tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33273315.post2580420502945861197..comments2023-07-16T04:38:04.407-05:00Comments on Spinuzzi: The Future of Work Salon: An account and some thoughtsClay Spinuzzihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13356273383001825508noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33273315.post-45059907360106916332009-03-17T11:50:00.000-05:002009-03-17T11:50:00.000-05:00I have been thinking about this a bit. My sense is...I have been thinking about this a bit. My sense is that people are going to have to become a lot more self-reliant during this shift. So I've been pushing certain things in my classes: time and project management, collaborative projects, and collaborative software and strategies for using these projects.<BR/><BR/>In my tech writing class, I also emphasize chained projects that end with a mixture of static and dynamic documentation. The idea is that even when they develop static documentation (such as a manual), they need to think strategically in terms of how users will generate their own solutions, develop dynamic spaces (such as mailing lists or Google groups) to share them, and develop long-term plans for cyclically folding innovations from the dynamic space to the static one.<BR/><BR/>In terms of the social graph, someone pointed out that given the huge bubble of Gen Y moving up, soon the people interviewing our students will have the same social graph sensibilities. In other words, recruiters will not be put off by students' drunk pictures on Facebook because the recruiters themselves will have similar pictures. I'm not sure how broadly this applies, but I do think people are generally becoming more comfortable in terms of generating a large, surfaced arc of documentation about their lives. Nevertheless, I think that for our classes, it would be a good idea to maintain protected spaces for student work, and give them the option to surface that work later in their social graph or a more controlled portfolio.<BR/><BR/>Strategic planning would be a good thing to teach, and it goes beyond project management skills. I edge toward this a bit in my proposal writing and qualitative research courses, but we have a lot more to do in our field to achieve it. That's partially why I have been so interested in relating activity theory to the strategic, tactical, and operational levels (as you saw in my CCCC presentation). My sense is that this three-level view is going to help students to better understand what's going on in a much more dynamic job market. <BR/><BR/>Anyway, just some thoughts. I need to think these through much more, and I'd love to see other, smarter people take a crack at this issue as well.Clay Spinuzzihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13356273383001825508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33273315.post-6669055028714331102009-03-17T11:27:00.000-05:002009-03-17T11:27:00.000-05:00Thanks Clay. It sounds like an interesting convers...Thanks Clay. It sounds like an interesting conversation, and I appreciate your thoughts on it. Though I am reluctant to ask the pedagogical question, I will anyway. How do you see these work practices shaping higher ed writing pedagogy?<BR/><BR/>Clearly many faculty work this way already, except when they show up for their FTF classes. Will we be teaching the rhet/comp of the social graph? How do you see strategic planning working in our profession?Alex Reidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12670768776987240055noreply@blogger.com