Author Topic: Last month: Building Networks.  (Read 7907 times)

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PSMKay

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Last month: Building Networks.
« on: Nov 05, 2004, 05:06 pm »
It's autumn, and a lot of stage managers have just entered the professional market out of school.  At the same time, folks are entering the busy holiday season, working on enormous projects where they'll most likely meet a ton of new people.

It's a good time to figure out how to build your network.  Where and how do you build up your contacts? How long do you keep someone on your contact list? Do you send them updates?  When is it time to burn a bridge, and how do you calculate that risk?  How do you keep a reference and leave the company?  

This topic is for new stage managers and experienced ones.  I think we've all got something to learn.  Start threads as they come to mind.

kjdiehl

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Last month: Building Networks.
« Reply #1 on: Nov 11, 2004, 12:16 am »
hmmm.. I just finished my business cards, which I've started handing out. I hope they'll start paying off. I've never really sent updates, it seems a bit obtrusive to me.
-Kris Diehl, AEA SM

"Somewhere in the city there's a stage manager waiting,
standing in the shadows with a clipboard in hand..."

VSM

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Last month: Building Networks.
« Reply #2 on: Nov 15, 2004, 05:11 am »
Every three months I send out an updated resume to the people I have worked with in the past and the people I am still courting to work with in the future. My resume has been in the exact right place at the exact right time twice in the past 2 years. Just closed GRAND HOTEL at the Colony Theatre in Burbank, CA. We were sold out 4 of the 5 weeks we played... Tons of great press... Lots of VIP'S... Lots of sadness on this one...
Ordo ab chao

PSMKay

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« Reply #3 on: Nov 15, 2004, 05:31 am »
On the flip side to VSM's tale, I worked with one actress a few years back who subsequently left the city.  She took her email contact list with her, though.  Every month we would get a long, windy, and personal update about what she had been doing, where she was working, and where she was headed next, peppered with comments to her younger cousins, best friends from high school and former professors at grad school!   She sent them to every member of the production team for the show that we shared -- from directors to designers to the cast.

The first one I thought was a mistaken email.  By the third one I had her on my spam blacklist.

Updates are cool, and can be convenient, but there is value in targetting your mailing list.

VSM

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« Reply #4 on: Nov 15, 2004, 05:37 am »
AMEN to that!
Be persistant not persnickety...
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smejs

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« Reply #5 on: Jan 28, 2005, 12:55 pm »
Okay, yeah, this is "last month's" topic....I'm a little slow....

Anyway, I'm always a big fan of both the "advice interview" and what the SMA calls "Operation Observation".......I'm currently unemployed, but I used last week to observe at 2 other places....I find it useful both to gain knowledge of how others do things (because hey, often we stage managers work alone), as well as build up more contacts.  I sat in on an industrial gig for the first time, and now the partner is looking into small ones to start me on because he was so impressed that I stuck around the whole time "for free" and even pitched in in a pinch during those 3 days.  And I sat in with the PSM on a touring production and just made some general connections with people in the process.

I also have had college students in the past come in and observe me calling from the booth, got to know them, and then offered them an internship later.  I also learn from the interns, of course...

Erin

isha

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« Reply #6 on: Apr 03, 2005, 03:30 pm »
learn from interns!! *gasp* hehehehehehe
I've always thought that if you do really good work on everything you do, and be positive/kind/nice to others it wouldn't be too hard to find other jobs...I never really thought that you had to do other things...

But you still have to do the marketing side...

What has worked the best for you guys? it seems to me that actual relationships (you know the person you are talking to) would be more effective than sending a resume out to random people. But I don't know much about SMing either...what do you think?
~isha

 

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