#jou430

Shelly Haynes

The Guiding Light - 

As I approach graduation I am reflecting on my educational and life experiences while looking forward with hope and gratitude. My degree will be a Masters of Applied Arts in Technical Communications from Missouri Western State University. 

In this program I have studied Technical Editing, Grant & Proposal Writing, Applied Research Methods, Foundations of Technical Communication, Instructional Design, Social Media Branding (this class), Rhetoric, Organizational Behavior, and Writing for Management. I have developed a Prospectus and Portfolio and will be defending that next week.

My background is in developing curriculum and teaching secondary Technology Education, all types of technology. I would be well suited to work in a Technology or Engineering industry; as well as any Educational setting. I have also spent a lot of time with Special Populations and Nonprofits.

My goal is to do Instructional Design. I would like to work somewhere for a few years, developing top quality learning materials; then maybe work as a consultant or on contract. I would enjoy travel.  It is also imperative that I earn a good wage; as I am 51 years old and looking at retirement in 10-15 years.

Every job that I apply for has the opportunity to bring me joy and success; as well as the start of a new life. I am welcoming the process and curious to see just what my opportunities are.

Thanks for reading, and if you are aware of any good Instructional Design/Technical Communications positions, please pass my name along and forward me the appropriate information! 

This week we presented our midterm assignment of progress made with our client, Pampered and Polished of St. Joseph, Missouri. We performed a SWOT analysis; identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Although we could have further analyzed the situation, I believe in the time we had, we did a good job!

This was a post captured from Instagram. pulperandcobbs seem to focus on black and white photojournalism from the 1950′s.

This weeks assignment was to watch Instagram and Snapchat consecutively for four days and follow the same authors each day; commenting on what we thought was interesting or unusual, good or bad.

Since I have not done anything with Instagram or Snapchat, this was an exercise in learning the two platforms. I followed Governor Mike Parsons, NBC News, and Harvard Business Review on Instagram and Business Insider and OnRecord for Snapchat. 

As you would expect, most of their posts were newsworthy and on point. Topics ranged from the Queen’s official response to Unemployment to Managing People. I did follow a little local and pop culture along the way, which was fun.

Week 4 - Group project

So, in teams, we have a client that we’ll be helping brand through the use of social media. We finally met with the owner of the salon, Dottie, via Zoom, this week. Currently, Polished and Pampered has a website (link above), a Facebook presence, and an Instagram account where only one post has been made.

Dottie is thrilled to work with MWSU to help enhance her web presence. She is well known throughout the community, as she has been a nail practitioner for 25 years. Two years ago she opened Pampered and Polished in a downtown location. She is pleased with her word-of-mouth and walk-in traffic, but desires a more complete web presence.

The spa’s target clientele are women aged 20-60 living around the Saint Joseph area. However, she welcomes whomever comes through the door. Everyone that works at Pampered and Polished is an individual contractor and brings their own clientele. 

Dottie works hard to promote downtown businesses by partnering with other shops to offer promotions. This was done for Valentine’s Day and will also been done for Mother’s Day. She is also a member of Downtown First and CuppaJoe, a group of small business owners who gather weekly to discuss issues and help each other succeed.

Our team is going to work on developing Pampered and Polished’ web presence. So far we have discussed a slight redesign of the website and Facebook page to include more pictures and descriptive text; as well as spa offerings. Also, more frequent use of Instagram by everyone who works at the spa.

So, week 3 brought no real new writing or Social Media Branding experiences. Instead I will write about my first formal document that I am creating for an online community called Awkwardly Zen (AZ). Currently, their platform is on Meetup. These are people that get together to discuss, dive into, and experience spirituality together.

The owner of this community, Ari, mentioned the fact that AZ needs to develop a code of ethics due to their growing popularity. I saw this as an opportunity and immediately got in contact with her to help create the document. She was very excited about this prospect and started discussing her ideas and concerns with me, also her hope of developing an ethics committee. I volunteered to do some preliminary research and sit on the committee.

Being a spiritual person myself, I was aware of a couple of other communities that utilize different or in-person platforms. I started by reaching out to them and inquiring about their ethics documents; for members, leaders, and the organizations.  After reviewing these, I decided some pillars would be a good approach and researched articles surrounding the pillars or principals of spiritual practice. Finally, I looked at ethical guideline for technical communicators as a foundation for business/leadership ethics.

I gathered all of this information together and comprised a collection of principals or pillars on which an ethics code could be developed. Below is what I have gathered.

It is upon these principals that the Awkwardly Zen Code of Ethics will written. I am looking forward to continuing work on this project and many more in the future. I will try and journal on this topic as the project progresses.