This week our lecture focussed around ‘Studio Etiquette’ and some do’s and don’t about how to present ourselves in a professional environment.
Studio Do’s and Don’ts
- Be pleasant and enthusiastic.
- Be on time.
- Dress appropriately.
- Use headphones for music – at a volume you can still hear people)
- Keep your own volume down.
- Don’t gossip.
- Keep areas clean (and help out).
- Don’t bring smelly food in.
- Offer tea/coffee if you drink it.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
It was also explained that labelling your files clearly is very important as other people will have to access them and having your work disorganised and hard to understand will waste time.
It can be daunting going into a new environment especially when its a professional one. Hearing that you shouldn’t put that much pressure on yourself and you’ll learn in time as every studio is a little bit different, helps. What’s really important is that your eager to learn and receive feedback.
Meetings
If a client has entered the company building for a meeting, introduce yourself. This can give you experience on how to interact with clients even if it’s not your meeting. Greeting them, setting up the meeting and offering them tea/coffee can set you up for a more positive experience with the client.
Even if you will not be conducting any meetings during placement being helpful to those that are can make a positive contribution to your team. Taking notes and understanding how the staff member conducting a meeting acts and presents can be helpful when it comes to your turn.
We also went through some Do’s and Don’ts for meetings. Most of which I had already assumed, such as; being on time, don’t zone out, take notes but there was some I hadn’t thought of.
- Be mindful of body language- Being aware of how your body language could be received eg. crossing your arms, head in hands- all give an unprofessional, bored look
- Don’t be afraid to contribute – I forgot that people would want to hear my ideas as a placement which can be intimidating but beneficial in the long term for feedback
- Be natural and professional- This sounds like it would be hard to but I feel if the environment is comfortable and you get to know the people around you, it will get a lot easier
Meetings can be beneficial for dealing with complex problems and covering a lot of issues of things that need to be done. They are also beneficial for us in terms of practicing and taking notes of how others conduct themselves.
Phones
Sometimes the company phone will ring for outside calls, if it is ringing for a while we should try answering it, it shows initiative.
This can sound daunting and at my current job I avoided the phone like a plague but I have gained a lot more confidence in this as usually it’s just a simple introduction from me and I pass the phone on to a more senior staff member or its a question about stock or ordering – which I can answer myself. It looks as though this is what it would be like in a studio environment as well. However in the studio environment if you can’t transfer the call you should write down the callers’ details and pass them onto a team member.
Emails are something I have gotten very used to writing from being a university student however emails in a work environment might differ.
In the lecture we were told that when writing emails, first we should have a good specific subject line and the right tone in our writing. It is important to look over what you read for spelling mistakes and if what you’ve said could come off too formal/informal.
In a first time email to a team member establish who you are are and if this is an email chain ask them how they’re doing. Politeness will go a long way.
However emails should be concise and it is important to get to the point as fellow staff members probably receive countless emails a day. If you are writing a lengthier email break up text into paragraphs and headings- should be easy to read.
The best advice from this lecture is just to watch and learn from the other members of the company, at any status and job role. Placement at its best, is an opportunity to get experience.
Workshops
This week’s workshop task was to get into groups and “conduct a meeting”. The groups have to decide who is taking on which role out of:
- Notetaker- this person will take notes of what is discussed and points covered in the meeting.
- Meeting leader- Begins the discussion and chooses the points to bring up
- Dumb question asker- asks ‘dumb’ questions
- Contributors – answer the questions and discuss as usual
In my group I was kind of edged into being the meeting leader but I didn’t really mind. The hardest part was just thinking about what to actually discuss. I tried thinking of different things that could be problems worth discussing so I thought of points to do with a project that had problems with it. I brought up some a point such as, “The design choices are client wants would cause some inaccessibility issues, how do you propose we bring this up with them.” The rest of the group brought up some points such as, ‘tactfully bring up other concepts for the app that we would recommend’ or ‘Respectfully educate the client on what we know in our professional opinion’ The dumb question asker of the group asked ‘Why does the possible inaccessibility issues matter?’. To this, the rest of the group and I explained how this would cause problems in how people would perceive the product and it would cut down on the demographic able to use the product which isn’t very profitable.
Weekly Task
This week we had to write a mock email in 1 of 6 areas which are;
- To manager keeping them up to date on a project progression
- To client requesting content that is a past due and necessary to progress.
- Asking for clarification on something you didn’t understand from a team member.
- To a client who has requested information or files from you months/years after the job.
- To request and arrange a meeting.
- Sending a link over to a manager/client to review work in progress.
