Tactical (Soft) Skills Matter
- Laurie Rivers
- Feb 22, 2020
- 2 min read
February 20, 2020 the GIGABYTE Notebooks team headed to University of Texas at Austin's Art and Entertainment Technology Department to present the professional development workshop: Portfolio Prep 101: How to Get Noticed BEFORE You Graduate.
Here's the deal, you can have the best equipment, software and be the best at what you do (regardless of your discipline) but if you don't know how to leverage yourself out in the world, you'll always struggle. That's why GIGABYTE Notebooks has created a professional development series to help students discover the essential tactical skills so they can shine beyond their portfolio and demo reels.
In the workshop series created by GIGABYTE Notebooks USA, there are three primary skills that lead to success:
1. Networking - So often people laser focus on their technical knowledge and skills, but don't make time to network. Just like your computer needs to be connected in order to get the biggest benefit out of the internet and the opportunities out in the world, you also need to be connected to the people in your profession or area of interest. Artists, game developers and filmmakers need to make use of ArtStation and other platforms that not only allow you to showcase your own work, but connect to industry professionals and peers.
To drive the point of connection home, the GIGABYTE Notebooks USA team used artist, mentor, and educator Anthony Jones as an example. Anthony is highly interactive on ArtStation, YouTube and Instagram.
2. Listening - Listening when done correctly is a superpower that keeps on giving. In the workshop, the team helped students understand the fine art of "listening" online, observing before commenting, and how to listen for more than words when in a gathering of people. (Many of the students came up for more info on this after the talk, because it's just so powerful.)
3. Authentic Communication - Understanding what authenticity means when it comes to professional behavior can be tricky. We covered how to use your personal style and build a brand authentically staying in your truth without being abrasive or breaking too many rules of "the game."
Of course we brought our fabulous notebooks for students to see what real equipment designed for creative pros looks and feels like, after all just because machines sound like their spec'd the same, doesn't equal high-performance. Showing how our specially calibrated machines perform to make performance smooth, stutter and chug free and well...no crashy crashy boom boom, is always fun. The best part of the whole event was knowing that a whole group of students feel more empowered in taking their first steps out into the world as artists, designers, developers, coders and data crunchers.
A new hashtag was born... #empoweredbygigabyte
The GIGABYTE Notebook USA team will be offering networking and collaboration help at L.A. Film School in March 2020. Stay tuned for a very special announcement soon.
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