CofP's... come again?

I was a little confused by this reading. However after reading Emma's blog on the subject, I realized I could relate this theory to exactly the same aspect of my life! Same profession and therefore same situation. I will try not to copy her too much and make some different points but will base my ideas on the same subject. [Sorry Emma to copy you a bit lol]

CofP's stand for Communities of Practice. These are basically shared experiences of a group. They are shared practices and passions that are always being strived towards improvement. As I have already stated I personally interacted with one of these CofP's, and was rather successful at it if I do say so myself! 

When I worked in a restaurant I both worked 'out front' as my manager used to call it, and in the kitchens. Each of these had its own benefits. I am now a pretty good cook thanks to my time in the kitchens, ask Pete and Frank, hopefully they will agree with me! lol. And waitering has also taught me a few skills, one being speed of writing which has helped me in lectures with note taking, and also a mild amount of organisation [ish]. If you think I might be bad now, you should've seen me before! Trust me, I've improved! 

But anyway. Working as a waiter.  When working in my restaurant, the Haywain, a part of the Beefeater chain [the 3rd best in the country I will have you know, I feel a certain part of that is down to my skills], there are lots of other waitresses working at the same time. I seem to be the only waiter there, which is a good thing for me, as it gives me a different appeal for the paying tippers, sorry customers [trade habit]. Everyone there is sharing the same experiences of serving food and drink to customers/ tippers. This results in a constant adaption of personality to appeal to the customer, and a constant need to learn new ways in which to handle people when both happy and irate. 

When in a restaurant, there are lots of different jobs to be done, from waitering, cooking to the person on the door, or 'door whore' as we like to call them. However, all these aspects need to work in perfect harmony for all the cogs to turn in the restaurant machine. 

Wenger states three main aspects in CofP's. These are the domain, the community and practice. 

Much like my group member I will also assess the domain first. It is possibly the easiest of the 3 to lay down, covers all of the other ideas, and one that I find the most interesting. There are 2 main domains under the restaurant roof. 'Out front' and in the kitchens. Firstly waiting on. Every single member of the team puts in a bit of input when training up a new member of staff. I have had this experience first hand. I listened to every member of staff to gain tips on how to be a better waiter. One thing I learned is that a shared experience is a vital lesson when it comes to waiting on. If one of the more experienced waitresses gives you a tip, you bloody well follow it 'cos its bound to save you time, effort, or make you more money. These are the three main things waiting staff try to do by the way. On busy shifts, or for large tables with lots of plates to go out to, we would also work together by helping each other out by taking some of the plates out, or taking orders etc. When we all worked as a team we found that we worked better. This is also a major part of working in a kitchen. Each person on the team, a team of 5 or 6 in the case of our restaurant, had to know what each other was doing and the timings that each member of the team was working by. When we communicate with each other we found that the timings of dishes came out perfectly, and tables got all their meals on time and everything was hunky-dorey. Also we didn't get shouted at as much by management or the waitresses which is always a plus!

Wengers second CofP idea was that of 'community'. I have briefly covered this topic when talking about domains. This idea relates to the relationships formed when in a work situation. It all links back to shared experiences. As I have already mentioned this helps the team to work in more efficient manor as experience equals knowledge. If a certain customer comes in all the time, the team will learn how to react when around that person. We have a little old lady come in every other day. Kitty her name is. And every time she comes in she has a small glass of red wine and a single whisky. Through experience we have now all learnt that this is what she wants. So without even asking for it now, it'll be on her table within a few minutes. Although we all fight to be the person not taking it out to her because she can talk for England, and on a busy shift it's not the best thing to be talking to someone for more than a minute or two.

The 3rd theory that Wenger puts forward is that of Practice. For me this was getting the food out on time, both in the kitchen and waiting on. That was the main priority, and would ensure the good tipping, which for me was rather important! It also involved the personal skills that are required to speak to paying customers, and all the time with a little clock in the back of your head saying 'don't spend too long talking to these guys 'cos you'll probably be missing out, and messing something else up!'  This is a shared experience that i have with all other waiters and waitresses throughout the world, let alone in my restaurant. 

Thanks Emma you helped me to understand this one loads. Big RINCY for you! lol xXx

Analysis of a website

For this weeks task we have been set the grueling challenge of critically analyzing a website of our choice, among other things. 

The website I have chosen to analyse is http://www.liverpoolfc.tv. This website is very close to my heart and I feel it has a lot of interesting points to look at when assessing it critically.

This is the official website for the club and as such has been specifically designed by people employed by the club. This in itself could be seen as quite an interesting point. If the club has made a website for itself, the content must show the clubs thoughts and ideologies.

It is a very fan based site, that gives out a lot of information to do with absolutely everything to do with the club, from the clubs evidential money crisis to the latest news regarding the under 16's team. This shows that openness from the club is high. This allows a degree of trust which I will address a little later on. It is a free site so allows for anyone to look at it if they so wish. If you are a Liverpool fan, this is the first place you will go for information about your club. This however brings up a slight sociodeterministic viewpoint. Does this site exist because it has to, with Liverpool being a big club and to maintain its technological reputation as being at the front of the online class. Or does this site exist because of the need for it from the fans, and the need for a constant update of information for people like me. I know I sit on this side of the fence. That and facebook are the first two websites I check when I switch my computer on! And I'm sure I'm not the only one to admit that.

This therefore creates an online community to go onto its sister forum site www.koptalk.com. This allows for fans to vent about anything they may have seen on the site and to interact with other fans about their point of views also. 

There is also an idea of censorship on this site. In many cases there is no need for the information to be censored. Most football information is suitable for all ages, even if it is as disturbing as a Liverpool loss! The only censorship on information, is that of internal affairs going on within the club. For example, there is no real information on the internal power struggle going on within the club, only the rumours that are circulating round on other websites, such as Koptalk.com. There is a censorship on this information to protect the club from many things. Possibly embarrassment at the shambolic way our club is being run, or to prevent the clubs reputation to be tarnished. [Sorry I've turned this into my own rant that I should be plotting on Koptalk.com.]

There is only a slight copyright issue when looking at liverpoolfc.tv. At the bottom of the page, there is extracts from other sources such as the BBC, The Liverpool Echo, Sky Sports, Setanta etc. The quotations taken from the sources have to all have copyright to be allowed to be put on the liverpool website. This therefore means that most of the information supplied on this website is produced by the liverpoolfc.tv team. Things such as first team information, and the status updates on the building of the new stadium, for example, all come from Liverpool themselves, so no copyright issues will be incurred. 

The idea that everything has come straight from Liverpool Football Club again brings up the idea of trust. The fact that everything is straight from the horses mouth as it were, with no middle man involved really, could be seen as a very trustworthy thing. If you are told something directly then you are more likely to believe it. This website has the same feeling about it. Another way this website builds up a trust with the customers is the very helpful tech support service. I have had a few problems with my account to this website [the same account I use to get into Koptalk] and the creator of the site has emailed me personally to get everything sorted out, which I found very good. This is just a personal trust thing I have built up with the website that not everyone will have incurred but I thought it was a relevant one.

Overall I feel this website is a very effective one. It is extremely informative with up to date news involving the club. It is very interactive, and allows the people passionate enough to pay, rant on its sister site. However I may be slightly biased toward the success of the site due to my affiliation with the club, so if anyone would want to disagree with my findings on the site as a whole, then feel free to comment.

C.Johnson, (1945) 'You'll Never Walk Alone', Carousel, Rodgers And Hammerstein.

[this is the origins of the famous Liverpool Football Club song 'You'll Never Walk Alone' ironically clad in the harvard referencing style]

week 5 tasks part deux

Blogging and bloggers: real you or pseudo?

There has long been a debate, since the forming of these online conversations, on if the person typing is really the real person, or the person that they want to be? 

The idea of a pseudo character being formed when in a serious conversation is quite unnerving. However, as always in any academic subject, there is always 2 sides of a coin. The character that is produced could either be seen as good or bad, in effect. It could be a good portrayal of the author, showing all their good points and very little of the bad ones or visa versa. 

The only real answer comes from within, but I thought I'd just throw it out there. Maybe comment your views on the subject?

I looked at a cooking blog called Orangette.  [http://orangette.blogspot.com/] I chose this as cooking is a big passion of mine, and has been for quite some time. Especially the eating part! As you may be able to tell lol [the first step is admitting it eh?] It is one of the most popular cooking blogs around at the moment and is updated weekly. It was started in July 2004 by Molly Weizenberg. This blog illustrates her recipes, much like traditional recipes, but then furthers this with her experiences of these recipes, stories to go along with them. Her reccomendations for good dinner parties, and her ideals for which wines go with which meats etc. Her knowledge of food really shines through, and after reading some of the older blogs, you can really tell how much she has created her own persona through her online self. 

This blog is, however, more like a diary than a proper forum style blog. If you have any queries on her cooking or recipes she has an e-mail address on the site that you can use rather than clogging up the structure of the blog with posts.

I thought this was a really interesting weblog, mainly because it relates to my interests, but just the way she opens herself up through the medium of food. It really shows her passion for it. You can see, even without the photos, or actually meeting her, what kind of person she really is.

[Oh, and I will most definately be up to date by next week. Or at least that is the plan anyway lol]

Week 5 tasks

Hi guys, first of all an apology for the lack of activity on my blog. I will catch up with all of the tasks I have missed over the next week or so. Again, apologies.

Blogging and its origins:

A blog is a relatively new form of communication comprising of a mainly internet only interaction. There are many uses for this technology. One primary one is to share views, facts and opinions to others. The basis of a blog is that whatever you write on this, anyone in the world will be able to see it also. For example, with this blog. [not that there is much of it yet!] But if anyone wished to, they would be able to see what I am writing now. 

The term 'blog' was coined by a mixture of John Barger and Peter Merholz. Barger came up with the expression 'weblog' and was later taken into its shorter, now more recognisable form of 'blog'.  This interactive domain is a direct chronological cousin of the bulletin board systems, and the online diaries used initially in the 1990's.  In 1993, blogging as we know it today was born. Dr. Glen Barry founded his blog around the forest protection, and is still running today. We are almost directly following in his technological footsteps by using this form of communication to aid our education. He also used his as a form of documenting his project for a PHd. 

Development of the 'blog':

From this people were then able to upload video responses to their lives. They were able to transfer visual data of what their day consisted of, or how to do something via blogs. I believe Jamie Oliver makes a video blog every now and again, posting videos of how to make certain recipes in real time. This is obviously a major step for blogs. To be able to see what people are doing in real time. If blogs could be updated instantaneously, we may be able to see what someone is doing 24/7. almost as if wearing a web-cam all the time.

In the next blog:

I will be looking at a few specific blogs to look at how the author has used the technology to express and represent themselves. I will also be looking at how the respondents acknowledge these views and present themselves also.