If need (or needs) be?
2 days ago
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Amen
William Shawn, New Yorker editor: "Amid chaos of images, we value coherence. We believe in the printed word. And we believe in clarity. And we believe in immaculate syntax. And in the beauty of the English language."
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Confusing: update
So I offered to talk directly to John Doe, apologize face-to-face, tell him that I had no intention of insulting him -- only trying to give real, specific feedback that I thought would make the website better. I told the dean that it seemed to me that the misunderstanding could be cleared up by a real conversation.
Dean said that I couldn't talk directly to John Doe: " Before you talk to [John], I feel that I should find out if he is OK with the conversation--again, since [John] and I don't work together and I have been asked to step in. Can you give me a little time to make sure [John] is comfortable with this approach."
Well, yes, I told her to let me know what John said. Here's that message: "Hi Julie--I received an email from [John]. He does not want to meet. Thanks for your patience."
Patience, indeed. Now I'm trying to figure out how to convey feedback at our college -- especially tech-related feedback. I watched a college Facebook video about Learning Communities today and noticed one misspelled student name (my Hannah is not Hannan), one misspelled instructor name (PaKou is not the same as Pakou) as well as the wrong name of my friend (who is Cullen Bailey Burns, not Cullen Burns). The video kept pausing, too, not for "buffering" but to "load" while it was in Facebook (this pausing doesn't happen in YouTube). Hmmm . . . did the creators actually watch it after they created it?
Our tech infrastructure is so tenuous -- and evidently so are the egos of our IT folks. Today's college-wide network crash (at about 2:00 p.m., as my students were trying to save and print the work they'd completed in class) provided another real-world example of the fragility of our IT infrastructure.
How to talk about all these things on my campus? I'm not sure . . . .
Dean said that I couldn't talk directly to John Doe: " Before you talk to [John], I feel that I should find out if he is OK with the conversation--again, since [John] and I don't work together and I have been asked to step in. Can you give me a little time to make sure [John] is comfortable with this approach."
Well, yes, I told her to let me know what John said. Here's that message: "Hi Julie--I received an email from [John]. He does not want to meet. Thanks for your patience."
Patience, indeed. Now I'm trying to figure out how to convey feedback at our college -- especially tech-related feedback. I watched a college Facebook video about Learning Communities today and noticed one misspelled student name (my Hannah is not Hannan), one misspelled instructor name (PaKou is not the same as Pakou) as well as the wrong name of my friend (who is Cullen Bailey Burns, not Cullen Burns). The video kept pausing, too, not for "buffering" but to "load" while it was in Facebook (this pausing doesn't happen in YouTube). Hmmm . . . did the creators actually watch it after they created it?
Our tech infrastructure is so tenuous -- and evidently so are the egos of our IT folks. Today's college-wide network crash (at about 2:00 p.m., as my students were trying to save and print the work they'd completed in class) provided another real-world example of the fragility of our IT infrastructure.
How to talk about all these things on my campus? I'm not sure . . . .
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Confusing
On Tuesday night, I received an email from my dean, asking me to a meeting she'd set up so that we could "have a conversation about a concern that she'd been asked to address." When I asked for a bit of info so that I could prepare, she said it was "best" that I just show up.
So I did, today, after conversing with quite a few people yesterday about how weird it was that I was being asked to talk about a "concern" yet not told what it was. One friend said it was a "set up"; other friends encouraged me to bring along a union representative.
Anyway, the dean started the conversation with "I need to talk to you about your email to John Doe." John Doe? I wracked my brain, trying to figure out who that might be, what email I might have sent or someone else might have sent.
Turns out I'd sent feedback, submitted via the "feedback" link on our new college website, that insulted the recipient, John Doe. Feeling hurt and insulted, John had told his supervisor, who'd told the academic VP, who'd asked my dean to handle it.
It never occurred to me that the "feedback" link would be a *specific* email to a *specific* person. Usually, info given via feedback is routed to the folks who can deal with the concerns. Not at my college: our "feedback" goes directly to the webmaster himself.
Evidently, what upset him so were my capital letters on "EXTREMELY" and my final comment that our college website has been used by other colleges as what not to do (I'd heard that this summer, and was a bit chagrined).
*Sigh*. Our college's infrastructure and communication has been bad for all the years I've been there, and now the technology is exaggerating the gaps. It's worse than I've ever, ever seen, anywhere. Our "public face" embarrasses me and confuses students. We have put the entire design of our college's website in the hands of a easily-offended fellow who does not have a four-year degree and therefore is intimidated by faculty.
Why didn't we hire a webmaster who had earned at least a bachelor's degree? It seems shortsighted to choose someone with an AA degree as the designer for a *college*'s web presence.
So I did, today, after conversing with quite a few people yesterday about how weird it was that I was being asked to talk about a "concern" yet not told what it was. One friend said it was a "set up"; other friends encouraged me to bring along a union representative.
Anyway, the dean started the conversation with "I need to talk to you about your email to John Doe." John Doe? I wracked my brain, trying to figure out who that might be, what email I might have sent or someone else might have sent.
Turns out I'd sent feedback, submitted via the "feedback" link on our new college website, that insulted the recipient, John Doe. Feeling hurt and insulted, John had told his supervisor, who'd told the academic VP, who'd asked my dean to handle it.
It never occurred to me that the "feedback" link would be a *specific* email to a *specific* person. Usually, info given via feedback is routed to the folks who can deal with the concerns. Not at my college: our "feedback" goes directly to the webmaster himself.
Evidently, what upset him so were my capital letters on "EXTREMELY" and my final comment that our college website has been used by other colleges as what not to do (I'd heard that this summer, and was a bit chagrined).
*Sigh*. Our college's infrastructure and communication has been bad for all the years I've been there, and now the technology is exaggerating the gaps. It's worse than I've ever, ever seen, anywhere. Our "public face" embarrasses me and confuses students. We have put the entire design of our college's website in the hands of a easily-offended fellow who does not have a four-year degree and therefore is intimidated by faculty.
Why didn't we hire a webmaster who had earned at least a bachelor's degree? It seems shortsighted to choose someone with an AA degree as the designer for a *college*'s web presence.
