ENDA Episode 40→ The time when the Endless Apprentice had to learn to socialize

Perhaps this is not the most surprising part of being an artist, but believe me that it makes a difference.

There is the belief that most digital artists are either computer geeks and/or very shy artists that had problems expressing themselves and….they are right 80% of the time. At least from my experience, that is what I can see when most of us start.

Being in a university, a technical school, or a college, the pattern always repeats: socializing is something that the majority of artists struggle to surpass, especially with people outside of our specialty. True, there are exceptions to the rule, but if I could give a number they would be 2 or 3 from every 20 artists.

Now you could say that socializing is not that important, given that only those who want to be supervisors or producers need it for their jobs. However, that is wrong.

Every artist, no matter what their specialty, needs socializing to keep up with one of the most important things in this industry: networking.

No matter if it's through LinkedIn, networking events, film festivals or even industry events. You need to socialize to keep your name and your work well known.

If you are not capable of expressing yourself or establishing new connections with other people, you are risking being left out in a world where new names come up all the time only the ones that left a strong impression are considered for a new project.

I know socializing can be hard, I myself experienced difficulties during my first events. Even today I still feel sometimes nervous before talking. Nonetheless, thanks to that, I’ve managed to meet many interesting people and being able to learn new stuff about this ever-changing industry.

And that is the catch, you never stop socializing, because this industry always changes and people always keep in contact with those people that remain in contact or make themselves noticeable.  So it is something you need to keep doing and improving the more you advance.

My advice? Just start talking, start going to events, and connect with people, it does not matter if you do not what to say at the beginning or if you do not have the same years of experience as them, just having a simple conversation, you are already socializing and building the base for a good networking.

What were your first steps in networking?