Bloggers Series: John Nash on Contributing to Multiple Blogs

I’m John Nash and I’m an associate professor at the University of Kentucky in the department of educational leadership studies. I’m also co-founder of the OpenEye Group, a consultancy working in Europe and the States to enhance program impact in the social sector. Currently I’m blogging in several places in different capacities. I have a personal blog where I reflect on the topic of design thinking, I built a new blog and social network site for an AEA regional affiliate, and I contribute posts to a collaborative blog entitled Education Recoded over at BigThink.

Rad Resource – Evaluation Network for the Missouri River Basin: This is an example of how a volunteer organization can use blogging. Nine months ago we migrated from Google Sites to WordPress wherein our board members are posting about every two weeks according to an editorial calendar. The focus is on areas of passion regarding evaluation. We also created a social networking component for the site via BuddyPress. Our hope is to fulfill the mission of our far-flung membership by creating a space to create community online.

Rad Resource – Reform By Design. This blog is my personal site for reflections on the topic of design thinking. Design thinking is a process by which one tackles problems or challenges using a human-centered perspective. Design thinking is a powerful way to re-frame issues so that program planning can be more effective and, ultimately, evaluations can be more useful.

Hot Tips – favorite posts:

• How We Got People to Talk Back to the Walls: Using “Character Composites” or “Personas” in a Design Process.  I liked this post because it exemplifies how blogs can be descriptive and instructive. I was able to show a process we went through by combining a story with a progression of images.

• The absence of design in organizational design: What gives?
  This post is a good example of how blog posts are good for drafting rough ideas. I was reading Managing By Design when a passage in a chapter by Carl Weick hit me like a thunderbolt – a flow of words befell me. Before I knew it I had a 1500 word reaction on my hands.

• Finally, Consultants to Schools Who Actually Know What They are Talking About
  This is from BigThink. I just liked the tone of this one – and it had the most tweets of any post I’ve done thus far.

Lessons Learned – why I blog: I blog because I’m find it’s a safe space to explore ideas and obtain feedback.

Lessons Learned: One thing I’ve learned, and continue to be surprised by, is how many people out there are also interested in topics I like. I’m endeared and encouraged by every tweet, every “like,” and each comment from readers.

This winter, we’re running a series highlighting evaluators who blog. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.