Communication

During class this week we did a few communication based activities. The first was a obstacle course in which we had to go through with a partner. It was quite challenging since one partner was blindfolded and the other couldn’t touch or lead the other through. This made me really have to think about what I was saying. What might seem clear to one person might to another that is lacking something the first person possess. In this case it was sight. Some directions I gave and received were too vague while other times they were too specific to be able to execute.  “Move a little forward” or “Turn 30 degrees to the left”. Both are fairly relative and need a point of reference that, without sight, were hard to accomplish. For next year I’ll really have to work on trying to see a problem through other people’s eyes and forget what might be common sense to me since that might not be the case with students fresh to Iowa State.

The second activity was probably the most challenging. We had to flip a blanket over while everyone kept both feet on it. I’ve never done this activity before so I really relied on critical thinking and the prior knowledge of other mentors in the group. I think this was a great activity for critical thinking along with communication. For the most of the challenge the entire puzzle wasn’t clear since you can’t see what people are doing on the other side with everyone packed in tight. We had to rely on what people said to know what was going on along with when and how to act to accomplish this goal.

The third activity was really insightful into how different people perceive and are able to relay a message on. We started with writing a word and passed that to the next person who was to draw what was written. Then when it was passed again it was to be drawn again. This was difficult since not everyone is a great artist but its kind of a metaphor for communication levels. Not everyone can get his or her point across affectively and sometimes it is a guessing game. What might have started out as a simple phrase such as “princess castle” can morph through others perceptions and interpretations into “filming a movie”. 

ISLE Workshop

"Two ways to get wisdom in the world: Mistakes and Mentors." – Delatorro McNeal

The Iowa State Leadership Experience yesterday was a really great opportunity for me to really grow. The keynote Delatorro McNeal had a really unique approach to leadership and had a lot of energy and passion. I really appreciated his enthusiasm and it helped not only me but also the whole group of attendees set their mood for the entire workshop.

The first breakout session I attended was Positive Conflict. Michelle Boettcher from the Judicial Department at ISU gave us a lot of information. She first had us figure out our own personal conflict style. This buys into one of the important qualities of a Peer Mentor, insight. Before this session I never really thought about the fact that, just like MBTI, there are distinct groups of attributes when approaching conflict. I found out that I was “Avoidant” which I would say is partially true. For the most part I try to avoid conflict but when it does come up I usually try to facilitate a win-win situation with compromise as my main tool. I had pretty even scores across four out of the five styles, with “Competing” being a distant fit for me. I would never say that I want to win every conflict or disagreement. This session was useful to being able to understand others and how I can help solve problems and differences of opinion if it comes up next year for my students.

The second session I attended was Diversifying Your Leadership Style. I was a little disappointed by this session since I was expecting Cameron and Aja to present more information on how to go about diversifying your style but it was mostly a quick presentation of the categories from Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership and then a group activity where we are given a situation and just have to figure out what we would do. I received a situation about a Halloween Dance and people had shown up wearing inappropriate costumes. We came up with politely asking them to change costumes or leave and then anticipating this complication if the event would be hosted again. It was a little ironic since I had faced a similar situation for my residence hall’s Masquerade Dance the previous year and the same event was being hosted last night for the second time and I had made plan on how to handle situations we had faced the year before.

Overall, ISLE was good and I hope to attend again next year! 

ISLE-Iowa State Leadership Experience

MBTI Assignment

This is the third or fourth time I've gone through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and I find each time insightful. It gives me a great excuse to really look at my habits and preferences and reflect. This time I actually did something new. While going through the survey, I took some light notes to compare with what my friends would say about me. This was obviously just for fun but I found it quite interesting where they matched or were off of what I said about myself. It’s always interesting to look to others to see how their perspective is different.

I wished more of my friends, co-workers, and classmates would take this type of test. I think being introspective about yourself and your habits can help greatly when dealing with others in the day-to-day happenings of your life. If more students had access to their types, I think group projects and the like would become a lot easier. One could look at potential partners and easily adjust to conflicting behaviors or avoid the friction altogether and find more compatible partners.

Obviously this isn’t realistic since the whole point of group projects is to learn how to learn and work with others that might not be the easiest to work with. Not everyone in the world has access to these kinds of tests and some that do might not know how to effectively use the insights to benefit themselves and others.

            I look forward to getting my results back in class this week and to see if I’ve changed over the past year since I last took a MBTI test. I feel that I’ve grown as a person so I can’t wait to see if its reflected in my type. 

MBTI Assignment

Fish!

After watching the short film about the Fish! philosophy, a management and atmosphere technique used a Seattle fish market, I thought a lot about how people's attitudes can influence your own. The film introduced some concepts to improving their work atmosphere that can be translated to other situations. They stressed the importance to have fun, make the effort to make peoples’ days, the importance of being personal with others and, the one I found the most interesting, choosing the your outlook on the day and your behavior that stems from that decision.

A lot of behaviors are highly contagious, such as smiling. When you see someone genuinely smiling walking or sitting in class, you can almost feel your mood change from grouchy from the unjustified scheduling of the class at 8 am to a more open minded cheerful disposition. The key to “Choose Your Attitude”, in my opinion, is the word genuine. In order to affect those around you with the flash of your wonderful smile you truly need to feel good and happy which can be hard for people; No one is overly moved by a forced half-smile. You can decide that you are going to be happy but if you don’t truly commit to that decision and the attitude you want to bring to the world, it becomes very tough.

I really enjoyed the activity of literally throwing away the troubles that are bothering you that 311 did earlier this week. I’ve tried to take that idea on when sitting down to work on homework or before walking into my job. It’s symbolic but powerful and I can see a difference in my behavior and also how it has affect those around me.

             The whole video reminded me of a quote by Ralph Waldo Trine. It goes: 

“To get up each morning with the resolve to be happy is to set our own conditions to the events of each day. To do this is to condition circumstances instead of being conditioned by them.”

Things I Say

This past week I've been experiencing the power of Twitter through completely new eyes. For about year now I've had a personal Twitter but I approached it completely different than I have the one I created for UST111, also known as #ust111. Up until this assignment, I used Twitter as most people use Facebook, communication with close friends. As far as my high school goes, everyone has Facebook and people add friends indiscriminately. Only my close friends have Twitter and follow one another and I liked it that way. This made Twitter my way of keeping in touch and Facebook as my way of meeting people better, mostly through Facebook creeping.

This is completely opposite than we discussed in class. I understand how Twitter is used to get to know people because in most cases you don't have to approve the follow as you do in Facebook. This both amuses me and scares me completely. With the use of Four Square that my friends use, I'm constantly worried. Anyone can follow you, see your Four Square location and stalk you. The danger of Twitter seems more alarming to me than harmless Facebook creeping. Granted you can post Four Square to Facebook but so far my experience with it is that people keep it contained to Twitter.

As for the numerous people who said "I'll never touch Twitter after this assignment." I hope you don't abandon it. I haven't seen it at ISU yet but I know on many campuses, Twitter is a HUGE tool in keeping in touch with people. Who's free to hang out, who needs help with the class you took last semester or who knows the best place to get a cheap but completely heavenly sandwich. The whole reason I joined Twitter is to keep up with my friends already in college. I was timid about using it but now I use it all the time. For this assignment alone, I kept up tweeting on both accounts,(Personal: @Megmeg11892 and Hixson: @Mgoneil), plus Facebook. Granted, my personal account was mostly for random inside jokes or complete nonsense that the audience for the Hixson one wouldn't quite care or want to know about.

The assignment was hard, I'd have to agree. It's hard to be completely conscious of people who are grading your tweets, in a way, when you are wanting to share about your life. Just keep in mind that your Facebook is, or will be, under the same watchful eye of future employers so don't take your frustration out on Twitter.

I don't like having something being a representation of me that isn't completely honest of who I am. I'm young, I have a few years until I will be getting a serious job but I understand somethings that I do on social networks will have to come to a stop soon but my philosophy is be honest who I am. If I wouldn't say it to someone in real life, I don't post it on the internet, yet I would say a lot more than some people would want to hear. That's why I didn't turn in my already established Twitter for this assignment.

I guess the summary of this post is: Know your audience. This is the electronic book of your life, what are you willing to share for the world to read?