Chat with Paula

Tonight I had a really useful chat with Paula after submitting a draft of my report to her and I feel much clearer on what I now need to do.  There were a few things that now seem really obvious and will make my report much more coherent once I make the changes:

·         When I was writing my report I interchanged the phrases “my research project” and “my inquiry”.  Eventually I updated my report and only used Inquiry.  The difference between the two is:

o   Practitioner research is about a given topic and only looks at literature

o   Inquiry includes looking at literature and talking to real people about it.

·         I must not assume people reading my report will know about me or the background to the Inquiry.  I MUST state the obvious.

·         If it is commonly known I do not have to say where it originated an example of that is “triple threat”

·         I originally had problems with the BAPP Library so have not looked there again for a while, It is significantly improved so I will make time to skim what’s there and if it’s useful I will add to my literature.

·         I must keep it simple, start with an introduction of what I did and then go into the detail.  Yes it is obvious but I am not used to writing reports and this was not as easy as it sounds.  I will get other people who are completely fresh to the report to read it to make sure I have explained everything.

·         When I have finished the report I will go back to the module handbook and look at the table of knowledge and skills being assessed.  It is a good check list!

·         I will use my personal experience when necessary, but make clear it is my personal experience and not factual and use it in the conclusion.

·         Make sure I use my learning journal if I can.

·         Choose my appendices wisely.

I think I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, I still have a lot to do but I am slightly less panicked!  I hope you are all doing ok too, and it’s all coming together.

Should You Leave When Your Still Winning?

I was talking with my colleagues and the subject of Julie Andrews’s concert in 2010 came up which led to a conversation I found really interesting and I felt it had some relevance to my inquiry subject of Personal Branding.

A Personal Brand has 3 components:

·         Your image

·         Your personal values

·         What you want to deliver

these components will elicit an emotive response from your target audience. So when we were talking about Julie Andrews I thought about her Personal Brand:

·         clean cut, “proper” lady image

·         her personal values include clean living, hard working and goodness and she delivers perfect pitch singing. 

·         The emotive response she gets from her target audience is a feeling of calmness, beauty and admiration for her talent.

I attended her concert in 2010 at the o2 which had very mixed reviews and my conversation at work was about what a shame it was that some people felt it wasn’t made clear that she would not be singing all the songs herself.  She bought in other singers and the few songs she did attempt were spoken rather than sung.  We all felt that there will probably be a lot of her fans where this might be their last memories of Julie rather than when she was at her best.  We all felt she would have been better off doing what Doris Day did and leave the business at her peak when she was still the performer everyone loved her for and delivered her promise.

If Julie could no longer fulfil her promise should she have been brave enough to call it a day, or do you think the risk she took was worth it?  She had acted in a few films without singing since her surgery and the audience had been sympathetic and embraced the development in her personal brand.

What do you think?  Should you stop and leave when you are still at your best?