Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a very good way to get started on your writing.  In order to effectively brainstorm it is best to say yes to all of your initial ideas.  Write everything down, and when you are finished brainstorming go back over all of your ideas and start to eliminate the ones that you feel are not important to include in your article, report, or whatever you may be writing.  According to the text book, Technical Communication, there is a brainstorming procedure to follow.  There are five simple points.   Review your knowledge of your readers, determine what you know about the subject, write down ideas as fast as they come to you, when the stream runs dry go back through them, and when there are no longer any new ideas group the items in your list together and see if that inspires any new thoughts.  Brainstorming I feel is one of the most critical parts of the writing process.  It gets everything out on the table and allows you to write a very well written report or article. 

Planning your work

In chapter four of Technical Communication, there are some very useful hints to help you write just a little bit better.  There is a simple three step process to follow when you begin to write.  The first step is to identify the information your readers want.  In this step you want to keep in mind that readers can't use what isn't there.  In order to figure this out you must go beyond and find answers to the questions that you think your reader will ask.  The second step is to organize around your readers' tasks.  This means you should make it to where your readers will find it easy to use.  There are three simple things to keep in mind when doing this, the first is, organize hierarchically, then group items that your users will use together, and give the bottom line first.  Identifying a way to help readers quickly find what they want is the third step.  One thing to keep in mind is that reports generally have two parts they are, a very brief summary, and then the body of the report.  If you can keep these three steps in mind it will help you to become a better writer. 

Why didn't I get the job?

The question that everyone asks when they get passed up for the job they interviewed for, why didn't I get the job?  Well I recently read an article on a news website that was titled, Top Reasons You Don't Get Hired.  There are of course several reasons someone doesn’t land a job that they interviewed for, but the reason that you can prevent are listed in this slideshow article.  They are all common sense things, which hopefully you do without even thinking about since 90% of them are all common courtesy!  Poor personal appearance, lack of interest in the job you are applying for, lack of confidence, sloppy application, and failing to make eye contact with the person that is interviewing you are a few that you should just do as a common courtesy.  If you don't do these things then maybe you shouldn't be working.  I think those are all very much common sense things to do when you are interviewing for a potential job.  The way the job market is, you should make the best of every opportunity.  If you think you are going to fail you probably will fail.  Next time you have that big interview don't forget those few little things that were mentioned, and then you won't have to ask yourself, why didn't I get that job!

Job Relief

I recently read the article White House, GOP Advocate Jobs Relief for Veterans, on KCCI.com.  President Obama stated "it was an American Responsibility to improve the dismal jobs landscape facing veterans when they return from duty."  I think it is about time that someone has stepped up and finally went to bat for our veterans.  After all it is the veterans and service members that provide the freedom for everyone else to work, so why in the world is it so impossible for a vet to find a job?  This has been a huge problem that has faced out nation for several years.  There are soldiers who come home, can't find a job, turn to drugs and or alcohol, and they don't have a place to call home.  To me that is just complete BS.  I'm not saying that veterans should have any special privileges, but a little help would be nice.  Thank you Mr. Obama for tackling this huge crisis.  Basically this bill will give companies tax breaks for hiring veterans.  That is very appealing to companies, especially smaller businesses.  I hope that this shines a little light of hope and helps the people who give everything, so we can sit here and rant on blogs, have a home, and every other freedom that we live day in and day out.  Thank you President Obama and thank you vets!!!

Businesses on Twitter

I couldn't find the article about the online twitter detective, so I thought to get my fourth blog done I would see what everyone thinks about businesses using social sites to advertise.  I personally think that this form of advertisement is good.  Not everyone reads the papers, or goes to the companies websites.  It seems that the majority of people either use facebook or twitter and if not at least a good portion of people do.  I think that the social networks are an awesome place for businesses to advertise.  Twitter you are limited to like 140 characters, so the messages are short and sweet and people will actually take the time to read them, or even if they don't they are short enough to where something might catch their eye at a glance.  I just hope that the internet does not eventually close all the newspapers down.  That could result in a lot of layoffs and raise our unemployment rates.  I didn't pull this from any article, but just wanted to see what people think of the internet vs the old school ways of doing things.

Europes worst case

I recently read the article Europe and Greece: The Worst-case scenario.  What if Greece decides that they want out? If Greece decides that they want out they will essentially abandon the euro.  If Greece opts out then European economies would cut off all aids.  They would then lose the ability to get credit.  The economy would then collapse to a cash only basis.  The citizens of Greece would rush to their banks to withdraw all of their money.  Essentially that could leave to catastrophic events all over the world.  Lets hop that they reach a deal and get something figured out so the long term effects are not felt by us.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/05/news/international/greece_default/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=hp_bn5

Media for Jobs

I think that this article http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2011/02/21/5-reasons-why-your-online-presence-will-replace-your-resume-in-10-years/ has some very good points, but also misses some very good points.  I think that if everything is done over the internet then we lose out on some face to face stuff.  I can make up all kinds of stuff on my homepage and get people or companies to recognize me and then when it comes time to interview or even start the job I could be someone completely different.  I think that it is good for the fact that it would help to maybe clean up all of the stuff that shouldn't be on the public websites, such as faceboook, myspace, and twitter.  It is also a good idea because it kind of puts everyone on the same playing level. For example if everyone creates this webpage then they are out there to be browsed upon by potential employers.  You will get what you give if the job hunt changes to this method.