Everything was moving along just fine yesterday until I opened up my online course and saw that my feedback rating went down from 4.5 stars to 4.0. Weird. What could have triggered this in my account?
I opened it up to see some freshly added feedback from one of the newer students in my online course.
She shared publicly and ….so will I.
It’s hard to read people like this, especially after I’ve had a few good reviews AND because I’m not sure that the person got the spirit of the course. I say this because I see people NOT understanding how to use Twitter all over the place – not engaging in online conversations, not promoting others, and not leveraging it in the way actual business people build partnerships.
But, these pieces of feedback do cause me to sit back and ask myself questions – is my course labeled incorrectly, did I share enough stories, what more needs to be added for different learning styles? Maybe I need to add a few more technical components that I figured were taught elsewhere?
On the flip side of the cognitive dilemma is the fact that I really want to create things for the right people to enjoy. Part of me wants to disregard this person. Part of me wants to use it as a chance to improve my course.
We all hear talk about the importance of continuing to move forward on our big ideas despite the naysayers, but it does make me blush whenever I come across a piece of feedback about me that is less than satisfactory.
So, what action will I take as a result of this virtual jab at my course?
Well, I plan on:
- Adding a few more details (that I had intended to add anyway) to make it more robust.
- Give a few technical tips on how to use it on a daily basis.
- Share a few more examples of success in the course.
- Tweet out a few more tweets for those that provided positive feedback.
Now, for another lesson learned from this experience – are we watching what type of feedback we put out there on the web? Do we think of how it will reflect on us? I obviously don’t have a high opinion of the commenter that I’ve highlighted here. Her form of communicating doesn’t invite any discussion or constructive input.
Sad, isn’t it?
There are others that offered really helpful feedback on how to improve the course and I respect them for their input and openness. I actually tweet about many of their products now.
When we give feedback (on or off the web), we may do well to remember that our reputation is at stake as well. How we respond often says more about us than the other person.
Our online reputations must be guarded daily nowadays. We never know what future opportunity that could be stifled by trivial or rude remarks made online. It is what it is.
I’ll move on and keep improving and will still keep blushing when I get less than great scores on online courses. I hope that those that write reviews like this one do too. Unfortunately, I cannot support them or give them any online promotion. It is too bad, because they probably desperately need it.
One last note – kind of a funny thing – I talked about building your online reputation in the course. Guess that was hidden in all of the blah-blah-blah somewhere. (-:
