Creative Writing - Beginner

I have finally made a goal to advance my creative writing techniques. Writing is a passion I have had since I was about 12. I have so many short stories and poems that I wrote as a teenager. Now today I can take those stories and develop them into something more significant. After visiting the different blogs of people offering "creative writing tips", I know I have to make a full effort to finish out my thoughts in these stories, and move ahead with publishing them somewhere. It is a long term goal, but if I could share my stories with other people, it would be so fulfilling!

Blog #2 - Research and the Reflective Practioner

I have to admit that the new tools we are learning in INSYS497 are tools that I am not too sure we could use in my company. My company has very strict security rules, so I am anxious to read about the security issues in this weeks assignment. Also, I think that venturing into these new tools would be met with resistance from many of the people I work with. However, I have found many tools as well as many new ways to teach these tools. Sometimes change is a good thing!

The following video that I found on You Tube is an excellent response to why the web is starting to become an active player in science. I work for a pharmaceutical company, and we are always developing new compounds to submit to the FDA for approval. The video talks about going beyond e-mails and posts to expanding collaboration through wikis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwSo99dKTpM


I definitely want to suggest using a wiki of some sort for the many documents that we work on in the department. These documents range from clinical study protocols, to clinical study reports that are submitted to the FDA for drug approval. A lot of the times, these documents are sent around in circles for people to review, as well as reviewing them in multiple meetings. I think if a wiki were available, then these documents could actually be submitted more quickly to the FDA, and our objectives and timelines would be met. It is amazing how many times we pass our timelines because another document needs to be updated. If the documents were housed in one location where everyone could highlight their concerns (like the DIIGO tool we used this week), and add "post-its" with comments, then the documents might have a quicker turn around time.

In addition to adding a wiki, I have also found a great blog that talks about Web 2.0 tools in corporations. This blog is mostly from an IT perspective, but it still covers great topics.

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/resourcecenters/show.aspx?rc=63982


It would be great if we could incorporate blogging at work. I love the fact that finding the appropriate blogs to research are easy through tagging. It would be great to be able to post new ideas and tag them for the different departments to read for better understanding. Even if we offered tagging on our SOP's that are housed on the intranet at work would make searching for new information easier.

There are endless possibilities to incorporating some type of new tool at work. We just have to do the appropriate research to find the one that would fit our needs the best as well as offer the appropriate security features.

Blog #1- Creating My Own Social Network

My Social Network before this class was extremely limited. I basically only communicated through e-mail, but added Facebook a few months ago. Being able to connect with others through Facebook has been interesting. But, now after doing the reading and research online for this class, I see that there are many other new and advanced tools I can use.

I work for company that is very strict with guidelines and SOP's, and following everything posted by the FDA. We are very limited with our social networking tools since we have a very strict working practice. Even people who are on Facebook socially and outside of work have actually gotten in trouble for the things they have posted online. But learning about these new tools in Web 2.0 may help advance our company a little bit more.

Now that I am learning about these new Web 2.0 tools, I am anxious to suggest these tools to be implemented at work. I really think Podcasting would be a good tool we could use, even if it was just posted internally. It would be interesting to hear directly from the European and Asian offices, as well as the board of directors regarding things in our company instead of reading an e-mail. And using a bookmarking tool where the whole company could see what sites people have visited regarding helpful information would be extremely beneficial. Some of these tools could be very useful since we have offices in about 10 countries. Then maybe we could reduce the amount of meetings we have to discuss things that could have been handled through some of the new Web 2.0 tools.

As we learn more about these tools, I am interested to see how we can implement them into a strict company, and what security and safety measures we can take to allow Web 2.0 to employees.

Mass Confusion.....

Okay, I left class on Thursday with a complete understanding of what I was supposed to be doing. But, now that I am on my own.....I am totally lost!! I hope I can figure this stuff out. I swear things are missing or look different than how they looked at PSU. Hopefully it will all click tomorrow. :-)

Hope everyone else is having better luck!