Learning to Learn – My Presentation to SIFII REAP Professional Postgraduate Seminar

I have blogged about the year I spent gaining my Masters degree in comprehensive detail (mostly here and here). However I never wrote any summary or reflection on the whole experience. So being asked to speak at the recent SIFII REAP Seminar on Professional Postgraduate Programmes gave me the incentive to put some thoughts in order two years after the fact. 

One benefit of a fifteen-minute speaking slot is that I was forced to be concise. So this palimpsest of a more thorough retrospective may be of interest to anyone who is weighing the options of taking on a part-time MA and maintaining a professional career at the same time.

Summary Analysis of the Uses of Business Blogging within the Irish Graphic Design Sector

Today I am releasing this summary report of the quantitative aspect of my Master’s research. This research analyses the uses of business blogging by graphic design companies and graphic designers in Ireland and evaluates that usage against current best practice.

Existing Irish graphic design blogs are surveyed, details of their activities and characteristics are collected. The data collected on each blog is categorised. The category data for graphic design companies and individual graphic designers is compared to identify any differences in emphasis and approach between them. The category information is analysed.

In conclusion the current state of the Irish graphic design business blogosphere is evaluated. Recommendations on policies and strategies for business blogging and micro-blogging are given. An increased focus on listening and engaging with stakeholders through blogging and social media is recommended.

Please feel free to share this report and pass it along to anyone you think may be interested.

Blogging in the Irish Graphic Design Sector

Irish Graphic Design Company Blogs in 2009

This post is a detailed listing of all 24 Irish graphic design company blogs analysed during my research project in 2009, giving details about the nature and characteristics of each blog. Any additional blogs added after September are not included in the research analysis. The full 2009 list is after the jump.

[UPDATE: The 2010 list now has its own separate page in this blog, see the ‘Irish graphic design company blogs’ tab at the top of this page.]

Irish Graphic Designer’s Blogs in 2009

This post is a detailed listing of all 22 Irish graphic designer’s blogs analysed during my MA research project in 2009 giving details about the nature and characteristics of each blog. Any additional blogs added after September are not included in the research analysis. The full 2009 list is after the jump.

UPDATE: The 2010 list now has its own separate page on this blog, see the ‘Irish graphic designer’s blogs’ tab in the masthead of this page.

Three ICAD Member Graphic Design Companies Blogging in 2009 (Out of 48)

I reviewed the websites of all members of The Institute of Creative Advertising and Design listed under ‘Graphic Design, Identity Design and Packaging Design’ in the Member’s Directory on the ICAD website (accessed on 20 June 2009) and investigated which have a link to a company blog from their primary company website. IDI membership is individual, so I have aggregated this list by company name. This research does not preclude their being such a company blog, but where one is not visibly linked on the company website, then an inference can be made as to how such a blog is positioned within the company’s mix of corporate communications.

Nine IDI Member Graphic Design Companies Blogging in 2009 (Out of 71)

I reviewed the websites of all members of Institute of Designers in Ireland listed under ‘Visual Communications’ on the IDI website (accessed on 03 June 2009) and investigated which have a link to a company blog from their primary company website. IDI membership is individual, so I have aggregated this list by company name. This research does not preclude their being such a company blog, but where one is not visibly linked on the company website, then an inference can be made as to how such a blog is positioned within the company’s mix of corporate communications.

About My Dissertation Blog

This is the text from the ‘About’ page on my dissertation blog, explaining its purpose and content.

UPDATE: I have now migrated all of the content from that blog to this Thoughtport blog in March 2010.

About
As part of my Masters Degree in Professional Design Practice from Dublin Institute of Technology I have conducted research into business blogging in the Irish Graphic Design Sector for a dissertation submitted in Autumn 2009. I have established this site as a central location for those aspects of my research that may be of interest to a broader audience.

Research question
This research seeks to analyse the usage of business blogging by graphic design companies and graphic designers in Ireland and to evaluate that usage against current best practice. The study aims to usefully articulate potential strategies those companies can adopt to participate in business blogging in a more effective manner that will benefit their businesses, and ideally the whole Irish graphic design sector.

Hypothesis
The research starts from the hypothesis that business blogging is a beneficial activity for professional services firms and that it can play a significant role in enhancing the professional reputation and authority of Irish graphic design companies and graphic designers.

Aims and objectives

• To establish a working definition of business blogging and choose which sub-sets of blogging shall be included within the research.
• To identify the key potential benefits that business blogging can bring to the marketing of Irish graphic design companies and graphic designers.
• To discover what Irish graphic design blogs currently exist and collect data on their levels of activity.
• To categorise and analyse this data to identify whether those business blogs are effectively achieving any of the identified benefits.
• To compare the business blogging activities of the Irish graphic design sector against established international and Irish best practice.
• To identify effective business blogging strategies for Irish graphic design companies.

Site structure
I have divided this site into three parts,

• The Journal is where I write all my thoughts and analysis.
• The Blog Lists page has all of the primary data information that I have gathered on Irish graphic design blogs.
• In Assets you will find various online video and audio resources that relate to my research topic. For a list of text resources and links you can refer to my Del.ici.ous page in the sidebar.

Five Years Blogging

This blog is five years old today. At some point it would be interesting (to me) to look back over the history of this blog and review how its content and direction have evolved over that time. Although this previous year has been somewhat exceptional. For most of the time since last September I have been writing in a closed-access private secondary blog, as I have been concentrating on writing material for my MA programme. I have cross-posted some of that content here so that this blog does not lie fallow for the twelve-month duration of the course.

At present I am working on my MA dissertation, which now has its own dedicated blog as well. That third blog is freely accessible. As most of my time has been spent so far on researching and drafting literature reviews there is not as much content on that blog as I would like. Now as I move into the later stages of my dissertation project and more material is finalised you should see more content populating the pages there.

As part of my research I am collating a list of Irish graphic design blogs which will reside on a dedicated page within that site. I am currently processing and analysing the list, but a subset of the total are already in place there. Any comments and feedback on the content of that site are welcome, everything gets added into my research. If you are aware of any Irish graphic design blogs please let me know so that I can include them as well.

Update
I have now closed my dedicated dissertation blog and republished all of its contents within this Thoughtport blog. I have tagged my primary research posts with ‘Masters_PDP’ and ‘Irish Blog Research’. Secondary sources, videos and other resources gathered during my research process are tagged with Dissertation Assets.

Establishing a Dissertation Blog

Social media and technology journalist, author, and blogger, Shel Israel is writing a book on the intersection of Twitter and business called Twitterville, due for publication in the third quarter of 2009. He is blogging the writing process, putting up his raw notes and interviews. He is crowd-sourcing comments, feedback and suggestions to further his research (but holding back his final manuscript for publication obviously).

This approach would be a productive model for an aspect my own research. It certainly puts the traits of openness and transparency into practice: “be the change you wish to see”. In my case I have created a dedicated dissertation Work-In-Progress blog as my public research and crowd-source hub.

Update
Following the completion of my MA programme I have retired my dedicated dissertation blog and merged all of its content into this Thoughtport blog.

Six DBI Graphic Design Companies Blogging in 2009 (Out of 46)

I reviewed all of the graphic design companies listed as members of Design Business Ireland on the DBI website (accessed on 05 April 2009) and identified which have a company blog linked to from their primary company website. This does not preclude their being such a blog, but where none is visible on the company website an inference can be made as to how the blog is positioned within the company’s mix of corporate communications.

Of the 46 relevant DBI members on the list, six had corporate blogs and forty had none.

My Thought for the Day 01/04/09

“Hmmm, perhaps my Twitter-referencing April Fools gag was just too clever-clever by half...”
10:52 PM Apr 1st from twitterrific

Small Pieces, Loosely Connected

After a very quick scan through the blogs submitted after yesterday’s email request it strikes me that as yet there are no A-List or Go-To blogs in the Irish Graphic Design sector. Only a few blogs were mentioned more than once by respondents (in what was admittedly a very small and unscientific sample).

Where are the Seth Godins, the Hugh Macleods and John Grubers of the Irish graphic design sector? Given the small size of the Irish graphic design sector and the smaller subset one would expect to actively blog within that, perhaps small, ultra-niche atomized, personalized audiences are all that one can expect. Clay Shirkey’s power law analysis of blogging would suggest that one or two of these blogs should have gained a broader audience and expanded beyond their initial audience.

Actions: based on this analysis examine the sample blogs.
— Is their content very personalized, only of interest to friends and acquaintances?
— Is their content primarily of interest only to the author (diary blog, design reference for self)?
— Is their material published on an ad-hoc basis, with long intermissions?
— Does the blog promote the designer or their business?

Irish Graphic Design Companies on Twitter in 2009

This list is sorted by each design company’s starting date on Twitter, with the oldest first.

(This post was started in April 2009 and updated with additional company details throughout my research during the Summer. The total had only reached twelve companies by the time my research was submitted in October 2009.)

@CreativeDistrict
The Creative District: graphic design studio.
Since: January 2009.
@ArrivalDesign
Arrival: graphic design studio.
Since: February 2009.
@BFKDesign
BFK: branding and design company.
Since: February 2009.
@Xcommunications
Xcommunications: digital meda design company.
Since: February 2009.
@PenhouseDesign
Penhouse Design: graphic design studio.
Since: 20 April 2009.
@CandyCollective
Candy Collective: Irish graphic design evangelists.
Since: May 2009.
@CreativeMediaNI
Creative Media: graphic design studio.
Since: May 2009.
@DesignInch
Design Inch: graphic design studio.
Since: June 2009.
@CubedRoute
CubedRoute: web design agency.
Since: June 2009.
@DesignTactics
Design Tactics: branding and design company.
Since: June 2009.
@NewGraphic
NewGraphic: graphic design studio.
Since: June 2009.
@Ebow
Ebow: web design and graphic design company.
Since: September 2009.

Irish Graphic Designers On Twitter in 2009

This list is sorted by each designer’s starting date on Twitter, with the oldest first.

This post was started in April 2009 and updated with additional designer’s details throughout my research during the Summer. The discoverable total had only reached seventeen by the time my research was submitted in October 2009.

@AidenKenny
Aiden Kenny. Since: 22 March 2007.
@DaraghOToole
Daragh O’Toole. Since: 04 April 2007.
@DavidAirey
David Airey. Since: 17 March 2008.
@Pawelgra77
Pawel Grabowski. Since: 28 December 2008.
@YoussefSarhan
Youssef Sarhan. Since: 14 January 2009.
@AceJet170
Richard Weston. Since: 27 January 2009.
@EoinStan
Eoin Stanley. Since: 24 February 2009.
@/GaryMcginty
Gary McGinty. Since: 27 February 2009
@GillianReidy
Gillian Reidy. Since: 27 February 2009.
@Laughing_Lion
Jennifer Farley. Since: 05 March 2009.
@Miralize
Sean O’Grady. Since: 06 March 2009.
@Acatisacat
Fergus O’Neill. Since: 13 March 2009.
@Fogra
Sean O’Grady. Since: 14 March 2009.
@PaulGuinan
Paul Guinan. Since 16 March 2009.
@ConKennedy
Con Kennedy. Since: 24 April 2009.
@JamesCullen123
James Cullen. Since: 28 June 2009.
@HilaryT4S
Hilary Kenna. Since 22 September 2009.

Initial Call for Irish Design Blogs

I sent this email out to contacts in my network to gather some initial blog addresses for my MA research.

I am researching the uses of blogs by Irish design companies and by Irish designers.

What I need to do at this stage is pull together a quick list of blogs by Irish designers and if possible Irish design companies. So if you can send me on links to any that you know of, your contribution will be most appreciated.

This is very preliminary work, so go as broad and wide as you can — I will filter later. It is more important that I get a comprehensive sample to start off with.

I'll just be looking through them — at this stage this is not a call for people to interview or anything as involved as that.

The term ‘blog’ is wilfully elusive: so if you are not sure if something is bloggy enough or not, just go ahead and add it in anyway.

I am also interested in designer's personal blogs. Whether they are freelancers using their blog as part of marketing (Like Benny here) or designers doing their own thing quite separate from whatever design studio they work in. (Like Con here.)

Also the blogs don't have to be writing-orientated. Link-blogs or design reference blogs full of deadly cool visual stuff are just as valid. (Like this kind of thing.)

I am also looking for any Irish design companies or designers micro-blogging on Twitter (like this). In my research I will eventually need to focus on applied use of this for some defined aim: most likely marketing. But as this stage just seeing whether many in design industry are availing of this channel at all shall be productive.

I will aggregate all of the results onto a web page as some kind of shared resource listing. I will circulate that once I get it lashed together.

Also, do feel free to forward this email on to anyone you know who may be able to point me towards some relevant blogs. (That way I can tick the box beside Research Aim of “Leveraging the sophisticated network effects of online social networks to gather information”.)

Thanks in advance.
Aiden

Quote of the Day 27/03/09

“We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.”
—Walt Disney

My Thought for the Day 26/03/09

“3K+ words written, now I need to get the train into college library, but it is really lashing rain. Therefore: Motivation Level = Low.”
2:25 PM Mar 26th from Power Twitter

Cutting Through the Dissertation Fog

I am trying to tie down my Dissertation Research Question in detail and that is still proving to be somewhat of a challenge. I imagine that it is the absolute cliché of the MA student that one finds more and more interesting avenues of investigation the more more reading and researching one conducts. My  initial research this last week has shown me that.

I now have a very clear sense of why a defined and locked-down trinity of Question, Aims and Objectives can serve as a necessary merciless filter for keeping laser-focus on the end-goals of my Dissertation.

My Thought for the Day 22/03/09

“Doing some initial online research into corporate blogging. Oh yessiree that’s one fine can of worms you have opened up there Mr Kenny...”9:31 PM Mar 22nd from Power Twitter

My Thought for the Day 19/03/09

“Attempting to construct an irrefutable wall of logic: each component self-evident, elegantly reinforced & interdependant. (Not quite there.)”11:23 PM Mar 19th from twitterrific