Posts Tagged “writing”
Weeknote 4
by andystew on June 14, 2010
Resource Writing
I’ve been working closely with some colleagues on a project due for completion later this year. We’re determined to get the resource finished on time and so decided to block 3 days out of our calendar this week. It was extremely productive concentrating solely on the resource and time well spent. We managed to review all the material we have, create a skeleton structure and start highlighting what might fit where. we also managed to fully organise our showcase event. Watch this space – Collaborating Across Boundaries.
Presenting & Facilitating(ish)
I was in attendance at a recent event where I was presenting on work my more formal team are responsible for – Business and Community Engagement. It was a fantastic day and I felt my presentation went well. I also took part in various group activities in which I played a facilitation role. I prepared quite well in that I had thought through some questions and answers to provoke conversation although I rarely had to call upon them.
[slideshare id=4489262&doc=jiscadvancerscsandbce-100613150606-phpapp01]
Google Analytics
I’m involved with a small working group looking at future technologies and we were lucky enough to have some input from an expert in Google Analytics give us an in-depth tour of what’s possible. I’ll try to write this up in a later blog post
Sport Galore
I’ve been watching loads of football and loving it! the world cup absolutely rocks and even though England could only manage a draw I remain hopeful. I was really impressed by Ghana and thought Germany were fantastic. It was also a great weekend for us Brits in F1. Hamilton and Button were awesome!
Homemade Fat Balls
Ver and I made some homemade fat balls this weekend. Hope the birdies like them! We used a recipe from the BBC.
Homemade Mint Sauce
We also made our own homemade mint sauce which you can see the recipe for here: Mint Sauce Recipe
Weeknote 1
by andystew on May 24, 2010
Inspired by a colleague, Doug Belshaw, and the passion to improve my writing I thought I’d embark on the phenomenon that is Weeknotes. I hope you enjoy…
Keeping my blog up to date
It takes some effort to keep a blog up-to-date but I’ve been trying to make a big effort since the start of this week. I think one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is feeling comfortable enough to just throw things out there. A lot of it may not appeal to the majority of people but who knows, one nugget of information might really make the difference to someone. As mentioned above I really want to improve my writing style and speed which I’m using as a carrot to drive myself forward. A quick tip is that I’ve been drafting blogs when an idea comes to mind and setting myself a target date for publishing it using the schedule feature in WordPress.
Cross projects meeting
I’m heavily involved in the coordination of five projects, part of a larger programme of work I need to maintain links with. The projects are nearing completion after approx. 18 months (generally). We bring those projects together every three months to share lessons learned, update on progress and discuss any issues. It generally helps to keep everyone up-to-date too. For some reason or other I enjoyed this day more than usual. We had: an update from one of the projects that had completed; each project drew road maps highlighting their journey to date helping them prepare for their final reports; we had a session on evaluation from someone external to the group; discussed the future of the overall programme; highlighted requirements for the final report; and discussed what we might do in the final meeting due in July.
The one thing I always struggle with is getting rich and engaging information from the day back to those who took part. Other than general notes we took videos of feedback from the road map exercise, along with images. For me video is the most engaging format and helps to capture the full meaning of what’s said but it’s the hardest to share with a closed group. YouTube works as a medium but to share a private video users must have a YouTube account. Not everyone appreciates having to sign up to yet another service. I need some time to really test out the various options available in this area.
Meet and Greet, Text and Tweet
I exhibited at the ‘meet and greet, text and tweet’ conference hosted by the beautiful Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. I had work that needed doing so couldn’t attend the sessions, unfortunately. I did meet some nice people during the break though and hope they found our information of use. The bulk of interest seemed to be around e-Portfolios and the Business and Community Engagement projects we’re undertaking. Interesting to note at such a conference the organiser didn’t know what a #hashtag was, doh. From conversations on twitter the sessions did seem worthwhile though, which is good.
Reviewing the Mediating Boundaries event
Rather than reinvent the wheel it’s probably worth just pointing you in the direction of our write up available on the Collaborative Tools blog post. The post is relevant to anyone interesting in communities of practice or business and community engagement.
Gardening
I’ve a new found love for gardening after the wife and I started our own veg patch although now have a new found hatred for anything stealing our cauliflowers and cabbages! Action: build some cover!
