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Wednesday 16 February 2011

Six month acting-up-iversary

By 3liz4
Today, I noticed, is my six month acting-up-iversary. Six months since I started my role as Acting Head of Student Development (I blogged about the start of it here). So, some quick reflections.
  • I have less time to blog :(
  • I have less things I can blog about because they are either a) confidential or b) boring
  • I have grown an acting-up-beard (see)
  • The staff management stuff (of which there is a lot) I enjoy, on the whole
  • The strategic planning and finance stuff I'm sl-ow-ly getting the hang of
  • I miss the direct student contact, especially the teaching
  • It's difficult to manage a team of 35 people in an acting up capacity whilst carrying a number of vacant posts and the service being under review and the expectations of what is to be delivered to remain unchanged (I'm just sayin')
  • Whilst I'm tweeting less (for the same reasons that I'm blogging less) my Twitter network remains invaluable as a means of support and to provide an alternative view
It's looking like I'll remain acting-up for another six months, which on the upside means I'll have a whole year of the experience under my belt. Depending on when I'm asked I waiver as to whether or not I'm interested in the substansive post (whether or not senior management would be interested in me is a different question).

I'm particularly interested to hear your suggestions for how to keep up the blogging (which I find incredibly useful as a means of reflection and recording as well as potential discussion) - especially with regard to blogging when in a more management, as opposed to practitioner, position.

10 comments:

  1. Surely the "time to blog" issue is a question of priorities - is it more or less important than everything else?

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  2. That's the thing - I've done a lot of fire fighting in the last 6 months so blogging just gets relegated. I think one of the things I need to do is think differently about what I blog about. I need to use the blog for careers stuff more than academic skills (which I've been trying to do) but the management stuff just doesn't seem to lend itself to blogging. Do you know anyone who's blogging about management stuff effectively?

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  3. This doesn't answer the question of having time, although I do find it a shame you can't find the time as I enjoy reading your posts.

    Relating what to blog. I would have thought a lot of what is discussed in senior management meetings although "confidential" have wider HE sector implications. Surely you can reflect and express opinions on the times ahead for HE in general.

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  4. Hmmm... I shall give it a go. Maybe I just need to say 'allegedly' after anything controversial like they do on #hignfy

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  5. Isn't the point of GTD to prioritize? Why doesn't that apply to blogging?

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  6. I should have put that in as a bullet point - GTD + Remember the milk has been a life saver. I do have a weekly reminder about blogging but I think it needs to be more natural than that - and there's still the issue of what I can blog about

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  7. I've been using the WP app to start blog posts which I can come back to later. I've also set up the post by email, which is useful for dumping notes from iPod note into a blog but can be used for quick posts too. I tend to find that I need to write when inspiration or frustration strike, hence the mobile solutions. They aren't pretty but they get the job done.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I've been using the WP app to start blog posts which I can come back to later. I've also set up the post by email, which is useful for dumping notes from iPod note into a blog but can be used for quick posts too. I tend to find that I need to write when inspiration or frustration strike, hence the mobile solutions. They aren't pretty but they get the job done.

    ReplyDelete