Before I began this class when I thought of blogs I thought of an online diary. The biggest thing I learned from my experience is just that blogs are resourceful and informational and there’s a lot more behind them than just personal opinions. I think using blogging has overall been a very beneficial experience for me. I was new to blogging, having never done something like this before in my personal life. But I think that blogging really helped my group to connect better and bring good ideas and information together to produce a good presentation.
From blogging I learned how connected it allowed me to be with online resources and group members. I learned that it’s a very simple concept and well received by most. I’ve found that I haven’t officially been “following” any blogs in the past but I have referred to them before and they have been very helpful to me. I think getting experience blogging and seeing how it can help me, has influenced how I will utilize it in the future.
I liked the blog for many reasons. It was expressive and versatile. I was put in a group where I didn’t know half of my group mates and barely knew anything about our topic. This blog intrigued me to learn more, to keep reading articles until I found the one I liked the most to post. It was also so easy; I could look up articles pretty much anywhere and what whatever I felt about them and post it for my group. It was an easy concept, even for a first time blogger and easily updateable. I liked the feedback we could give and receive and throw around ideas to each other.
Overall I liked the blog but it did have some qualities I didn’t like. My biggest problem was remembering to do the blog weekly, since I had to create another email account that wasn’t my primary account, so I didn’t get emails notifying me if other group mates put up new posts. It would often slip my mind or I wouldn’t remember to do it until the last minute. I also found many of my groups post topics were similar and repetitive. It didn’t seem to cause any problems for our project, I personally just got tired of reading the same things, and I ran out of feedback for the same issues. I also didn’t like the informality of the whole thing. I felt like I should have been more grammatically correct and concerned about format but my responses looked the same as everyone else’s. If I could have improved anything I would have preferred more structure with the blog.
I think blogging will be apart my future, I think that blogs will help me stay informed with current issues. I think blogs are also a very good way to network, I learned more names and concepts through reading other peoples blogs. I only really explored food industry blogs but I know there are blogs for all topics and I know that they will benefit my future in many ways.
The blog I found that I might want to follow is called Going Green DC. It is a blog that highlights some different ways Washington DC is going green. I found this really interesting because I’m from an area of Maryland that is only about 30 minutes outside of DC and I think this could help keep me aware of what’s going on around me, especially in a more advanced city such as DC. The blog covers issues from farmers markets, organic beer and cocktails, to local restaurants, and green weddings.
http://goinggreendc.net/
Monday, February 22, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Closing Blog
This trimester was the first time I ever blogged in my life. The experience I took from it was it is a great way to get a lot of information about a topic all in one place. Our topic being Going Green, I learned a lot on how to start up restaurants the green way, turning existing ones green and even how to start a rooftop garden. But I can’t say I really liked this project, it could be fun and yea it was easy but I think writing a page paper on different topics would have been better. That way I would have learned may different issues, instead of just one. I’m not saying I hated it, it was just inconvenient. In my future career I’m not sure if I would use blogging for anything, but its always an idea to get information out there if you have readers. While doing this project I did come across one blog that was interesting. It’s not just about restaurants either, it helps people reach out and get ideas on anything green.
http://www.gbb.org/blog
http://www.gbb.org/blog
The Green Collaborative
This is the message I received from the Green Collaborative:
"Our last meeting for this trimester will be on Monday Feb. 22, HAC 14 @ 7:45. We will talk about the upcoming Relay for Life event and Earth Week. Good luck on finals & practicals, Everyone! "
You can join the facebook group and receive the messages then too.
Alon's Conclusion
I have never really been into the blogging side of social media, so this trimester was new for me to have to journal and connect online in that way. I found it really interesting to think about blogs in a non-personal way. Most of the people I know who follow blogs do it as a way to keep people posted on their life, not for business or company reasons. Once I started blogging about a specific topic all the time, I found it really interesting to read what kind of information my group members found and I got to tell them my imput immediately!! I definitely learned that blogging can be a way to increase business, spread information, and connect with people with the same passions (or assigned topics) as you.
The thing that I liked about blogging was how easy it was! As a group, we only needed to meet up once or twice to exchange facts and information because most of our info was on the blog. We were able to share ideas and bounce off sources to one another. It made it alot easier than having to meet up four or five times. I also liked that we could give feedback on each other's posts and how immediate it was. I think I liked it and it was easy for me because social media and technology are such stables in our daily lives that it made homework and assignments convenient and easy.
One thing I didn't like about blogging was how informal it felt. When I do school work I try and make it very professional and formal. When I was blogging, I just felt like I was sending an email to my friend, or commenting on facebook. For school assignments I feel like I need a word document in front of me to have the professionalism and formality of a paper.
I definitely learned how to use blogging in a future career. Even during my research I found that The New York Times has blogs for businesses. It was just different followers giving or asking for advice on their business. I found it really interesting because different business owners and managers were just bouncing off ideas to each other about how to better conduct their business. I feel like that's something that business people wouldn't naturally do face to face, so blogging is a great way to approach that. I think blogging is something I could get into to see what kind of trends are out there in the baking field, see what others are doing, and learn from different sources!
A blog that I want to start following is by a cake bakery call the Pink Cake Box. http://blog.pinkcakebox.com/ I think it would really be inspiring for what I want to do, give me great ideas, and spread my horizons.
The thing that I liked about blogging was how easy it was! As a group, we only needed to meet up once or twice to exchange facts and information because most of our info was on the blog. We were able to share ideas and bounce off sources to one another. It made it alot easier than having to meet up four or five times. I also liked that we could give feedback on each other's posts and how immediate it was. I think I liked it and it was easy for me because social media and technology are such stables in our daily lives that it made homework and assignments convenient and easy.
One thing I didn't like about blogging was how informal it felt. When I do school work I try and make it very professional and formal. When I was blogging, I just felt like I was sending an email to my friend, or commenting on facebook. For school assignments I feel like I need a word document in front of me to have the professionalism and formality of a paper.
I definitely learned how to use blogging in a future career. Even during my research I found that The New York Times has blogs for businesses. It was just different followers giving or asking for advice on their business. I found it really interesting because different business owners and managers were just bouncing off ideas to each other about how to better conduct their business. I feel like that's something that business people wouldn't naturally do face to face, so blogging is a great way to approach that. I think blogging is something I could get into to see what kind of trends are out there in the baking field, see what others are doing, and learn from different sources!
A blog that I want to start following is by a cake bakery call the Pink Cake Box. http://blog.pinkcakebox.com/ I think it would really be inspiring for what I want to do, give me great ideas, and spread my horizons.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Starting As A Fad
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_8996138
This is an article from about 2 years ago that talks about going green as a fad. I think that we pretty much covered in our project that going green is NOT a fad...even if it might have started out as one. It basically talks about what actions people were taking for Earth Day in 2008. A phrase used was "Get Hip, Get Green". The article talked about technology a little bit, but more social media and how myspace was making efforts towards Earth Day. The article was just okay.
On a side note, I dont know if any of you actually are into the "green" movement but there's a green collaborative on campus, its a club on campus. They make efforts towards, well obviously, going green at school and in the community. There is a meeting this coming Monday if anyone's interested i could get more info. I know they're begining to make plans for "earth week" on campus.
This is an article from about 2 years ago that talks about going green as a fad. I think that we pretty much covered in our project that going green is NOT a fad...even if it might have started out as one. It basically talks about what actions people were taking for Earth Day in 2008. A phrase used was "Get Hip, Get Green". The article talked about technology a little bit, but more social media and how myspace was making efforts towards Earth Day. The article was just okay.
On a side note, I dont know if any of you actually are into the "green" movement but there's a green collaborative on campus, its a club on campus. They make efforts towards, well obviously, going green at school and in the community. There is a meeting this coming Monday if anyone's interested i could get more info. I know they're begining to make plans for "earth week" on campus.
local indgreedients
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR-XuVqB0sI
OK i know its not an article but it takes a look into a very nice restaurant and shows us that you can do a lot while still supporting your local farmers, fishermen, etc. he says its a casual elegant restaurant where he serves upscale local foods and looks to be very good. it goes to show that with a passionate chef you do not need the mass producers for consistency but can localize your product. this effort to be more sustainable and enrich your environment whether or not its going all out and using paper straws or just supporting your local farms and fishermen to put back into your surrounding environment helps. it also shows the limitless possibilities and challenges for the chef to play with and make unique and their own. which in turn will create great food from local areas and a more sustainable food supply.
OK i know its not an article but it takes a look into a very nice restaurant and shows us that you can do a lot while still supporting your local farmers, fishermen, etc. he says its a casual elegant restaurant where he serves upscale local foods and looks to be very good. it goes to show that with a passionate chef you do not need the mass producers for consistency but can localize your product. this effort to be more sustainable and enrich your environment whether or not its going all out and using paper straws or just supporting your local farms and fishermen to put back into your surrounding environment helps. it also shows the limitless possibilities and challenges for the chef to play with and make unique and their own. which in turn will create great food from local areas and a more sustainable food supply.
Environmental Issues in Restaurants
http://www.squaremeal.co.uk/feature/restaurants-environmental
Hey guys, I thought this article was really interesting, it has a lot of the same elements we emphasized on in our project but it focuses on an English restaurant Acorn House. The provided statistics at the beginning of the article are all really influential to people in the restaurant industry that are conscience of going green. They said that 18,000 tons of carbon mission come from the food industry every year as well as 450,000 tons of glass bottles and at least 1/3 of all ordered food is thrown into the trash, I think these statistics are really disappointing to restaurants that are conscience of going green. There are restaurants and associations that are trying to implement easy procedures like recycling and composting. That's exactly what Acorn House is doing; they are an eco friendly restaurant on a 5 acre biodynamically farmed piece of land including an herb garden and roof top vegetable garden. Acorn House is recycling, composting, using hybrid delivery methods, and has an in house purified water system. They're setting an example of a good sustainable and green restaurant that didn’t say they had to pour tons of money into they're procedures. People are noticing this effort too, a Times critic called it ‘the most important restaurant to open in London in the past 200 years’. The effort isn’t going unnoticed and the 10 students that they are training there I think are really lucky to get an opportunity to work at a really diverse modern restaurant such as Acorn House. The article goes on to different sections explain other procedures and restaurants going green in London, but overall I thought the information was really helpful and inspiring for green restaurants.
Hey guys, I thought this article was really interesting, it has a lot of the same elements we emphasized on in our project but it focuses on an English restaurant Acorn House. The provided statistics at the beginning of the article are all really influential to people in the restaurant industry that are conscience of going green. They said that 18,000 tons of carbon mission come from the food industry every year as well as 450,000 tons of glass bottles and at least 1/3 of all ordered food is thrown into the trash, I think these statistics are really disappointing to restaurants that are conscience of going green. There are restaurants and associations that are trying to implement easy procedures like recycling and composting. That's exactly what Acorn House is doing; they are an eco friendly restaurant on a 5 acre biodynamically farmed piece of land including an herb garden and roof top vegetable garden. Acorn House is recycling, composting, using hybrid delivery methods, and has an in house purified water system. They're setting an example of a good sustainable and green restaurant that didn’t say they had to pour tons of money into they're procedures. People are noticing this effort too, a Times critic called it ‘the most important restaurant to open in London in the past 200 years’. The effort isn’t going unnoticed and the 10 students that they are training there I think are really lucky to get an opportunity to work at a really diverse modern restaurant such as Acorn House. The article goes on to different sections explain other procedures and restaurants going green in London, but overall I thought the information was really helpful and inspiring for green restaurants.
Restaurants Going Green
http://www.gbb.org/news/green-restaurants
So I know I used this article as examples for our project, but I really think they are great ones and should be posted on our blog. This article showcases three establishments and what they are doing to go green.
In Nappa Valley, California a business called Ubuntu Restaurant and Yoga Studio uses recycled furniture from salvaged woods and harvests food from a local bio-dynamic garden. They also serve wine from a sustainable vineyard.
Next is Chez Panisse, Alice Waters business. Chez Panisse is located in Berkley, California and aims to serve the best organically grown food. they have started a foundation to educate a new generation of students to learn to be sustainable.
Last is Acorn House in London, England. They claim to be the first truly Eco-friendly training restaurant in London. They commit themselves to monitor water usage, utilize green energy and use bio diesel transport.
So I know I used this article as examples for our project, but I really think they are great ones and should be posted on our blog. This article showcases three establishments and what they are doing to go green.
In Nappa Valley, California a business called Ubuntu Restaurant and Yoga Studio uses recycled furniture from salvaged woods and harvests food from a local bio-dynamic garden. They also serve wine from a sustainable vineyard.
Next is Chez Panisse, Alice Waters business. Chez Panisse is located in Berkley, California and aims to serve the best organically grown food. they have started a foundation to educate a new generation of students to learn to be sustainable.
Last is Acorn House in London, England. They claim to be the first truly Eco-friendly training restaurant in London. They commit themselves to monitor water usage, utilize green energy and use bio diesel transport.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Contactless Payment at restaurants
http://www.htmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=3E19674330734FF1BBDA3D67B50C82F1&tier=4&id=DA7A37ED5CFD44F8A4E543C0BEBF8BC0
This article talks about the future for credit cards in restaurants. It's called contactless payment and it seems like it comes in the form of a key fob, which is kind of like our JWU scan cards but without the ID, more like a keychain. Alot of fast food chains have started having these contactless payment methods, including McDonald's, Dairy Queen, and gas station chains like Sheetz (love them!!).
I think it's something that definitely could work for the fast food industry. If you think about the fob (i've seen them at other colleges as building accessers) it holds all of the student's information to let them into some dorms and not others on campus. Also, this concept has already hit the travel world with EZPass, very contactless payment for toll highway travelers. I think it would be a great thing for fast food or gas stations and if they can already hold student information and travel fees, why couldn't a fob hold credit card info? Another thing that may be a benefit would be that there wouldn't be numbers or anything on it, it would all be magnetized so stealing identiy or numbers wouldn't be an issue.
So far, the only challenges that have arrisen have been from unfamiliarity. Emlpoyees need to be trained and customers need to get accustomed to the new payment methods. There are some other challenges that i could see potentially happening, but overall I think it's a good idea and would make quick service even quicker and easier!
This article talks about the future for credit cards in restaurants. It's called contactless payment and it seems like it comes in the form of a key fob, which is kind of like our JWU scan cards but without the ID, more like a keychain. Alot of fast food chains have started having these contactless payment methods, including McDonald's, Dairy Queen, and gas station chains like Sheetz (love them!!).
I think it's something that definitely could work for the fast food industry. If you think about the fob (i've seen them at other colleges as building accessers) it holds all of the student's information to let them into some dorms and not others on campus. Also, this concept has already hit the travel world with EZPass, very contactless payment for toll highway travelers. I think it would be a great thing for fast food or gas stations and if they can already hold student information and travel fees, why couldn't a fob hold credit card info? Another thing that may be a benefit would be that there wouldn't be numbers or anything on it, it would all be magnetized so stealing identiy or numbers wouldn't be an issue.
So far, the only challenges that have arrisen have been from unfamiliarity. Emlpoyees need to be trained and customers need to get accustomed to the new payment methods. There are some other challenges that i could see potentially happening, but overall I think it's a good idea and would make quick service even quicker and easier!
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