Processing our first week and AKT II Site Visit

LONDON: ENG 331 meets from 10-12 on Tuesdays, Wednesday, and Thursdays. We spent this week establishing the foundation for the course--working on theories and guidelines for audience, purpose, and document design. We have just started working on proposals. The rest of the summer session will deal with typical workplace documents.

On Thursday of each week, I encourage students to process their experiences for the week. It has been quite an eventful week for everyone and all have dealt with a number of challenges and adjustments.  We are able to talk about the differences we are all experiencing in a safe and supportive environment.

This afternoon, we went on the first of our site visits. We went to AKT II (consulting and structural engineers) http://www.akt-uk.com

We went on a tour of the facilities and got to see their open workspaces.  AKT II is a very informal work environment--no separate offices, casual dress.
After the tour, two employees, Alex Widdison and Valentina Galmozzi, talked us through their major projects.  We were also lucky enough to have Director Steve Toon join our conversation.

We asked a series of questions that the students will use to write their final report for the summer.

• Are oral and written communication a part of your performance appraisal?
• What percentage of your work week do you spend writing (planning, drafting, revising)?
• What percentage of your time is spent working with others to plan and write documents?
• What percentage of your writing time is spent composing the following: Email, Chat, IM, Text, blogs, wikis, short internal documents, short external document, long/formal documents? Other?
• What type of documents do you write?
• What percentage of your time communicating on the job is with people from other countries?
• How did you learn to do the writing you have to do in your work?
• In what ways has technology changed the way you communicate at work, especially over the past five years?
• Please describe any examples of the consequences of effective or ineffective writing within your organization.
• What communication skills do you expect new college graduates to have as they enter the global workplace?

During the course of their presentation, they answered some of the questions. Luke, Thomas, and Leah asked the remaining questions.

The overall message from Alex, Valentina, and Steve was that communication is important and adapting messages to different audience is vital.  Steve used the phrase "horses for courses." This means that you use a different horse for different track situations. Ultimately, Steve said, "People who communicate well generally get on better--in life too."

It was a long day and it was warm in the building and hot on the tube. However, despite heat and the length of the experience, the overall message reinforced what the students are learning in class.