Pro Sound Web: This list of “effective habits” is distilled down from a much larger list as being the most important – based on my experience these 15 or so years in the business.
How these relate to you will depend of course on exactly what kind of work you are doing, but in general, they apply across the board, so to speak.
8 comments:
While this article may be for "Sound People", each habit is good advice for anyone looking to work in technical theater or at any technical job. These seven habits are very good advice, but each very general. I would say that in my opinion, one of the most important habits is to listen. Listening is more than focusing on what someone is saying, but also processing it and being able to let down your own opinions and accept others' opinions.
This article may have been written from the perspective of sound people, but what it has to say is general enough to apply in almost any field. Listening, technical skills, people skills, mentoring, good attitude, continuous learning, and excellent organization will take you far regardless of your field. It applies just as well to lighting, technical direction, or even accounting. I suppose that coming from a sound journal that would be the main focus, but there's still no need to be so limited.
I was interested to know what specific things sound people were doing effectively. I ended up disappointed to see that this was a list of good habits for any good worker. Certainly though this list sums up the positive attributes we like in our coworkers. Since not everyone seems to have gotten the memo, there's no harm in reminding ourselves what we should be aiming for.
I think the scope of this article is much larger than just for sound people, these habits apply to anyone in our industry and beyond that even. The author took these broad concepts and was able to hone them down to reflect specifically on the sound industry which was an interesting insight.
Even though the specifics revolved around sound some of his advice and interpretations of the habits can easily be applied to other areas in our industry.
I especially enjoyed the advice about being organized. I used to just write everything down in my agenda, which kept me pretty organized. Then, I started to obsessively update my iCal, which kept me very organized. I've tried other programs, but none have really increased my ability to stay organized and productive. Organization aside, sometimes its just easier to use a pencil and paper, though an iPad app might look cooler.
This is a great article for anyone in any field. I think it is important to note that having "skills", although an extremely important necessity for someone to have in order to succeed in an industry, is not useful without all the other skills about listening and helping and caring about the team of people working together. We consistently get lectures in class and articles on this website about this topic, and people always complain that it is over done and already basically known by everyone; but it's always interesting to hear that, yet see so many people forget about these skills once they are in working situations.
this was a good article. everything it said is true and i think very relevant to people in tech related fields. i think that everyone comments are basically to that effect. unfortunately i was really disappointed by the lack of sound advice bad pun but i mean it seriously i was expecting it to be a lot more informative about both navigating and dealing with people in the audio field
I agree with Wyatt. I was also expecting a bit more specificity to actual sound work. Though generally good principles, this article had a too much fluff and not enough stuff. So I will give you my seven habits of Effective sound people. 1. Check your batteries. 2. Leave lots of headroom. 3. Never use boundary mics with an overhead cluster 4. Carry extra wind screens for the lav mics 5. On a tour, have back-ups to every type of cable you use. 6. Assume the talent has never seen a mic before 7. Ask Eric when you do not know what to do.
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