When you think of conferences, you think of being exposed to new and exciting ideas, you think of the chance to get away from your practice for a few days, but do you think of it as an opportunity to network with other professionals working within your field of interest?
The Online Conference for Music Therapy (OCMT2011) will offer you an unparalleled opportunity to find others that share your interests and connect on a personal and professional level. There are a number of ways that we will be encouraging networking.
First, we will be publishing a directory of participants (optional opt-in) that will include information such as the location, specialty, e-mail, Facebook and Twitter usernames and several websites/blogs/etc. that they find helpful in their practice. The use of Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn and other similar sites is referred to as “social networking”. They can be a powerful source of information and professional identity or they can be a relatively meaningless and ineffective tool – the choice is yours. Some guidelines that you can use to make your networking more effective are:
1.Have a plan for your social networking activity before you start! One of the most common mistakes that individuals make when beginning social networking is not “controlling” their image. Do you want people to see you as the, “happy, go-lucky person who likes to drink on Friday nights, party with friends and user of much obscene/profane language” or do you want them to see you as, “a valuable source of information, who is polite, respectful, who responds to questions and request quickly, and effectively”?
2.Complete your profile. The more information that you provide, the better. That is not to say you should include your complete profile including the assignment in Grade 2 where you were given a “excellent” mark. It is a fine balance between privacy and making your personal information public. Nonetheless, if you don’t complete your profile, that can say volumes to those seeking you out, without a word being spoken. An interesting discussion of this topic can be found in the Voices column by Dr. Joke Brandt, a music therapist from the Temple University Arts and Quality of Life Research Center. Her column, and related responses can be found at: http://voices.no/columnist/colbradt250110.php.
3. Post frequently and post often. If you can find a way of posting items daily or every few days, that is going to increase traffic to your website and your perceived “value”. Posting a few times a month may bring you Facebook friends and Twitter followers but it will not enhance your perceived value. What to post? – events and things that you are involved in of a professional nature, a valuable new resource that you came across, and news items that you have also come across. I can honestly say that my Facebook Wall is full of mainly recreational posts (e.g. What I have been doing on Farmville) however Facebook is indeed a valuable means of communicating and locating many individual music therapists and music therapy organizations. I use my Twitter account (JLisaMT) to post more professional related items such as upcoming events, websites and use “hashtags” such as #FF (Followfriend Friday) to recognize colleagues that I find are helpful and provide meaningful posts and #musictherapynews and #OCMT2011, to generate a distinct identity among the increasing numbers of music therapists on these networks.
4.Time commitment required. All of these updates and postings are going to require a dedicated amount of time, usually on a daily basis. Just as you need to dedicate time to keeping up with the “books” and reading the latest journal publication or indeed, just practising your guitar and piano skills, you need to dedicate a period of time to maintaining and building your social network.
Now to PLNs…
We will also have a “backchannel” available throughout the conference. Essentially, this is a chat style feature where you can post comments, ask questions, and connect with presenters and participants alike. We are also encouraging presenters to stay on the backchannel for a short period after their presentation is over so that they can answer questions.
Finally, we hope to assist participants build “working groups” that will carry on post-conference, and assist with the planning of the next conference. They will be based on specialties within the field of music therapy and position within the profession (working professional, student, intern, family/caregiver, other interested professional). The e-learning literature refers to these as “Personal Learning Networks” or “PLNs”. A great summary of PLNs and a short video can be found http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2008/04/5-things-you-can-do-to-begin-developing.html. Do you have a PLN yet?
As usual, please feel free to post your comments and reactions to these and the other blog entries. If you do not feel comfortable posting publicly, you can also send comments and reactions to: ocmt2011@gmail.com.
Alternative sources of information for the conference include:
Facebook: OCMT2011 – Online Conference for Music Therapy
Twitter: Use the hashtag #OCMT2011
Online Conference for Music Therapy 