Tackling this service learning project for English 312:
Writing for Business was a challenging but rewarding learning experience for my
group and I. Apart from learning strategies for collaborating online with my peers
and colleagues, I also learned much in the ways of employing fundamental
rhetorical principles in analyzing persuasive communication. As I mentioned in
my proposal, online communication was sort of a hurdle we had to work through,
especially because we were not able to meet in person at all due to scheduling
differences. Both of my group mates were seniors who had jobs outside of
school, so time was scarce. It also meant emails and messages were often
sporadically answered.
In spite of scheduling difficulties and lack of consistent
communication, we functioned extremely well as a team. We all had the same
goals and team standards. We also did an excellent job in the early stages of
dividing the labor amongst us. As I became acclimated to our team dynamic, I
began to predict what problems needed the attention of my team and which ones I
could handle myself.
While I anticipated
learning about online communication skills, the depth of analysis we completed
along with it granted us new insights into the realm of persuasive
communication. As a result, I found there to be quite a bit of overlap within
these two outcomes. Having multiple people to check your work and bounce ideas
off of really helped me perfect my own fundamental rhetorical analysis skills.
Plus my teammates and I were able to point out appeals we individually might
have missed. A great example of this would be our actual thesis for the report,
which wasn’t entirely complete until after we had finished much of our
analysis.
Upon analyzing Nest’s online credibility, which involved
their many positive Facebook posts, decent LinkedIn profiles, and strong visual
website presence, we were actually a little stumped as to how we could help
build their appeal any further. As far
as the businesses we’ve been exposed to, Nest Realty already had a lot of good
things going for it. We were used to analyzing and recommending changes to
obvious details or just building an online persona from scratch. But here, they
wanted us to put the icing on the cake, so to speak.
It was a combined effort of research and analysis that
painstakingly lead us to a simple conclusion: Nest should do more of what they
do already. To put it simply, we concluded that Nest should take it’s friendly,
old-school feel and expand it into other platforms they had previously
neglected, such as their incomplete LinkedIn profile for professional audiences
and their severely underused twitter profile, which gives them the opportunity
to both market their brand and respond to their many “Nesters.”
Overall, working on this Service Learning Project with Jacob
Mohr and Ne’dra Bell was a challenge. One that has taught me more about
persuasive language and in depth analysis then probably my last two semester of
professional writing combined. I look forward to seeing just were this new
knowledge takes me.
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