The past weeks have been transformational in Ireland: Phase 3 is now active and we had the longest weeks of sunlight since last year. For me, the period leading up to the Summer Solstice is one that I spend reflecting on the previous six months. It also then makes me think ahead, and wonder what the following six months might have in store for me.

This week, I've decided to share with you some of the things I've learned over the first half of the year and what I hope to learn going forward.

I learned that I love teaching and learning

Despite not enjoying public speaking, I actually love teaching and running workshops. I share my knowledge with clients when I create websites or tone of voice guidelines for them. I share my knowledge with the people who read this blog (thank you for reading these). Ultimately, I love anything that allows me to share knowledge and help people communicate.

Running workshops is the pinnacle of this type of knowledge-sharing. Most of my projects involve running workshops with clients. Workshops an integral part of creating a tone of voice guideline and they teach everyone something. This year, I ran an in-person workshop in Dublin through Krayon. Then, I moved (like everyone else) online and ran a number of workshops over video call.

These workshops serve as introductions to brand voice and blog strategy etc. The great thing about them, in my totally unbiased opinion, is that they give attendees food for thought. Everyone leaves having learned a little bit more about something that will help them communicate better, so I'm definitely going to keep running them. You can book one now if you wanted.

I want to learn more about accessibility and readability

As a copywriter and communicator, it's my responsibility to make content accessible to as many people as possible. For me, this means breaking complex ideas down to their core and explaining in the most simple of terms what these ideas are. This can be done for website copy, marketing materials, video scripts. It's what I really try to implement in work I write for clients.

However, there is also a huge amount of copy-related things that need to be done before websites and blogs are fully accessible. This is what I'm trying to learn more about. I know that to provide image descriptions helps with screen-reading software. I know that font should ideally be a certain size. However, there are also certain formatting and content creation practices that don't lend themselves easily to readability or accessibility.

This is why I've ordered Readability Guidelines from Content Design London. I read their Content Design book earlier this year and it made me realise that there are old habits in place that make user experience difficult. I'm not a content designer but I work with designers while writing content and I want to help make websites accessible and readable for as many people as possible.

I want to learn more about unconscious bias

Spurred on by the Black Lives Matter movement, Pride Month and the gender disparity in the Irish music industry, I want to learn more about our unconscious bias. Of course, I'm personally interested in the unconscious language we use to define ourselves and others. For example, women in leadership positions are sometimes thought to be 'unfairly harsh' if they make a strong business decision, while men in the same position can be seen as making a 'tough choice'.

This type of unconscious bias is everywhere, from how we are perceived in a professional setting to how we conduct ourselves. From my perspective, I've sometimes deemed it necessary to do my hair a certain way, dress a certain way, etc just because I think a client might not take me seriously if I don't. This is a double-edged unconscious bias and it's something that I want to learn more about.

From a language usage perspective, the terms we use to define the things around us are also subject to unconscious bias. Search engine results are also a part of this problem: they use one word and try to guess what the phrase we are searching for is. That's why I'm going to learn more about this in the context of language usage by reading Algorithms of Oppression, Biased and Technically Wrong.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I learned that there is so much more left for me to learn. I knew that anyway, but over the past two weeks I've really thought about it and ultimately my goal before the year is out is to learn about accessibility, readability and unconscious bias. Then, I want to take those learnings and apply them to the work I create for myself and for clients.