One of the missions of FWD:labs is to easily expand your network or reconnect with past collaborators. At FWDlabs.com, you can now describe your relationship with other collaborators.
Our response to the social graph — the “friending” or “linking” on social and professional networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, respectively — is to cut to the chase with the film industry’s “who you know” mantra: it’s about your collaborators.
The goal is to highlight the repeat or first-time collaborations between creatives working with cinema. We also want it to be dead-simple to find talent between one another, as FWD:labs is built around every member knowing someone else.
When you’re working more than once with the same actor, editor, or costume designer, it describes your relationship in the shortest, simplest way. Besides, explaining the specifics are best left to personal conversation. And you also don’t have the time to describe this at length online.
The goal is to compliment Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other social network:
- Like Facebook, one highlights their social reputation. Unlike Facebook, with FWD:labs it’s your “calling card” site highlights your professional reputation.
- Like LinkedIn, one highlights their professional network. Unlike LinkedIn, with FWD:labs you can freely view and contact FWD:labs members to ask about their professional network.
- Like _____, one puts effort into a member’s only silo. Unlike _____, with FWD:labs your efforts get indexed by search engines, found by word-of-mouth, and promoted day and night.
The social graph on FWDlabs.com is simple because each cinematic work has credits. No project is done by just one person. Adding names and their roles just once has a domino effect: it fuels each project’s credits page, each profile’s collaborators page, and also each record in the Creative Directory. All three are public resources for anyone to access at FWDlabs.com.
Related: See VisualComplexity.com for visualizations of complex networks
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