Strategically Communicating

I just finished an interview with a SOJC student who is doing a final project about sexual assault awareness. She found me through an Ethos feature about my project365 blog and sexual assault awareness theme. There are so many things about this experience that relate to class, it’s hard to put it into words.

Basically, this interview made me feel like an authority maven on the topic of sexual assault awareness on the University of Oregon campus. She only found me because of a personal photography blog where I write about my life and the things I care about.

Through the month of April (the month I did the Sexual Assault Awareness theme), I got really discouraged about the difference I was making. I knew that I wasn’t changing the hearts and minds of everyone who read my blog, but looking back, I think that I really did make a difference. My month of photos, words, and links are published for anyone to see, and just because the month is over doesn’t mean that my work stopped making a difference. It’s still searchable, readable, and accessible to anyone.

When she asked for extra resources at the end of the interview, I gave her the Twitter handles of a bunch of people who do work on sexual violence on college campuses and in local communities across the country. I even said that if she mentioned my name, they would definitely get back to her. As I’m thinking about that now, I can’t believe that’s true. I also mentioned a few hashtags she could search on Twitter.

Since I want to work for a nonprofit that deals with ending sexual violence in the future, this interview really does make a huge difference in my confidence and aspirations. Anytime anything like this happens, I am blown away by the power of social networking. It’s not just beneficial for connecting across the country and world; blogging can actually make a difference locally! That is truly amazing.

This whole thing just happened so quickly! My sexual assault awareness theme started in April. That was this term!! I feel like this is great experience for me, and the only thing I can say is to blog and tweet about something you are passionate about because you never know who is looking for exactly that as well!