keep networking at the top of your priority list every day. (I check my emails the first thing in the morning and before I go to bed).
2. Help others in your network, first and foremost (All my friends and acquaintances have 24/7 access to my help, assistance and support).
3. Build a PBOD (Personal Board of Directors) to support your career and life. (Among those people the most valuable are a US Online Gender Studies Professor and my Russian English-by-Skype coordinator who has immigrated to Australia and works at Sydney University now)
4. Get organized— in whatever way works best for you (The only organizational problems I have are my messy apartment and weird sleeping schedule).
5. Map your current network. It’s probably better than you think. (Thanks to Walden it is off my list now).
6. Play “One Degree of Separation” to see whom you might include in your network. (Trevae Golden an ESL teacher and my Walden classmate is now among people I can proudly call my professional friends!)
7. Be interested in people and ask them a lot of questions. Networks are built through personal connections, and you never know how you might connect with someone. (I really tried hard to do it last week starting a forum for my classmates. The result is my new friendship with Trevae, with whom we’ve been productively collaborating since then).
8. Go for quality over quantity. (I am a “people cutter” and always keep my contact lists trimmed, so all my connections are meaningful).
9. Diversity, diversity, diversity! The more, the better. (My contacts are multiracial, from different age groups, occupations, continents and educational backgrounds).
10. Build your personal brand. (I am working on it, the example can be the forum I started last week for my ESL students Julia's Class)
Michael Dulworth states that when you have a network with all these qualities you get “the right people, the right conversations, the right time.”
All this makes my experience resonate with G. Siemens definition of learning. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing.
References:
1. Dulworth, Michael. Connect Effect : Building Strong Personal, Professional, and Virtual Networks.
Williston, VT, USA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2007.
2. Siemens, George. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. Retrieved from: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
