New beginnings, End of an era…
by andystew on December 14, 2011
I’ve never been prolific at adding new blog posts but have noticed through my analytics account that some posts do okay. I just wanted to say that after the new year I’m going to allow my domain name and storage to expire. This blog will no longer exist however you can keep up-to-date with my most recent thoughts across at: andystew.posterous.com.
The decision is based on number of things: consolidating costs; being more organised; driven by a new addition to our family. Thanks for reading and I look forward to seeing you in other spaces.
#CShock11 – Digital Storytelling
by andystew on September 29, 2011
What a day! Thought provoking, enlightening, emotional and at times confusing. Who’d have thought a conference focusing on community engagement through digital storytelling could be all of these things to one person. Well done Culture Shock!
The main reason I attended the day was to try and find out more about how Universities and Colleges might embrace digital storytelling to help them with their Business and Community Engagement (BCE) activities. One immediate use would be to help demonstrate (or not) impact. It also seems pretty obvious that it’s an amazing way of collating qualitative data, linking strongly with ‘participatory approaches‘ to research. As Pip Hardy’s (Pilgrim Projects Limited/Patient Voices) slides noted (apologies for the poor attribution here):
Statistics provide us with the system’s experience of the individual. Stories provide us with the individual’s experience of the system.
Something that isn’t always very obvious to people is the input UK education institutions have on policy making. Pip Hardy noted her use of digital storytelling to help educate those within the health sector responsible for policy making which I thought was an excellent idea. Something education might want to learn from and something I think Purpos/ed might want to look at for a future campaign.
The last workshop I attended focused on Lifelong Learning in which the organisers highlighted two examples of where digital storytelling had been used: within the prison service and for English as a Second Language (ESL) students. Both examples were extremely powerful and emotive highlighting how individuals might confront major issues in their lives whilst also improving their confidence, communication and IT skills. Again this might be something worth exploring, perhaps someone already has?
Both Barrie Stephenson (Digistories) and Pete Wright (Professor of Social Computing, Newcastle University) briefly eluded to matters of the heart which I think needed more attention. Digital stories (like this) are extremely emotive. The mixture of sound and images along with the story itself play on your heart strings. I think there are a whole raft of ethical issues associated with their use. My thinking here relates to Dan Gardner’s book–’Risk’, especially chapter 8–’All the Fear That’s Fit to Print’.
Overall I thought it was a great event, and very well organised. All of the speakers were fantastic and the workshops I attended were very useful (I’ll try to write these up later). This post is focused on using digital storytelling in a BCE context but if you have any thoughts on what I’ve said then please add a comment :-)
Posterous site on Project Management
by andystew on August 21, 2011
I’ve just set up a Posterous site where I’m going to start and collate all of my thoughts around Project Management. If you’re interested then head over to http://andystew.posterous.com. My most recent posts are highlighted to the right :-)
Collaborative Writing
by andystew on June 27, 2011
Google Docs really does kick arse for collaborative writing! Our team have been asked to contribute a book chapter to the upcoming ‘Digital Information Review’ so we decided to use Google Docs to make a start.
We actually decided that it would be useful to do this in the same room so we booked out a meeting room and set away. The discussion feature within Google Docs is fantastic but we felt being in a room together would help us focus and just add to the dynamics of what we were doing.
It certainly did. We had a synopsis of what we should be writing about and so all chose an area we were comfortable with and had taken a lead on in the past. It took us approx. 90 minutes to write 3,000 words at a decent standard. Given this was something our team were quite worried about, in that we had quite a tight turn around for it, this felt like a huge weight off our shoulders.
The fact that we were working together at the same time actually made it quite fun too. We could see edits others were making, examples of what we were all writing, things people weren’t happy with and therefore making the page jump up on down by deleting content. I really recommend small teams giving it a go.
Next steps are for one person to lead on reviewing the content and ensuring there’s a consistent style used throughout. Slight tangent but the service I work for are beginning to use The Guardian’s style guide which is extremely useful! Anyway, top marks to Google Docs - collaboration at it’s best :-)
Pomodora
by andystew on June 23, 2011
So I’m looking into the use of Pomodora after an excellent presentation by Andrew Male with whom I’ve started a dialogue with about project management methodologies.
So far I’ve read through the cheat sheet and downloaded the book for later reading. I’ve downloaded focus booster on my PC and Macbook to time each Pomodora. I’ve also installed TaskPaper on my MacBook to maintain a list of activities. I’m still a bit unsure whether I’ll have to buy a license for that but based on first impressions I’d be happy to pay $30.
The good thing about TaskPaper is it’s simplicity and intuitiveness. I’ve grouped activities based on projects I’m working on. Everything I identify as a ‘to do today’ activity I’ve tagged with a date (american format for sorting purposes). Once an activity is complete I add a tag which highlights how many Pomodoras it’s taken me.
So far I’ve completed 2 activities and 3 unplanned activities. In the long run this should help me to estimate the time it takes to complete future activities. For now I’m effectively prioritising tasks and I actually feel much more motivated. Lets see how I get on.
