‘Who is your target audience?’
I have been asked this several times in reference to my reflective postings. Mostly it is related to my podcast Chasing Squirrels. And the question lands on many different spaces for me.
Admittedly, the term ‘audience’ rattles me a bit.
Contemplative, I push back with rhetoric.
I can’t help it.
What is an audience? I rather think of us as co-learners, actually.
Where is my audience? Seems more interesting and vibrant.
When the audience is engaged, what then? I like this ambiguity, change happens here.
Why is there an audience? Pokes at bigger broader themes in EDU.
How did I get an audience? May reveal a new communication fluency.
In my reflective practice, I rarely think of or for the audience.
Most times the process of working through my thoughts is singularly structured . Focus on capturing my random. Tether the ideas to a form. Acknowledge it outside my brain. And then I move on.
This happens semi-automatically.
There is a fraction of this process that makes it to a public post. In much the same way, a fraction of my thoughts make it out of my mouth into conversation.
This happens intentionally.
I choose to engage in these conversation spaces, so my OS is constantly updating itself.
Why?
Because it is good digi-cit practice to post-positive.
Also because it is impossible to ignore the waves of challenges for professional existence in social media learning spaces. Ignorance, of the fine print that is buried surreptitiously in both digital social spaces or actual governing bodies is an error that can be devastating.
This has not happened yet.
The cathartic release of cognitive pressure sometimes results in pieces I like, other times not so much. But what I dislike, usually falls by my own sword of distraction. I didn’t focus, or capture, or tether very well.
I have never really accounted for where my posts may land, nor set them intentionally adrift through social media currents with the absolute expectation of a reply.
That’s not how conversation works for me.
If there is a question implicit or otherwise in my pieces, I am not always aware of its clarity. Despite the fact that some of my sentences end in a question mark.
In some ways, when I do get a message back, I am shaken from my process with happy astonishment. Cool … time to explore this idea further. Surprise!
Some may say that this type of broadcasting is too singular and I would agree in part. I think that reflective practice or contemplative learning is by nature, a solo mission. I would further posit that it needs to be. In this focussed space I become aware of the grey between my thoughts and my actions.
This buffer is necessary.
This buffer is intentional.
I have been on the receiving end of reflective pieces that are targeted at me. Or someone like me. Either way, I move on quickly. The brands that formulate these pieces are legion. That drive, to distinguish a single voice from the multitude of options, is obvious and sometimes brow beating.
That’s not me.
That’s not a learning space for me.
Finally, I guess I do wonder…
‘Who is the target audience focussed on?‘
While they read my thoughts?
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I love these moments. The beginning of a story. Anything can happen. My mind begins to wander and reach for meaning. It feels … open.
When I lived in Toronto I could spend hours people watching. People wondering. And I would build massive story lines around the action I saw on the street. In the subway. And from coffee shop windows.
It’s funny how quickly I came to know the characters. Their morning patterns became my understandings of them. From my side of the window I felt I knew them.
