Networking has long been the buzz word of the media industry and the benefits of effective schmoozing and professional reputation can be career defining. This week Moray reminds us of the importance of networking and illustrates how “belonging” can aid you in carving out a successful career for yourself.

Networking’ is a grindingly hackneyed phrase. It is as if no new initiative can be discussed without the words ‘social networking’ somewhere in the first sentence. Or does it make you think of grimly ‘working a room’ with a glass of warm white wine in hand, a forced smile and a babble of small talk? And yet the truth is that every reader of this page is dependent on their own networks for their ongoing income. If you can work out where you want to be next, you will probably need your networks to get you there. This is the key maxim: a network is something that you make for yourself, not something you join.

Of course, there are all the online social networking sites, the Linked-Ins and Facebooks and others, which really can be useful to join and are free of charge. And then there are the industry-specific networks of which the ProductionBase is arguably the biggest, and which are an important part of your professional kit. These are ready-made networks in which it is a good idea to take part, but even then the onus is on you to take further the connections they offer.

This is why your network is useful. Few people in television production have the luxury of being the only person who can do the job that they do, so each of us needs to be seen as the most attractive available alternative to a potential employer. In the absence of a string of professional qualifications, the information available to a potential employer boils down to the productions you have worked on before, and what other people think of you. Because you may have done a poor job on a great production, or a great job on a dreadful production, the employer is ultimately reliant on what other people think of you. This is where your network becomes essential, it includes your former colleagues, employers and other people you have worked with directly or indirectly, people who are interested in you but have not worked with you, your friends and even your rivals. Their opinion, whether in isolation or all together, is what measures your attractiveness for the next job. If you ignore that network, then you have no control over your chances of getting the next contract, and if you give that network real attention, then you can start to manage your future.

Here is the next maxim: if you try to manage your network simply for your own ends, nothing good will come of it. Your network is a collection of intelligent, self-willed people and if you are selfish in your dealings with them then you will lose their support. However, if you can bring your network to bear on a matter which appeals to them as well as you, then you have a very powerful tool to hand. I can demonstrate two examples of the powerful effects of networking, both of which I was personally involved in, and both of which changed the way parts of the television industry operates.

This is the first example. Fourteen years ago, when there was really no central point of information about the many people who worked freelance in production, I was known to a lot of the people who ran the UK’s independent production companies, and I also knew quite a few freelance programme-makers. I planned to grow a network in which they could find each other on a large scale, and where I could have a role in managing that network. The result was ProductionBase. It grew because the more people that joined as employers or freelancers, the better it worked for each individual person. That network may look inevitable with hindsight, but I was told confidently by the chief executive of PACT at the time that it could never work.

Here is the second example. Four years ago, a group of less than 18 people without individual power or influence, most of whom remain anonymous today, worked together via an online discussion board in order to stop the production industry’s toleration of, and tacit agreement with, exploitative long-term unpaid work experience. This group forged the WRAP campaign which in a few weeks gathered tens of thousands of signatures in protest, lobbied government and the industry’s key bodies, gained massive coverage in Broadcast and the Media Guardian, and resulted in a DTI-sponsored set of guidelines of good practice which PACT sent to all its members, following which the broadcasters rewrote their internal guidelines. Now companies which use newcomers to the industry as unpaid labour are treated as pariahs by the industry at large, and they are liable to face investigation by the tax office for evasion of employment tax and national insurance payments. All this was achieved with no campaign budget whatsoever. The WRAP network dissolved once its goal had been reached, but it remains a striking example of the power of networking among like-minded people.

You may still wonder what the examples of networking above have to do with your own ongoing career. Networks in which you take part are all good, whether they are vast or very small. ProductionBase is a network of thousands of people who are essentially in competition with each other for the industry’s jobs, and yet it is in the interests of each individual to be a part of that network with their counterparts. On a tinier scale, I am currently forming a new network of perhaps just three freelance people including me who have complementary specialist skills. When each one of us finds a new job, then the other two may be considered to add their talents to that endeavour, or may not. We can do this without forming any kind of formal company or business relationship other than being part of the same network. Our network may grow, change people, or stay exactly the same according to what works best for each individual member of that network. I expect this network of three to have at least some beneficial impact on the work of all three, perhaps a big impact, and yet each of us still has other networks of our own as well.

You may well be using your networks to the max already. If you are not, try this. Consider what you really want to be doing in the future, and write it down. Now think of how that fits in with other people you know, and see if it could work to their advantage too. Get talking to those people, and see what comes of it. That is a network. Do that again and again, and with many people. That is a career.