Blog Post 7

A semester of Technical Writing with Sami Richardson has led me to be more comfortable with technology involved in the modern world. Ive had the opportunity to practice formatting and design skills while also brushing up on my resume writing skills and inter office communications.

I am confident I could be a more successful addition to any professional organization after honing the skills I acquired during this semester. I can now communicate digitally and have a better understanding of how to organize my ideas in a appealing format.

borrowed from Tim Morehouse

I will be taking a leave of absence from this blog after the semester concludes as I continue to pursue other endeavors. I thought I had walked into the wrong class at the beginning of the semester however am happy to have added a modern approach to technical writing to my set of tools and feel certain my new skills will be useful, no matter what field I pursue in the future.

From marketing yourself to creating instructions and inter office communications technical communications will improve your involvement with the world around us whether dealing with difficult customers or finding middle ground with coworkers. If you intend to live in a changing world, continuing to learn as it changes is essential to growth and development and should be attempted to gain as much as life has to offer.

Sixth blog about blogs

Blogging has been an ongoing experiment this semester and I really only follow a few myself although I'm not very religious about checking them, however I could see myself starting a blog in the future on my travel in hopes of finding some sponsorship if I can build a decent readership. Two of the Blogs I follow are fellow travelers out cruising the world and writing about their adventures,  Gone Global Adventures and Voyage of the Rascal, which is something I could see myself doing although as it is I just tell some friends about my trips when I return home. I also check in on a Pro Audio Blog from time to time and see whats happening in the industry and look at some silly pictures.

I really enjoy seeing my buddies adventures in Gone Global and The Rascal as they cruise around the world. It is nice to see that with some budgeting travel is possible beyond most peoples imagination. I also pay attention to when they mention businesses and look for ways it might be used to acquire some sponsorship even it its as simple as a meal or a place to stay for the night. My favorite writing on Voyage of the Rascal was from my friend Autumn about riding out a hurricane on board S/V Rascal. The personal connection having been on board with her for another adventure just gives me an insight I don't feel the average reader would notice. Matt with Gone Global writes nice pieces about his travels that always seem to have a insight into the local happenings and he takes some very intriguing pictures he adds as well.

personal photo from Colorado travels

Gone Global and Rascal posts depend on where they are and when they have internet so the time between post can vary from time to time. I enjoy both authors talking specifics of living on their boats and the problems they encounter along the way. It is nice to see that they both make time for land based adventures as well.

I work in the live event industry so I follow a Pro Audio Blog to check out whats going on outside of my region and follow general industry news, this may not be of interest if you are outside of the industry but I like to check it out from time to time and see whats new.

Research proposal reports

Technical communication involves more than just memos and notes. Our latest project found us collecting data and doing research for a proposal. Not only was the research and data collection a excercise in itself we found ourselves working in groups trying to compile all our different pieces of work into one cohesive document that was not only informative and appealing but also streamlined and free of excess filler information for our proposal.

We found it to be rather difficult to decide which information to use and where to use it and how it should be included. I was fortunate to have a hardworking easy going group of great classmates to work with on this project. Progressing through the research phase we found ourselves having to weed out the unnecessary information and limit the scope of our proposal. An unexpected problem, at least from my point was the difficulty and frustration with different formats of programs when uploading to our shared drive online. Our best solution was having one person compile everything and the rest submitting research and data that was collected.

borrowed from Burton Striping

In the end I feel like we were able to organize an appealing proposal of the University acquiring additional acreage next to campus. Personally in my research all of the people I visited or talked to on the phone or through email were happy to help. It was difficult to meld all our research into one document and then individually present portions of other people's work in ones own oral delivery.

Slides.com instead of Power Point

I tried out Slides.com for a presentation in Technical Writing and was pleased with the software / program. I was able to pick up on it with no instruction and make a basic slide presentation. I saved all my work online and was able to share a link to my presentation. This was nice but also my only concern as well. Is its possible to save my work and use it without internet service, I don't know however it is something that would be important to me in a real world application. It is sad to see that since I gave my presentation on stage management we have had 2 major disasters, one in China and one in Europe. It is nice to know that alternatives to power point are available if we just look and find them and this is probably not the last time I will use Slides.com.

Photo credit

Marketing for the job market

Marketing oneself could be an important part of ones professional job search. I have never had much luck with it but I have not practiced it very much either however I have friends that have been very successful with marketing themselves. One easy approach would be to solicit professional resume writing help and believe it or not, there are professional resume writers out there if you look. However if you are like me and tackling the project yourself, it may serve you well to give several templates a cursory glance before writing just to get a sense of the formatting that is generally expected. Keeping things short, to the point and as impressive sounding as possible is good marketing.

Photo courtesy of Rhonda Robison Berkeley

A few tips I think may be helpful when trying to be creative I pull from different areas of my life. According to my fathers suggestion reading just the first sentence of each paragraph is an adequate way to get the idea of the information being conveyed without reading the whole thing so instead of putting paragraphs about your past try and focus on shor sentences that convey the necessary information. Although what you do may not be impressive to you does not mean it can not be cleaned up to sound better. As an example, I spent a summer doing construction and one project I worked on was digging ditches to burry a pipeline for water service. I used a backhoe while on this project, that make me a heavy equipment operator, not a ditch digger. Vocabulary can be very important. I was on a job once and a piece of equipment was not working. I resolved the issue and was questioned about the solution. I explained that I had repaired a high impedance air gap to get the device working. In reality, that just means plugging it in but it sounds much fancier.

Photo courtesy of Pandaworkshop LLC

I would also suggest, Belong to an organization, if you don't find one, it's out there and if you really can't find one then start one. But really, they are out there, I joined one and even submitted my credentials to get some letters to put behind my name if I want.

Making a bechamel

this is how I prepare my bechamel and I am sure it is not the only way but this is what I do.
You will need:
  A sauce pan
  A sifter for flour
  A set of measuring spoons
  A a spoon, whisk, roux spoon or something to stir the pot with
Ingredients are butter, flour, heavy whipping cream, garlic, salt, pepper and nutmeg

I start with melting about 4 Tablespoons of butter or about half a stick in a sauce pan on the stove over a medium to low heat.

As the butter is melting I add salt and pepper, I like a lot so I put a lot, you know what you like so use your own judgement here.

I also add about a Tablespoon of chopped garlic with the salt and pepper letting it fry but being careful not to burn it.

When the garlic has fried for just a couple of minutes and you can smell the aroma of the garlic, it's time to sift in some flour. I sift about 3 Tablespoons more or less into the melted butter and garlic while stirring constantly to prevent lumps and make sure it is well mixed.

I add heavy whipping cream next. I always have my cream sitting out to warm up so I am not adding cold cream to the hot pan. I use a half pint of cream and stir it in very slowly. I bring this just to a boil and back the heat down while I stir in a teaspoon of nutmeg.

I continue stirring as the sauce thickens for a few minutes and taste to check my salt and pepper again.

Photo from meals.com

I thought I would add a link to a blog I tend to follow Gone Global Adventures