Week 16: Blog Audit
As I began this, my final assignment for my Masters, I re-read my blogs from past weeks, and I was struck by their transformation. You see, in my opinion, my first few weekly blogs were, well, lifeless. In fact, I re-wrote from scratch, and re-posted blogs from week 2, 3, and 4 for this course.
While my first attempt on each of the blog posts from those early weeks articulated the concepts and the connections I made, I was not offering any new insights or connections. And, if I am honest, doing this — offering new insights, connections, or even disagreeing with the authors — did not even occur to me as being a desired expectation for this course, until I sought feedback for improvement.
This course, has been largely different from most courses I have taken during my academic career. To elaborate, to earn a high mark in other courses, the expectation was to demonstrate a strong command of the material by articulating concepts and connections, usually by paraphrasing lecture and textbook material. And if I was asked to make or offer an insight, it was in the context of an experimental design question or it was a pre-scripted example which required reasonable deduction. Rarely has earning a high mark for a course required me to share my own personal insights, observations, or connections. As a result, because new insights and connections were the expectation for this course, I had to rethink my approach to the weekly blogs.
And while I would like to say it was easy to alter or rethink my approach after receiving the feedback for improvement, or reviewing examples my fellow bloggers in this course were posting, it was not.
I was concerned that my insights, connections, and even disagreements would be received with less than favorable judgment, so my beginning posts were written with a cool, professional, formal undertone because that was not just natural to me, but comfortable. And honestly, I have to say, these blogs were boring to re-read — where was the thought, or even personalization? After all, my professor and peers knew the material, so simply paraphrasing the material was unexciting to re-read, or even offer a comment on, as was evident — my early blogs did not receive many comments.
But as the course progressed and I altered my approach to the weekly blogs, which required removing the shackles of formality, I could not just see the difference, but I felt the difference as I wrote.
It did not arrive over night, it took some warming up — week 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, were like me trying to jump-start a car that had sat for to long, however, once it started, it seemed to drive smoothly along.
My writings, in my opinion, became naturally engaging, at least I hope, because I was being authentic. I began being myself, and I began asking the questions that popped into my head, stating, out in the open, the connections that I saw from the concepts or watchings. To do this, to allow my blogs to be a reflection of my thoughts, questions, and insights required me to be vulnerable and open to judgment, which was distressing.
However, the payoff, to me, was worth it — I enjoyed my assignments more, and the writings came more naturally, plus they offered my peers something to contemplate, and even agree or disagree with. Hopefully, my professor, and my peers in this course enjoyed my later blogs more too!
And now to shift gears.
As I discussed above, learning to expose my authentic self in my weekly blogs had a positive effect on my writings and the engagement I received from my peers through their comments. And it is this lesson, that I am most going to take away from this course.
To be an effective communicator, in an organization or in life, it’s not only important to know the right communication strategy or leadership style to use, or which of the 5 social powers may be at play, but it’s equally important to communicate to your audience with vulnerable authenticity .
