Providing Comments

Please note: The instructions for all commenting exercises are the same, though abbreviated, versions of this post. 

Welcome to your First "Comments" Declaration!

During Week 2, each of you were asked to "Share" your posts for two exercises: "Your Entrepreneurship Story" and the "Bug List." These posts were then randomly assigned to two of your fellow classmates -- you were also assigned two "Your Entrepreneurship Story" and "Bug List" posts to read of your fellow students. Posting and sharing our work -- and reading, critically thinking about, and offering feedback on others' work -- is an essential element of developing an entrepreneurial mindset. There are a number of other reasons commenting exercises are built into this class:

• Get feedback. Students give each other feedback, and the feedback they give each other is often different than the feedback you get from me or from your mentor. 
• Learn to give feedback. In the process of getting feedback, students also learn about giving feedback and can hone their feedback skills. 
• Discover ideas and inspiration. By reading other students' writing, you can discover ideas and inspiration that you can use to improve your own posts, your business concepts, and your own development as an entrepreneur.
• Building community. This weekly exercise helps build a sense of community in class. Fostering connections is important. Whether those connections are between each other, between you and me, between you and your mentors, between your new experiences an your past experiences, and so on! These connections are the very substance of learning, and the more chances we have to build connections, the better!

Each week, I have selected at least two exercises, which will require you to read and reflect on your fellow students posts.

Where to find the other blog posts assigned to you for commenting. For all of the exercises that ask you to comment on your fellow students' blog posts, the best place to find the posts that have been assigned to you is by clicking on the individual "Share" assignment. In this instance, that would mean clicking on the "Share: Your Entrepreneurship Story." On the right side of the screen, below the box that confirms that you submitted your own blog post, you will see the other posts that have been assigned to you. Click each post to access the link to the other students' blogs.

For all subsequent "Comments" assignments, you should follow this procedure to find the posts that have been assigned to you for your feedback.  

Here's just a few things that you should do to get the most out of this exercise:

• Go long(ish)! Comments are supposed to be short. And like we're always told, keep it short, sweet, and simple. For this assignment, though, I'd like you to try to make your comments at least 60-words long. That's not too much, while at the same time allowing you to provide more thoughtful and relevant comments to your fellow student.
• Reflect. For this particular assignment, you've been asked to read two of your fellow students' posts about their entrepreneurial experiences. Before you can provide comments, you need to read the posts (no surprise!) but it also helps to think about what they said. How is the experience similar to yours or different than yours? What was surprising about your experience? And so on. 
• Share. Later on, we'll be working on making your blog appear highly in the results of search engines. One of the keys of SEO (search engine optimization) is making sure there are lots of links to your own blog. So in your comment, it's a good idea to post a link to your own "Entrepreneurial Story," and describe how your story connects with the story you just read.

Once you have done these three things, please make the Declaration below.

Text for declaration:

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY: 

I have posted two comments, one for each of the "Your Entrepreneurship Story" posts I was assigned. 

Each comment was at least 60 words long.

I took the time to read, reflect, and connect the post I was assigned to my own post and my own experience. 

I shared the link to my own "Entrepreneurship Story" in my comment, and described a few ways in which my story connected with the story I read in the post.