Overview for Keywords: accountability, blog, documentation, post
Blogs with Keywords: accountability, blog, documentation, post
John Heap :: Blog :: Back from ...
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April 20, 2008
I have not posted a blog entry for a long time ... but have been keeping up (more or less). Why resurrect this blog. Well, no particularly good reason .. just that at a recent project meeting (Streamline) it seemed that we were engaged in considerable activity to document current activity rather than make further progress. I understand that we have to be accountable for public funds but .... and then, of course, it hit me (I know, I know ... I must be slow on the uptake but I plead old age ... it takes a big blow to get through) that blogging was the perfect medium for documenting activity (well, perhaps not perfect, but it does have the advantage of being both informal and instant). I am sure we will have to provide formal reports and other documentation ... but if we have blogged well (define 'well?), we should have the source material to build on . So, I really blogged this to register my relief!
Posted by John Heap
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Nice to see you back online, John.
How do we blog 'well'? Good question. I agree blogging helps to generate the material for the formal reports, articles, etc. expected of a project. It's partly why I'm blogging about Sounds Good. But how frank can we be in a relatively public forum? Would we write openly in Emerge about our own spectacular under-performance, irritating colleagues or idiotic obsessions of the funding organisation? I hasten to add that none of these is an issue in the case of Sounds Good!
As a blogging project manager, I care about what appears in my blog. There are limits to what I feel can be said there. The course I try to steer is in the direction of reasonable openness, informality and positive tone. Primarily, I want to interest the Emerge community. If I can engage my peers, so much the better. A secondary aim is creating a record of the project, for memory-jogging and accountability purposes. What I don't want to do is cut my own throat, sully the reputation of my employer, prompt a slanging match or ensure that folks don't want to work with me.
Bob
That's where the private or group only posting comes in handy Bob! Using the permissions on posts (the 'access restrictions' drop-down menu at the bottom of every post) enables you to keep a note of issues and conserns, and collect all of your documentation in one place.
You are right that we all have to be careful about the information we post online, and how it reflexts on us as individuals and as representatives of our organisations.
I'm also aware that NOT having a public presence and history online, particularly in our line of business, might be taken as a bit suspisious too.I don't think I'd hire an edtech who didn't have an active online record of some kind. I'd expect to see evidence of conversations, community engagement and actual use of a range of tools and services.
Josie,
You make a fair point about using the 'permissions'. However, I'm wary about using them. One reason is that I'm far from clear who is and is not a member of the Emerge community. Another is that the system has surprised me with its responses on several occasions and frustrated me with its apparent lack of response on others. I'm a very experienced blogger in another setting, but I just don't feel fully confident about the way Emerge works. Call me stupid if you like! In consequence, I work on the assumption that everything I post is public.
Sorry, John, I'm taking over your thread.
Bob