Prompted by my last journal entry, I have thought about my AE proposal and I am considering changing focus for my AE. Where I am doing AE in creating my post, it seems more sensible and worthwhile for me to use that as my UV focus, with the loose working title of "How can I develop the post of Community Liaison Manager from paper concept to effective reality?".

It is central to my job so will be of real use to me and will be truer to the ethos of AE; starting with a "wooly question", acting +reflecting resulting in a less "wooly" question (there is an exact quote by Bob Dick to this effect somewhere) seeing where it leads me, rather than having a very definate question and setting out to achieve it. It will be more tightly within my power to control (the original idea being somewhat reliant on corporately provided and supported IT), it addresses a key personal need, it is a "real" problem, things that Colin and Jane produced guidance about the importance of.

I have shared my ideas about this change with some co-researchers and the general concensus so far is that it is valid and worthwhile and that my enthusiasm for the idea (shown through various online discussions debating the idea) is obvious and would be key in achieving my goals.

The pitfall that everyone has picked up on is the possible scale of the work, I must be sure to keep it small and manageable for UV purposes. I'm sure that I will be able to do this, as as I go through the process I will be able to identify which of the various cycles that I will be going through I want to focus on for UV purposes. As I am doing this anyway in the process of my job role, I won't be biting off more than I can chew, it will be my whole job role, I will just be choosing which parts of it I want to really put under the microscope for UV assessment purposes.

I have discussed my ideas with Rob Walker in the current hotseat, and he seems to be supportive of my idea, and gave me more valuable feedback to consider.

I am really keen on this idea, as soon as Colin gets back to me (in Jane's absence) I will get my detailed proposal done so that I can get more of the valuable feedback from my peers.

I'm also finding that sharing work, ideas etc with others is becoming second nature to me now. The support and critical feedback of my peers is important in my decision making processes, not something I ever thought would have been the case less than a year ago!