As good a time as any for reflection...

A couple of years ago I had a conversation with the Academic Director of my business over what our secret ambitions were and we agreed that we would both like to teach the world reflective practice. If we could only get more people to get over the initial fear of change and the "other" and reflect upon how they could do things better, then much much more could be achieved in this world.

As my first year (OK six months) as a blogger draws to a close I think I should expand upon why I believe this to be important.

In my first ever post I stated that my intentions behind blogging were to "think out loud" and although I didn't realise it at the time, I had already started on a path towards creating a framework for my own reflective practice. I refined my ideas with the commitments I had gleaned from other bloggers in another early post to be 1. Brief 2. Honest 3. Interesting 4. and to connect things where possible. Later in the year I listed the things that I should like to be better at as a person and in this spirit I should like to look at 2008.

1. I have found blogging immensely beneficial as a way to knock the corners off my ideas and build upon those of others. Although I dont think I have many readers, I find the practice of writing for an audience who could call me to account if they so wished, a very good discipline for refining my thoughts.

2. I have been introduced to people and ideas through blogging that I would otherwise never have met, which is a very good thing.

3. I have achieved a number of goals that I had the courage to share, which I might not have done had I kept them to myself.

4. I have engaged with a number of my employees in a more direct fashion than would have been possible in traditional work based communication

5. I have admitted my own shortcomings and taken a number of steps to improve myself.

6. And all the above has probably consumed about 90 minutes a week which is a fairly good return on the investment

In short, I think the experiment so far has been benficial and I aim to continue.