Working Post: My Missionary Project

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Originally, I was going to create a website for missionaries that come home early for my final project. I have created that website, and I like it. However, I have decided to convert that website into a blog because as I continued to do research and meet others that came home early through my website (and those who want to help) I realized that there are so many grey areas when it comes to missionary work. And although I had an experience with coming home early from a mission, I have realized that I am by no means an expert on the subject. I would like to become on though and I think a blog will be one of the best ways to get started.

So, I have decided to transform my website into a blog. By making it a blog, I will be able to receive feedback through comments and have a more approachable format for people to contribute their own stories through guest blogging. I can ask my readers what they would tell someone in a grey-area situation instead of trying to come up with a solution for the situation largely on my own. I can also talk about missionary work in ways more than just coming home early, although I do plan to have coming home early be a focus of the blog.

Main Purpose

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The main purpose of my blog will be two-fold: (1) Have a place for those that feel like "misfits" in the world of LDS missionary work to come and read stories from others and to receive advice on what steps they should consider taking next in their life and how they can still be missionaries even if they do not serve the typical full-time mission, and (2) To change the LDS culture surrounding missionary work. This is something the Church is already trying to do; missionary work is not just for full-time missionaries. We know this. But for those that want to serve, there are other options than serving full-time proselyting missions and these options need to be more well-known.

Initially, my blog will probably focus more on missionaries that come home early, but eventually I hope it'll include topics that go beyond coming home early from a mission and focus on other topics that need to be talked about but are generally ignored concerning missionary work. (E.g. Serving the full amount of time but still feeling like a failure, or that you could have done more, etc.). 

Preliminary Exploration
I have read blogs, articles, and gone to presentations regarding early-returned missionaries. (Yes, I know I said I hate that term and I would prefer it not to be used, and I still think it is a pejorative in LDS culture, but I hope to change that through my blog). I have written a lot on my website, and I will probably use what I have written there for my blog posts. I have also used Wikispaces to curate other articles and blog posts on the subject, as well as ideas for my blog both in subject matter and aesthetics. 

Relevance
My project relates to this class by using digital means to get something very important out there. Originally I tried to talk about this subject through traditional means, i.e. writing a book and getting it published through Deseret Book. That did not pan out, however, so now I'm trying to talk about it through digital means. I think this will be better for my audience since the topics will become more of an open discussion rather than me generalizing my experience onto others that go through similar experiences. I think that this more open format will help others a lot more than my book would have done.

Format
My format for this open discussion will be a blog. Eventually, I may create a website, but that will not be until I feel comfortable with the rhetoric of websites and feel like I know and understand enough about these difficult topics to create a website. Later on, I may rewrite my book and submit it for publishing again. But for now, my format will be a blog.

Outlet

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Professor Burton suggested I do a press release for my blog once it is ready. Does anyone know how to do a press release? Who should I contact?

Other thoughts I had were to do maybe a guest blog post on a more popular Mormon Blog site. I could contact whoever controls the Mormon Archipelago site and ask that my blog be included in the archipelago.  I could also contact reporters and see if they'd be interested in doing a story about my blog.

And, of course, I could definitely make a Facebook page for my blog. Twitter is also a useful option. In order for these two to be useful though, I'd need to do some advertising with the above outlets.

Curation

Samuel Adams in his movie Returning with Honor

My primary sources have largely been my own experiences. However, I have also read several blog posts  and articles online about coming home earlt and stored them in my wiki. I have a DVD that I borrowed from Dr. Burton called Returning with Honor that I plan to watch tomorrow, and probably write a blog post about (then put on my blog once the blog is set up). I watched a four minute clip of the movie here. I encourage anyone else interested in my project to watch the clip too. He does a good job of capturing what early-returned missionaries feel when they come home (at least, what I felt, and what others who I have met have felt). 

For secondary sources, I have looked at the Church's website and read more about missionary work to find out what are cultural expectations and what are the Lord's expectations. I wrote about what I found throughout my website and stored the articles in my wiki. 

For community, I went to a presentation from Dr. Kris Doty and her team of students that for two years studied the effects of coming home early from an LDS mission. At this presentation Dr. Doty and her students reported their findings. I emailed Dr. Doty and her lead assistant after the presentation to see if I could publish her findings on my website after she and her students had written them up, but I haven't heard back from either yet. Perhaps once my blog is more established, I'll email her again.

Social Proof
I've used Facebook to gather initial social proof regarding my subject as evidenced in my blog here. I have also left comments on blogs and reached out through Twitter to gain social proof for my subject. So far, I have received enthusiastic replies about my project from both early-returned missionaries and others who wish to help early-returned missionaries. I have also received enthusiastic replies from those I have told about expanding my project to encompass more than just early-returned missionaries, although the number of people I have told about that so far has been significantly smaller.

I made a good connection too with someone who is excellent at blogging and using Twitter. She is in one of my editing classes and initially I hired her to be an editor for my website until deciding to turn it into a blog. When I told her about my decision to turn it into a blog, she supported my decision and told me that if I would like to do a blog consultation with her, she'd be happy to meet with me. She thinks we make a great team and would love to continue working with me. That made me very happy (and relieved to have an expert at blogging and Twitter want to work with me!). I made an appointment to meet with her on Monday for an hour and a half. To prepare for the appointment, I have been looking at LDS blogs, self-help blogs, and personal blogs to gauge what I like and don't like about blogs and to get a better idea of what I want my blog to look like and sound like.

Next Steps
My next steps are to meet with my blogging consultant, get the blog set up, and then write like crazy. I'll probably get 3-4 blog posts ready to go to post as soon as the blog is up. I won't wait until the blog looks perfect before I get it going, but I will want to wait until I think it looks at least professional and presentable before I start advertising it through different outlets. 

I'm also debating about the name of my blog. Should I should still use my domain earlyhomecoming.com for the blog's url and name the blog "Early Homecoming," or should I change it to something else to better encompass other issues within missionary work? Any thoughts? 

Curation via Pintrest

So, this week I've been doing some curation on Pinterest. It's been really fun for me, since I enjoy pinterest anyway, but the topic is something that I'm realizing is way more interesting and displays a remarkable difference in the way young people like to think of themselves online, particularly in the realm of fandoms.

As a general rule, young people are known to want to fit in. To be popular, to feel a part of the community. The opinion of other people is extremely important at that young age. But people in fandoms seem to be taking a different spin on this idea.

Image provided through pinterest. CURATION!

 

People in fandoms enjoy calling themselves various names and distinguishing themselves from other groups of people. The entire culture seems determined not just to be obsessive over different forms of entertainment but also to make sure that other people know that they are different from the general population. They're smarter, better even. Even if that feeling of being better is just feeling like you're different from everyone else.

 

According to what I've been able to curate, the general feeling of fandoms is of superiority and excitement. They're having so much fun that they can't help but step back and laugh at everyone else who isn't having as much fun as they are. They're crying, because they're attached to the characters of shows and books and terrible things happen to them, but they're enjoying it.

 

That's not to say that they complete disregard the feelings of other people. They are not so self centered, at least as far as I can tell. They are just a culture of people that is constantly being mocked and criticized. People think that what they're doing has no value, and so as a defense they both accept the criticism (we're crazy) and shove it back in their faces (We're better than you). For young people, this isn't too surprising. But I still find it extremely interesting that young people (up into young adult hood, and probably beyond that as well) are so willing to "throw themselves under the bus" so to speak and accept their roles as social outcasts. Even scream the praises of it.

 

I think this is a fascinating culture. Whereas before the internet, nerds and geeks were made fun of and belittled, stuck in a place where they couldn't find anyone that was like themselves. Now the belittling is just as strong, but the nerds (or the fandoms) can come together to find support and turn on the bullies, turn on the rest of the world and say, "No. You're in the wrong." Because they don't know what they're missing. This is so fascinating. So far I've been focused on what the fandom has to say about itself, but now I'm going to turn my attention to what other people have to say. I'm interested to see if there are any "generation Y is so lazy and horrible they have fandoms" articles out there. I would love to have the chance to dissect those and hopefully rip them apart.

 

 

 





The Joys of Wikispaces

All right, so my last blog post about Wikispaces was more along the lines of how I've been using it to curate for my early returned missionary project. So, this post will be more about what Wikispaces can be used for in general.

First off, what is a wiki? I'm going to steal Wikispaces's definition because it's a good one. A wiki is a space on the Web where you can share work and ideas, pictures and links, videos and media--and anything else you can think of. You can create folders to organize your information, making it so that all of your research material can be organized and stored in one place.You don't have to share it though. It can be private too, like mine.

Wikispaces is very user-friendly. You don't have to be too tech-saavy to understand it at all.  They give you a visual editor and a bunch of other tools to make sharing and editing content very easy. Everything is very straightforward, and if you get confused their "Help" page seems very thorough. I haven't had to use it yet, but maybe my wiki just doesn't need to be very complicated, so I don't need to worry about any of the extra technical stuff (like commenting or collaborating).

Anyways, with Wikispaces you can create a wiki for yourself or for a group. It can be for any industry, and you don't even need to name your industry if you just want one for personal use. Right now, they are advertising more the use of wikis as a classroom tool. They promise that their wikis will help educators "teach easier," "improve outcomes," and "engage students."


I'm excited that I found Wikispaces to help me create an easy-to-use wiki. It seems like it'll be a great tool.

Springpad as a Curation Tool

I get really inspired and curious whenever we talk in class of different findings from my peers and things our professors find in what the internet offers. I was absent both classes last week, so I have yet to completely understand what our curation project is about, but I started to research different curation tools in the mean time. I really do love Pinterest, but I wanted to find another tool that I'm not as familiar with. I came across Springpad.

To be perfectly honest, I wanted to abandon it after spending 20 minutes on it. I've never heard of it before and I missed familiarity!! Because it offers so much more than I was expecting, I wanted to grab my blanket and crawl back to the comfort and simplicity of Pinterest. Alas.... I refrained. Good thing, too!

Here is the Springpad's video introduction for its website:

Springpad is a giant personal organizer in curating content that extends beyond only being able to pin/post a picture. You can create a "notebook" on a subject that can consist of "springs." These springs could be photos, videos, notes, voice memos, etc. You can upload or link. I think that is the part that I especially loved. I loved looking into people's notebooks and seeing their own notes and thoughts in addition to what they have curated from other users and sites on the web. It was like a historical journey they were taking me on in their findings from the past up to the present, so you can see the relevance and clarity of info evolving. I started a notebook about learning how to cook, (because as my grandma keeps reminding me, it's time I start learning, now that I'm married.) It's really fun to post a note with my thoughts and then a recipe I think is possible, then my post-recipe notes, and other thoughts or videos that I've found online that were useful to me in learning. It's like a blog in a format similar to Pinterest.

People who are experts on a subject, such as digital culture, create notebooks on their expertise and gather relevant posts from around the web. I'm already following one who claims to be a digital culture expert. I can see all of the info they have gathered and find important and worth reading.

It's also neat, because it serves as a personal assistant for you. When you go to the search bar on the site, it asks you what you want to do (cook, watch a show, listen to music, etc) and it will filter for you based on your answer and given history in the site.

I'm still exploring and learning about the site, but so far I really see its potential in becoming something really big and effective. I do struggle a tad with how much it covers in its features (again, I'm used to the simple Pinterest format), but I think I really enjoy Springpad's form of curation more than Pinterest's. Sometimes I feel like Pinterest feeds me a lot of repeated pins or pins that are not relevant to what I'm searching for. So far in my personal experience with it, Springpad seems to have a great filtering system and compartmentalizes well.

I encourage you all to check it out and share your thoughts on it!

Curating with WikiSpaces

In order to organize all of my research for my project of my website and book, I've decided to use a wiki. I like that wikis allow you to create folders to organize your information in, and I like that the folders are all in one place. I think I'll use wikis on future projects as well. One wiki per project is probably what I'll do.

Anyways, at first I used Google Sites to create a wiki, but I found that to be extremely frustrating because I could not change the names of folders on the Google Sites templates. The templates were WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). I was sure that there was a way to customize the folders, so I kept trying to find the button that would allow me to change the folder names, but eventually just gave up. I googled "Create Your Own Wiki" and found Wikispaces.

Wikispaces is much easier to use than Google Sites. It allowed me to custom-make my own wiki right from the get-go, although it did have templates available if desired (particularly for classroom wikis). I went for a basic wiki knowing that I can add on later if I'd like.

 

Screen shot of my wiki.

The first thing I did was create my custom folders :). I made five today, mostly just preparing to be able to add stuff to them as I find them.

I did add a few things to the articles though. Right now I'm most interested in getting the website set up since that's pretty much the first thing on my list. I looked up tutorials that would walk me through building a website. I found two that I liked and put them in the "Setting up a Website" folder.

I emailed my cousin, a web developer, to ask him his opinion on the step-by-step guide since that was the most straightforward out of the two. I haven't heard back from him yet, but hopefully I will soon.

Anyways, I'm loving wikispaces so far. I recommend them for anyone looking for a user-friendly wiki for personal use, and possibly professional use too!