Monday, November 7, 2011

Blog #8

View Seth Godin's Brainwashed

One of Godin's more unique layers of reinventing yourself is "Acknowledging the Lizard". The lizard brain that we all deal with every day, the voice that keeps you from being yourself in fear of humiliation. Godin wants us to "acknowledge" this "lizard, kind of like picturing the audience in their underwear, like your teachers always told you. Don't be afraid to be creative; tell that lizard who is boss. Godin also discusses "Being Generous". This layer is more literal than the first...Godin means exactly what he says. In today's age, we all must be generous. Be willing to share your creativity with others for FREE! Be willing to spread your creativity over the internet without compensation...if you end up being creative enough, work and the pay that follows will find you. The most important layer Godin addresses is the ability to fail. Godin tries to explain that failing in today's society is necessary to discover new thought, new ideas, and new innovations. We have to see what doesn't work as much as we need to know what does. Knowing what doesn't work is the easiest way to figure out what will. Acknowledge that lizard, ignore that lizard, and kick ass.

I don't believe these blogs are a "waste of time". Each blog has its own useful piece of info to hand over in its own unique way. The manifestos, like Godin's, have all been very inspiring, as well as putting our technical skills to work. However, I don't know if everyone would agree with me on that. People have different ways of being creative...many can be creative with words and blogs...many try. When projects like these are assigned (here are three blogs....due in three weeks), people tend to procrastinate, like myself. Procrastination puts projects like this in the toilet, considering a majority of people (especially in our line of business) will wait until the very night before and crank out three blogs in three hours. Although some people do their best work when put on the spot, I believe many of these blogs will be rushed and minimalized to fullest extent. The idea is that most college students take the education they are receiving seriously, but the reality is that most students just want to get through the first few introductory courses as smoothly and quickly as possible. Thus, these blogs are just a small obstacle on the way to bigger things. If you really want these blogs to be taken more seriously AND spread the useful information contained within them more readily, make them peer-reviewed. For example, at the beginning of each quarter (soon to be semester), have all of the students create a blog under the same group, that way all of the blogs are linked to one single group. After this, every Friday in lab have students read and comment on at least one of their peer's blogs. This way, student will be encouraged to do their work (or suffer the wrath of other college students judgmental stares), and students will also have another interpretation of the information that is supposed to be transmitted through each blog. I don't believe this will conflict with Friday labs at all, considering the amount of free time we usually have anyways to goof off and dick around on the internet when we're supposed to be practicing the programs that the majority of us already know how to use (or can figure it out relatively quickly...we are college students). Students will also focus more on the presentation of each blog (grammar, looks, etc.) because each will know that eventually, someone else (besides the TA...peers are much more judgmental) will be reading the work. Just a suggestion...Godin would like my knowledge sharing generosity.

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