The problem with “Social-Professionals.”

Since this is my first post on Medium, I’ll give an intro to me. If you want to skip to the social professional part, head down to “TLDR.”

As I take off into my early twenties I am coming face to face with my second life. The life of work and how to become the business mogul I’ve dreamt of for the last…year or so. You see, I’ve worked my way to a somewhat peak of my profession in photography. My full time job is to teach Darkroom Technique and Film photography. Accomplishing this-having no post-secondary education. I now spend my time indulging my creative mind about the many different creative projects I can delegate to the emerging artists under me. My background is in non-profit work, having started in Cabrini Green and eventually moving to the south side of Chicago. Bronzeville and then Woodlawn for those wondering if I meant the south suburbs. No cul-de-sac’s for this guy.

So here’s my problem. I can’t afford school and it simply doesn’t make sense to go for the thing I’ve been preparing for, for years. My peers that will soon be graduating are competing for internships and coffee-bitch positions that offer “college credits” instead of the usual bill paying kind. Most won’t get a high-salaried position unless they get their masters. Most will also work to get to where I am so they can coast the next 20 years out of the debt they’ve accrued over the last four. My envied experience also includes working in the non-profit sector learning about social, political, and economic issues and how to act upon them positively.

Lest I subject myself to the next 30 years of thinking about what I don’t want to be, rather than acting on what I do; I identify the next realm I can assimilate to. Hello tech start-ups.

The thing that broke my looking glass self was the podcast series called “Start-Up Podcast” by Gimlet Media. As I listen to this professional in the radio world expose how inept he was at pitching a billionaire, my interest was piqued. (Sorry Alex Blumberg, you’re amazing on air but terrible when put on the spot.) Actually more than piqued. I listened through every episode, and took notes and I spread them out on my wall so I couldn’t stop looking at them. So many issues that came up were the same ones I came across when starting a coffee shop with my family (Oh yeah, I helped start a coffee shop that now has 2 locations on the south side of Chicago). I then came across Casey Neistat’s philosophies on work via his youtube channel. Which led me to Tim Ferriss. I’ve listened to every episode from him and read his book The 4-Hour Workweek. Which lead me to Chris Sacca, Peter Thiel and his book, and many, many more.

At this point I’ve been an outlier from the community because I felt I have a lot of homework to catch up on. As well as beginning to developing my own project which I will talk about soon enough. However I won’t waste time humble-bragging about “thought leaders,” articles, and interviews I can now regurgitate endless info about.

Here is my hopeful entrance to the community.

TLDR:

The problem isn’t actually “Social-Professionals,” it’s what created them.

As I engage in conferences, artist talks, and other pre planned functions geared for professional networking, I notice something strange. We only network on a professional level at these times. More-over we use social networking platforms for housing and establishing these connections.

As I look on to a crowd of twenty to thirty year olds, I observe a ritual that each one performs for every new meeting. They talk for a minute or two, and then pull out there phones and pass to the left or right. Each one typing in their Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook handle and press follow. The inherent issue with this is four fold.

• We aren’t using the tools for what they were designed to be.
  We are now in a world of “Social-Professionals” that are forced to use social networking for business and professional networking. It’s harder to establish a healthy work-life balance since you can no longer upload that cat picture because you have to keep a polished image on social media.
• We can’t network whenever or wherever we want/need to.
  Growing our professional networks are only designated to pre-planned events. When we do make it out to these functions we gain a pocket full of paper cards that we probably won’t ever use and a 20 dollar bar tab to get the “liquid courage” to talk to people. (might be projecting a bit here)
• Social media is for who you already know, not who you need to meet.
  As a photographer I am constantly scouring Instagram hash-tags and profiles to find models to shoot with the next week. This isn’t conducive to keeping a tight schedule. This problem applies to anyone who needs a stream of people and connectivity to further their professional portfolio of work and connections.
• No pressure to innovate, means we have out-dated solutions.
  With the limelight being affixed to Social Media, it allows companies who dominate the professional network space to have a take it or leave it attitude. If there is no one to create competition, we will just keep accepting that which is mediocre and out-dated (i.e. putting our entire life and life’s work on a single piece of paper to get employed). With no one innovating the market, we begin seeing employers asking for social media handles within the job applications. We have endless apps to meet new people to have sex with, find music preference, make friends, etc. So why are we limited to who we know personally when it comes to making money/work?

All that being said, I’ve identified this gap and have begun working on a tool for it. If you want to know more, check out Bandto or shoot me a message. Bandto is in its early stages but has real potential if I do say so myself.

As I begin my journey of being a “Want-repreneur” I find my need to connect with new people a necessity to the survival of this pipe-dream. Ironic huh?

-Caleb