Week of Dec. 3 - 9

This week I began the real planning for the end of the semester. I met with Nuhket Thursday morning. We decided we wanted to continue the blog. Her main reason to continue the blog was because she really likes being able to communicate with pet owners with the ease a blog offers. She also decided that she wanted to be the one to keep the blog up. During the meeting we added her as a administrator to the blog, so now she can sign on and post as well. In 2 weeks once that class ends I will remove myself from administrator status, and the blog will transfer completely to her.

We did also talk a little about what I've accomplished. We are not really sure how many people other than F-M Humane Society board members are visiting the blog. I've only had a couple of comments. Nuhket did also talk about the fact that integrating the blog into the organizations framework will take time, but she feels we are in the process, I agree. Nuhket was already familiar with blogging (she has a personal blog on blogger), so only a very brief into to blogger's set-up was needed. I think Nuhket will do great.

Time Log:

Meeting - 45 mins
attend class - 50 mins
draft posts - 45 mins
research how to transfer administrator status - 20 mins

Test E-mail Post

This is a test post via e-mail on my blog.  I decided I should make sure I know how to use this option before I suggest it to Nuhket as a possible method to continue the blog.  Hopefully this post works.

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Week of Nov. 27 - Dec 2

This week I encountered a new area within blogging. I sent a post to Nuhket for approval, and she wrote back that she had some problems with it. Also, Leanna (vice-president of the board) wrote back that she couldn't open the draft and her and Nuhket would talk about it Monday (today). The post is on how researchers, humane societies, and vets feel about declawing. I had also talked about animal rights activists, and Nuhket had a problem with this. I don't think the post is of a huge concern, I'll see what they have to say back to me.

time log

draft post - 45 mins
continue work on same post - 30 mins

Blog continuation plan assignment

I can't write exactly what the plan is for my organizational blog yet. Nuhket and I havn't sat down to talk about it yet. She has previously expressed an interest in continuing the blog, so our discussion will start from there. My feelings are right now that the information currently posted on the blog is very interesting and useful. The problem seems to be that my audience has not participated. People may be reading the blog and not commenting, I'm just not sure.

I think changing my blog to more of a "information center" on thier website might be a good idea. For example persons adopting cats would be informed about the informative discussion on declawing on their web site. The reason I'm not sure if the info being posted needs to be in a blog is because the flow of info is only outward. There has been no flow of info from the audience back to the organization. Maybe this would come in time, or a new person taking over the blog would have more success motivating people to read and participate in the blog.

I'll sit down and talk with Nuhket this week, see what she thinks. She might want to continue the blog because it allows for very quick communication needs. These needs, if they exist within the organization, have not yet manifested themselves during my blogging time.

Information Flow Assignment

For me information flow has not been a problem. From the beginning it was clear that Nukhet would be my contact, and this has worked out very well. A couple weeks into the blog I met the humane societies Vice-President, Leanne Jordahl. She hasn’t been much of a contact person in the sense that she has approved my posts, but she has been another set of eyes to read over my posts and give suggestions. She has also helped with sparking new ideas for me to write on. Only once was this “duel contact” plan a little bit of a problem. I had requested to meet with Nukhet to discuss the blog and the new direction we were going (to make sure we were still working on the same page) and it took a little e-mail tag to try and figure out when we could all meet. Eventually it was just Nukhet and me who meet, but the meeting was a little later that I had wanted.

As far as a disruption of information flow, I don’t think the blog has disrupted much. Their regular quarterly newsletter has continued. I don’t believe Nukhet has had to go to the board of directors for approval of any of my posts, she did say this would be the process for her if she had any questions. Maybe that is why she decided to bring Leanne more into the fold on the posts. She is on the board and therefore also got to see everything before it was posted.

I don’t feel information flow had any negative effect on the effectiveness of the blog. Everything worked well. The only time we really needed to use the whole network was at the beginning when I convinced Nukhet we should allow comments.

I don’t think I had any impact on the information flow in the organization. Fortunately Nukhet had the power to approve my post on her own. She did this normally within 24 hours of my sending them to her. I had no issues with the information flow within the F-M Humane Society, I would say Nukhet’s personality (she made she I was in no way ever intimidated, and that I could always ask questions) help make sure information flow would not be a problem.

Class on Monday 11/27/06

I missed class on Monday, was sick with the flu. Felling better now, and saw the new assignments posted with the due date of Dec. 1. I can answer most of the questions, but I can't be 100% specific about the plans for the blog after the class ends. Nukhet and I havn't gotten that far yet, but I guess the topic is becoming more and more urgent. This weekend I will be taking my LSAT test and right now everything else is taking a back seat. I did send a draft for a post to Nukhet today, hopefully I can post it tomorrow (11/30/06).

Week of Nov. 21 - Nov. 27

This was a short week, and things continued as planned. Started to do more thinking about exactily what the plan will be for the blog once the semester is over. I will be meeting with Nukhet sometime in the next couple weeks to finalize our plans. Right now it looks like the humane society is interested in having someone else take over the project, we are not sure yet who might be a good option. I continued blogging on declawing of cats. My subjects so far have been, 1.) why people declaw thier cat 2.) why people don't declaw thier cat, 3.) What the declawing procedure consists of, 4.) What vets, humane societies, and researchers think about the declawing procedure. I'll continue with a 5th post for sure, after that we will see where I'm at.

Time

50 mins - attend classs
40 mins - draft, research, and post on the blog
15 mins - think about and discuss plansfor the blog for after the class ends

Week of Nov. 13 - 20

This week I simply continued my posting on declawing cats. Right now the blog seems to be just moving along very easily. I am in a pattern, and I think everything is working well. This will make it very easy for someone else to take it over once the semester ends.
I find the topic very interesting right now, and hope others are reading the posts. I had one comment last week, but certainly not what I had hoped for as far as the number of comments.

Time

50 mins class
30 drafting of blogs, posting on blogger, research

Week of Nov. 6 - 12

This week I continued to work on blogging about the declawing of cats. I have my first few post drafted and am just waiting for approval. From what Dr. Baumann said in class I might not get approval until Thursday for my next post. That would surely be a disappointment, but I guess things happen.

For my posts on cat declawing I am breaking the subject down into 4 or 5 posts. The information I have found is really interesting, and very useful. Hopefully I will get comments as this is a topic all cat owners must address. All things are going smoothly right now, although as stated before I might not get much published this week.

Time committment

attend class - 50 mins
research and read on cat declawing - 90 mins
draft blogs - 30 mins

Week of Oct. 30 - Nov. 5

Right now the blog seems to be moving along very smoothly. The only question I am continually asking myself is how to encourage readership, increase readership, and encourage comments.

I met with Nuhket Thursday morning of last week to discuss the blog. We made sure we were on the same page for our next posts (declawing of cats). She brought up the subject of what is going to happen to the blog when the class ends. I told her the little bit we have discussed so far, but let her know I would bring it up in class again.

Nuhket, along with the other person I have been working with (Leanna) gave me some sources to pursue for info on cat declawing. So I have been reading these, and reflecting on the best method to approch this subject from.

We also talked Thrusday morning about deformalizing the blog a little and making it read in a less acedemic stylye. I hope this will decrease and intimidation a reader may feel when thinking about commenting on the blog.

Time

Meeting - 45 mins
research - 90 mins
draft posts - 40 mins
attend class - 50 mins