The Radish

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

SimonM — Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:10 am

Author: SimonM

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:10 am

I love the idea of a blog - but as a less formal method of communication and engagement rather than accountability.

To illustrate what I mean, take a look at the official Google Blog. A few times a week a Google employee posts something - an insignt into a new product, what s/he's been working on, the way the company works or any interesting tidbit. This isn't maintained by a team of people - any employee, from the CEO to the engineers to the cook, can contribute on a casual basis.

Whereas contributors to Officeronline attempt to explain what they've been doing and in effect justify their positions, much like a report, I think a more casual, more interesting blog prominently displayed on as part of the Bugs website (perhaps on the front page, as part of the news feed) would give students an insight into what the exec do, the differences they make and why they are important. It needn't be more than three or four short posts a week - on average, that's an article shorter than the size of this post once or twice a month from each officer! No effort at all, as long as they remember it exists and contribute from time to time.

I'm thinking along the lines of the VPHC posting about how well the RA training went and what the RAs will be doing, the VPEA posting about why the new student reps system is so great, the ARAF officer posting about an upcoming anti-BNP event, the VPS posting about how well the whatever team have done recently and how she's working to get tournament paintball recognised as a BUSA sport, etc. etc.

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

sallamino — Sat Feb 03, 2007 11:10 pm

Author: sallamino

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 11:10 pm

oh, and if you think there are gaps in people's reports and they dont cover the whole time period, you could always ask a question on them....

now there's a novel idea

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

sallamino — Sat Feb 03, 2007 11:08 pm

Author: sallamino

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 11:08 pm

officer reports have no set format, most of us try and outline what we've been up to that we think GC wants to know about (i.e. not just a list of meetings) and what we've acheived for students, sometimes linked to our manifesto's sometimes just generally.

If GC wants to tell us what it actually wants to see in our reports then Im certainly interested to hear it- we do write them for your benefit after all.

My biggest issue with reports is that at most about 20-30 people appear to read them...and thats being optimistic...so when you have the choice between working on something that might effect far more people, and help implement your manifesto, or opposing something important in a meeting that tends to take priority over writing a report. Thats not to say the reports arent valuable an important and that we shouldnt make time to write them, but you get the general idea. The same issue would apply with a blog. If you genuinely believe more people would read a blog, fantastic, but i'm sceptical.

Personally I think the whole question of officer accountability should be looked at, as I find the fact that i'm mostly judged on the contents of a 1 - 1.5 page piece of paper which will never really be able to cover the scope of how the guild takes over my life, and which about 1 in 1000 of the students I represent will read, really quite depressing.

and no, I dont have a solution!

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

Enlightened_Bystander — Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:46 am

Author: Enlightened_Bystander

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:46 am

Blogging would also help to remive the gap that often appears in reports- many officers will only put what they've done since last GC, rather than last report deadline.

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

hannoir — Sat Feb 03, 2007 8:38 am

Author: hannoir

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 8:38 am

If you look at officer online officers can blog as and when the officers do something big/important/achieve something/just want to tell us what they are up to. I think it'd be a good move for bugs cos students can read what they want to in a more approachable format - not like the current cumbersome format. Therefore increasing accountability and interest and such.

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

missk — Sat Feb 03, 2007 8:18 am

Author: missk

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 8:18 am

Just re -read ur post actually about 'various points' before gc, so u answered one part of my post already!

why are the current reports online a waste of time? and why is linking them to the guild web page no good by the way?

The more i think of it blogging is growing on me...

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

missk — Sat Feb 03, 2007 8:15 am

Author: missk

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 8:15 am

i see your point, but if current officers struggle to get their report in on time as it is, then would changing to blogging really help? we would have to state clearly how frequently these blogs are to be written i think, as saying anytime before gc doesnt give people sufficient time to read them if it is say the night before gc, or even on the day of gc.

We should look at why we have reports. Its so we can see what the exec have done and if we approve of their actions, their primary use is not so other students can see what the exec are doing (although this is a good idea)
Being a week out of date is fine by me as it gives us all time to read them before gc. Moving to blogging is a good idea, but we would need to consider the practicality of this for officers and gcers.

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

Tom H — Sat Feb 03, 2007 1:28 am

Author: Tom H

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 1:28 am

Rhea, the current reoprts r online neway and r a waste of time and hassle to be honest. Linkng it to the reports is no good.

It would be much easier to remove the deadlines faced by officers and have them to regular blogs at various points before a GC to which they can be held accountable. These can be updated say until the day before, then there is no worries about notifying IT a week before to have them posted. The current reports will already be minimum 7 days out of date and sometimes aren't done at all.

Blogging offers a simple and 24/7 access for students as well as a means of up-to-date accountability. It removes deadlines that make the reports out of date before they are delievered and an officer can be judged on their day-to-day progress from a short blog at any point before a GC.

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

Teapotboy — Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:42 pm

Author: Teapotboy

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:42 pm

Yeah, and to put them in html rather than all this pdf and word document crap that makes my computer freeze up (I'm in rural Germany with an ISP who are Italian, now I'm not being funny but would you buy electrical goods from a country where most houses don't have a roof... or is that Greece? I dunno, something to do with dodging tax)

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

missk — Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:11 pm

Author: missk

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:11 pm

Well, the reports go online anyway so maybe there should be a link the the reports on the guild web site so that students can just follow the link and get up dated, we could still stick with the normal reports, and just ask someone in the guild to put them on the guild web.

Thats still sort of like a blog

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

Teapotboy — Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:04 pm

Author: Teapotboy

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:04 pm

Tom H wrote:

wow, two bottles of wine makes for un-enlightened argument. lol.

How did you know! I don't teach on Fridays - it's a contractual thing

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

Tom H — Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:23 am

Author: Tom H

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:23 am

wow, two bottles of wine makes for un-enlightened argument. lol.
As i sed, 'wotevs', ur rite it dnt matter.
The important bit is enhancing the accountability of officers on a day to day basis and the better use of time and resources taken up in the current method of tabling reports.

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

Teapotboy — Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:12 am

Author: Teapotboy

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:12 am

Jesus Christ, neither of you came up with blogging, or politicians blogging. Yes, one of you may have come up with the idea of BUGS politicians blogging, but....

A GOOD IDEA DOESN'T CARE WHO HATCHED IT

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

Tom H — Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:09 pm

Author: Tom H

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:09 pm

except for you just talking to me on msn and saying sorry u took my idea, only a 'bit of banter'.

Re: Officer reports... What about moving to blogging?

higuy — Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:08 pm

Author: higuy

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:08 pm

Tom H wrote:

No, not for officers alas, that belongs to the NUS. However, lengthly discussions with u @ regional conference and at previous GC's about how it streamlines committee and exec reports whilst removing deadlines was mine. Ah well.. whatevs

I can honestly say in that case mate i wasn't listening because I swear I came up with this one!