A Review of Reviews: An Engineer’s Blogging Audit
As an Engineer, it has been extremely difficult to add much personality to my writing. I feel as though I have been trained for four years to report facts concisely and write in a technical manner that gets to the point, which is not ideal for a blog post. Throughout this semester, I have worked to add more of my personal opinions to my posts, and I think that my personality was becoming slightly more apparent in my posts.
In the beginning of the semester, it seemed like I was trying to improve the textbook by coming up with better examples of scenarios in which the concepts were applied. An example of this is when I was talking about strategic ambiguity in my week 2 post, “ In a successful sermon, the pastor portrays a message which the entire congregation relates with regardless of what is happening in their lives. For example, he may do this by speaking broadly about a challenge people are facing and how to overcome it based on the assumption each person is consistently faced with challenges and successes.” Because I am not an expert on these topics, this often fell short of the desired goal and throughout the semester, I tried to minimize this activity.
As the semester progressed, I tried to work harder to react to the text rather than to further explain the textbook with my personal examples. This was not my natural response; thus, it was challenging. An example of this is present in my week 10 post, “ Development of a personal brand is easy to do; however, ensuring that personal brand is how you wish to be represented requires a lot more work,” in which I elaborated on my personal interpretation of challenges of developing of your personal brand.
Overall, I feel that most of my posts are just a review of the recommended text or movie. More common that not, I based my posts upon the chapter we read that week, and a few times I based it more upon the show or movie we watched. A few times I drifted from that pure review of the textbook, such as my week 6 post, Health Benefits of a Locavore, I added a little external research on Chicago’s food supply to spice up my post.
If I were to start this class again, I would work much harder to make my blog posts more of a reflection than a review of the book. While they needed to be based upon that topic, I was not nearly as engaging or compelling as some of my fellow classmates. I would also work harder in proofreading my work. In rereading my posts, I noticed many errors that could have been corrected if I had been more critical in re-reading them the first time.
In further reflection on my blog posts, I was hoping to see if my communication style changed based upon the communication styles and concepts we learned about. Unfortunately, these concepts did not really apply to blog post writing, so it was not apparent that I learned these styles through the structure of the posts, but I have begun to think differently. This class has caused me to reflect upon my previous leadership experiences and how I communicated in those experiences, and I have realized a few key areas I hope to improve upon. First off, I need to ensure that any organization I may lead has strong brand identity which all individuals understand the purpose of, because it can be largely helpful in motivation. Secondly, people are highly motivated when their boss “shoots them with serotonin,” which is as simple as complimenting or acknowledging their hard work. I believe success in leadership comes from supporting and motivating those people that you work with; thus, ensuring your communication with everyone you interact with is key.
I have learned a lot through this semester, and my blog posts do not always do it justice. This class has challenged me in different ways than I typically am challenged in my Biomedical Engineering curriculum, and I value this experience for far more than simply being my first introduction to blogging.
