Why don't we reflect more? (Social Web Post-Mortem)

I'm really glad we have to do post-mortems in my social web class. For all the personal reflection that is incorporated into the BGI curriculum, it's rarely the sort of reflection on one's work that I think breeds a good practice of iteration--something that we've been taught the value of in our marketing class but have not been required to implement into our projects.

Definitely, the biggest challenge was keeping up with my blog postings or spending too much time on each post. I guess this class really verified for me my tendencies toward perfectionism. I really am surprised to learn this about myself because I generally do not think of my work as very good, but rather sloppy (oh wait, isn't that exactly the sign of a perfectionist? Doh!).

In the end, I simply had to get over perfectionism. But that's not exactly an answer. Getting over perfectionism really requires a lot of personal awareness and consciousness. It seems to be a daily practice...as well as a daily commitment. I don't think I really got over it, but I know that I forced myself to post by putting the assignment in context of other larger assignments. At least, I would tell myself, a blog post is not a final 30p research report.

Also, having to edit video quickly and for brevity, really drives home the learning that one can shoot from the hip when choices need to be made quickly with less deliberation. Anything that fails, can always be redone. I wish we had more opportunities for 3 hr assignments with actual deliverables in our other classes.

Fail fast and often. Iterations. -----> These have been my greatest learnings in this class.

Iterative Improvement


I found myself wanting to learn more about social media campaigning. We sort of did this with the social change project, but it was a bit more than we could chew. I can see the next installment of this course being for people who are now comfortable using the social web. In that course, I can see us learning social media metrics and designing campaigns. This class ignited my interest in the social web and I am ready to take the more advanced version of the class or be directed to the equivalent outside of BGI if necessary.

Overall, BGI could really benefit from incorporating more social media into their curriculum. However, this would require more interaction from faculty and I'm not certain that faculty either have the will or capacity to interact with students to the degree that social media would allow for. For instance, if I write a blog post every week about my learnings in the class before the Elluminate, will a faculty member have actually read my post and quoted it in that day's class lecture slides? I don't know. If anything, the Social Web for Social Change class definitely makes the case for smaller classes.

Check out my post on Best Elluminate Practices for more ways to incorporate the style of Christopher Allen's Social Web for Social Change class.