Autoethnographic research
Autoethnography involves a researcher writing about a topic of great personal relevance and putting their experiences within the context that is relevant for them. It requires deep reflection on the author's unique experiences and also on the context in which they are operating.
This section details some of the ways in which I have reflected on my own experience and context, and sought to learn more about myself.
Sharing stories on Social Media Platforms
I used LinkedIn to share some key learning moments and reflections along my Master's journey. These helped me to solidify my reflections as well as share them to engage with and inspire others. This was via direct posts and sharing blog posts.
LinkedIn was the medium I was both most comfortable with and already had an established network so I could get immediate feedback via engagement. It also helped me build my professional profile as I was looking to what career step I would take next.
As I developed my social media engagement skills through understanding the platforms more and developing both my writing style and experimenting with drawing images and making videos etc., I would regularly get around 5000 views across the first few days of my posts, and good engagement in terms of engagements and comments. This was a significant improvement on the few hundred to under 2000 views etc. I got it prior to the programme. This feedback enabled me to understand what content most resonated with the audience; real vulnerable personal moments got by far the most engagement. I was also able to experiment with different times of the day and week. Evenings during the week seemed to work best. I tried to find a tool to get a good analysis of LinkedIn engagement but could not find something that gave the same level of analysis on a personal page as you can get on Instagram or Facebook.
The potential drawbacks of focusing mostly on LinkedIn are that it is a large professional network and may have missed the opportunity to build a network with the audience of female small business owners I want to connect with. However, it is also a platform popular with professional services which ended up being a large slice of the participants in my survey and interviews so I felt there was a valid opportunity for engagement and feedback.
It's also a great place to tag people and get a response. One of my favourite author's Hinemoa Elder commented on a post I tagged her and her book Aroha, as well as getting a comment from Whina movie co-directer Paula Whetu Jones in a post about how amazing she and her wonderful movie were.
Here are a few images here I used with direct links to the posts. If you would like to see more of the posts this LinkedIn button will take you to all my posts on my profile.
Instagram/Facebook
I created a separate Instagram and Facebook Page for my startup consultancy. Initially, I had planned to build a following on both of these through the programme to provide a good platform post-Master's to continue engagement.
However, I decided that the effort that would go into building this following would be better-spent post-masters when I was clean on my audience and message. I experimented a little but have parked depending on these platforms with a view to picking them up in my Part Three.
These platforms have both been set up for TiltShift Consulting through the Meta Business Suite so are ready to use once I decide to start building engagement via them.
Links here if you would like to see where I have started.
Engagement Opportunities at Tech Futures Lab
Where possible, I have taken the opportunity to engage with staff and existing or prospective students at Tech Futures Lab. Each time it was really helpful for my learning. This was in a range of ways and included exploring or uncovering what I have learned (knowledge and about myself), learning from and ideating with others, or simply building and enhancing my network which was an aim of my Master's.
Even though I was always busy, I tried to make the time and say yes to opportunities as I would always get a lot out of them. A few of these are noted below.
I was on a panel discussion for prospective Master's students hosted by Fiona. The preparation for this was a helpful reflection point on why I wanted to do the Master's and what I was getting out of it. It was also a good opportunity to build my profile.
I was invited to share my journey so far with Gen 17 Presentation, a session I delivered alongside another Gen 15 cohort member Rafiq Moses. The link to the Zoom session is here. Once again this was a great opportunity to reflect on our journey so far. What we had learned mainly about how to best approach the overall programme and project, what we had learned about ourselves in the process and on reflection how far we have come from sitting in the Lab in the first couple of residential 18 months prior. This was a great opportunity to develop my storytelling and engaging presentation skills. We have been invited back to do another session with Gen 20 in February which I am excited about.
Other opportunities to engage with others across the Mind Lab and Tech Futures Lab have included being on the Student Panel, Mahi Tahi sessions, Converge sessions as well as spending time in the lab. I even managed to hang out with Frances at a retreat in Fiji! It is hard to fit everything in, but I tried where I could to connect. It was great to be able to learn from others as well as share what I have learned. Along with this, I have a real interest in learning and human behaviour from my HR and coaching background so it was always interesting to view others' insights, challenges and the overall programme design with this in mind.
Learning more about myself
Personal growth is a key value of mine. I am always seeking new ways to learn more about myself. I have found this very useful throughout this course. Among other things it helps define the value that I can bring to others as well as areas to develop.
To help me further develop in these areas I had some personal coaching sessions and undertook some profiling and development courses/sessions. I have noted a few below.
Coaching and Development
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Greg Sellar is a high-performance and mindset coach. The focus of the coaching with Greg was on getting clarity from a career development perspective. It was really helpful to unpack some of my baggage, talk through what I felt was holding me back and get clarity on what I wanted to feed into my work-life post-Master's. Greg helped me to write a bio for a website which was something I had always struggled with - he helped me own my skills and experience and speak about them confidently!
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Alina Berdichevsky is a less traditional coach that blends the esoteric and scientific. She has a customised mix of mental, emotional and spiritual fitness tools with a strong focus on the self-care gap for busy people who want to bring more grace, efficiency and purpose in their daily existence. The session with Alina was quite different to the traditional coaching I had experienced, but it helped me to unravel some of the challenges I was experiencing and renewed my focus and a different perspective on my work-life balance/blend. A concept that she introduced me to that has really resonated was the concept of feminine energy (being/feeling) and masculine energy (doing). Something I am continuing to understand and explore, observe in myself and adjust.
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Ellen Hooper is an executive coach. Through working with Greg, I identified that I want a strong focus on developing my own coaching skills and qualifications next year. Ellen helped me unpack what was getting in the way of this and develop a plan for next year.
Development Programme
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Cat Howell's Psycho Magnetics Brand, Sales and Money programme. As I mentioned before, this is a time to be curious, and Cat was at the retreat I attended in Fiji. She has a very successful track record as an entrepreneur in social media and marketing and presents a different perspective on developing success which is based on alchemy. She was a very engaging and magnetic speaker who has some very intriguing material in her development sessions which is based on reading and using your own energy and what feels right rather than following a formula. Among other things, the course helped me to build confidence in myself and trust my gut and judgement more.
During my Part Two I engaged with three different coaches. I did this as I wanted to develop my thinking for my Master's, and I also felt like I was at a bit of a personal professional crossroads/roadblock. I have expanded on the different sessions below. Given the personal nature of the sessions I have not added to much detail about them. However, some of the outputs of the sessions do feed into my plans post the Master's.
Like the website says, this is a time to be curious so I experimented with trying three quite different coaches for quite different areas I wanted to explore. As a coach myself I also wanted to explore experience different types of coaching to help develop my own coaching style.
Personal Profiling
I find personal profiling is a great way to learn more about yourself. I was also interested in trying out some new tools that I could build into my professional toolkit. I find that learning more about myself helps me develop a strengths-based approach, as discussed in earlier assignments. Most of these reinforced what I know, but doing this sharpened my focus on what it is I want to do and where I can add value.
Enneagram This is a type of personality test that I have not done before by coming highly recommended by a number of people on the retreat I went on. It provides you with one of nine personality types and a breakdown of the strengths, weaknesses and motivations. Also key insights into how to get on well with others. This mainly reinforced key elements for me that I was already aware of. That I have a strong drive to gather information and learn, and when I am at my best share this knowledge with others which I feel is a good connection to my project. It also turns out that when males and females are split out into the nine categories I have the most unique personality type! Feels like an unfair advantage point there...
DOTS by Amy Scott is a communication tool. It was an online programme that you take to understand more about your personal communication style, understanding this and how you can use it to better communicate with others. This was complementary to other profiles I have done.
Values I also went through Dr John DI Martini's Value hierarchy process. I had previously done some work understanding my values, but that had been a number of years ago, so I wanted to redo this work. Not surprisingly these values were quite aligned with the Enneagram. It's important to understand our values so that we can make sure that what we do in life aligns with us as that will make what we do that much more rewarding.