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Does the concept of professionalism apply to the creative industries?

Does the concept of professionalism apply to the creative industries? 

Yes.

Very much so.


But why?

 After all, most of the creative industries mainly have these flowy, do-what-you-want, think outside the box type roles - why would we want to put rules and restrictions on a field that is inherently liberal?

 Well, that is the very reason itself. In fact, you could make a case that professionalism and codes of conduct are more vital in the creative industries than most other industries.

 Let's start off by recapping what a code of conduct is. According to Collins dictionary the definition is as follows - "The code of conduct for a group or organisation is an agreement on rules of behaviour for the members of that group or organisation". This applies to the way you interact with clients, coworkers, the outside world and also the approach you take to your creative work.


In computing, we have professional bodies such as the British Computing Society (BCS) for this reason. their job is to set and uphold industry standards for members and companies within the computing field. This is vital. In computing, we work very closely our clients. We are providing a service, but to the clients specification (in most cases). Without documents such as the likes of a software specification, which are enforced by the BCS, us techies would be free to give our clients whatever we wanted, with nothing to reflect back on or to reference to keep us in our place. As chaotically pleasing as that sounds, it's not very ethical! On the flip side, if we give our client exactly what they specified in the planning stage, we can reference back to said document to aid our case in the scenario that a client is displeased with the content.

 Customer service is vital to the success of any business. And by following a code of conduct, you are coincidentally following guidelines for good customer service. Sound data security, professional dialog, use of industry standard documents and delivering a service to a clients specification all do wonders for PR within a business or freelance gig. These regulations are also present to safeguard the clients, as if there are no set rules regarding the storage of data for example, a company could keep and sell your confidential data with nothing holding them accountable. On a business side, this makes sense also, you don't want to have a lawsuit on your hands, so better treat these regulations as the law!

 In conclusion, professionalism within computing is essential if you want to be successful in the field and to be trusted by your coworkers and clients.

 Link to the BCS site - https://www.bcs.org/

 This site helped - https://www.ukessays.com/essays/information-technology/the-ethics-and-professionalism-in-information-technology-information-technology-essay.php

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