Saturday, September 9, 2006
Recognizing Professionals.
As our TALON Talent Online
Database updates finally get underway (with the reference rating system fully
intact as specified in the original design document along with a ton of new
enhancements, we are happy to report), we would like to remind models and
the industry that the Independent Sites serve that we TALON is NOT intended
to compete with portfolio networking sites, as portfolio networking sites
tend to be overcrowded with unprofessionals, hobbyists, unethical players,
scams, con artists, and those who try to use the facade of a profession for
questionable purposes. ANYONE can set up a profile on a portfolio networking
site, and no one will question their supposed qualifications; it does not
take any professional investment or sacrifice to be able to participate in
these sites, which is the reason that they tend to be unprofessional cesspools
which tend to undermine any positive perceptions that people have about models
booking work on their own without an agency. While we will have portfolio
networking-like features (sans the portfolio part and more about the networking)
on the Independent Sites eventually (The planned feature is fondly referred
to as "the sewer" by our staff, and, yes, it does have a purpose,
much like sewers have a good purpose in life), this will never replace TALON
or any featured professional profiles on the sites. TALON may serve as a back-end
of all of the sites, but it will have a level below it eventually.
What is TALON? It is a professional reference and contact directory, with
an emphasis on listing qualified professionals and omitting anyone who is
obviously either unqualified or unethical. We’re going for quality rather
than quantity, as there is more with less in this situation. If you want over
100,000 profiles, of which maybe 1% are real professionals, then we will suggest
using a portfolio networking site and wasting a lot of time and effort weeding
through the endless profiles. If you want a professional reference contact
database with over 90% professionals listed, but only a few thousand profiles,
then we have your ticket. It is unlikely that you will find some guy with
a camera who is doing endless TFP’s (free “professional”
shoots) just to meet pretty girls listed as a photographer in our database,
and it is even more unlikely that you will find a questionable business listed,
an unethical “professional”, or anyone that our models and staff
have a legitimate professional issue with listed. Although we cannot guarantee
that the contacts are legitimate and may not be able to check out every contact,
if we have trouble locating a business license and checking references, then
it is very likely that we will play it safe and refuse to list them until
we feel comfortable doing so. The majority of the contacts listed will be
qualified professionals who operate ethically and with REAL INTEGRITY. You
will not find them using integrity as a marketing slogan while their actions
and lack of ethics betray their words.
We have a list of over 100 characters in the Tampa Bay area and in the rest
of Florida who will not ever be eligible for listing in TALON, and many of
them know who they are. We expect that list to grow as some people who manage
to get listed decide to have us remove their information, which we may decide
to do after we emphasis that they will not be able to get listed again if
they ever change their mind. We will be happy to see more of their competition
listed, though, and they will have to realize that their competition will
get free exposure while they do not.
We are going to be thrilled to make sure that professionals are referred to
all the other professionals rather than certain people. As long as reputable
professionals find other reputable professionals and get what they need, we
are happy.
Not happy with your rating? How high it goes is really up to you. Get other
professionals to send in references, and your rating should improve.
It is true that we have some people listed who are also on model and talent
agency referral lists. Since we agree to disagree with agencies on many things,
when we are in agreement this should be taken as a very good sign. On the
flip side, however, if an agency refers you to anyone who is not on our list,
there may be a very good reason why they are not listed, and it wouldn’t
be because we don’t know who they are. We may simply not recognize them
as professionals. Agencies are not always right, and half of the time we have
to wonder, unless they are getting illegal referral kickbacks, that the booker
or agency representative who is doing the referring is not some undertrained,
minimum wage person who has no real clue on who they are referring people
to. Play it safe. If you want to use a photographer or some other service
that an agency is referring you to, at least check to be sure that they are
also listed in TALON. If you look, you will find some matches, and at least
you are being smart and safe. Susan Jeffers and Michael Cairnes are two photographers
who are on most agency lists AND on TALON, and you cannot go wrong with either
of them or anyone else that you find a match for (please note that contacts
listed in TALON do not necessarily endorse or support our sites, and any opinions
expressed on our sites may not be shared by them. In fact, over 75% of the
contacts listed in the database probably are unaware that they are listed
at all, as a lot of TALON information is gathered from public sources and
compiled).
TALON is intended to be a professional resource. Models and other professionals
will be able to use it to contact others much like agency bookers use directories
to find jobs for models and auditions for actors and talent. Don’t know
how to contact people? Don’t worry...... The instructions are only a
click away.
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