Its Over or is it?

This will be my final blog entry. Interestingly it has been a long few weeks and I am suffering from the burnout of the second semester. Some may look at it and say its over in terms of the course but I think there may be one or two lessons that have really resonated and stuck with me. The two that stand out most in my mind are reputation and networking. These are the two most interesting tenets of Organizational Communication. If we as students take these and use them we can become better communicators and transform the landscape of Organizational Communication in the Caribbean. I know personally I will be applying some of the skills I learnt in my internship this summer and in a few side projects that I will be doing. I hope that I can grow and perfect these skills so that in the end I can become one of the best communication specialists.
Thank you Mr. Mc Daniel for the class. Though at times I thought you rambled on, I see that the key concepts are important and their application is important. I look forward to seeing an A in this course and who knows, I may take up one of your other courses next year.
And to answer the question: Is it Over? Far from it. Learning is a life ling process and if I want to be the best, I must continue to read, study and grow!

Can you tell the truth?

I know early up in this class we learned about the Caribbean context of communication and of the mistrust. Its however quite interesting to see it play our in our audit. The office were are auditing comprises of over 80% of the staff being female and its quite interesting the different vies of management that you get. From the extremely kind to the uncaring bosses the responses are varied. It is however quite interesting to see when the response are being made the body language. Some connote fear, some just want to make a statement and some are submissive to the will of the bosses. While I don't think this will affect the audit results it makes me wonder , Can employees tell the truth? 

 Jim Carey in Liar, Liar

This audit is designed to help them but the fear of conflict and victimization may be two possible repercussions that may occur so some employees do not tell the truth. In the long run it hurts and does not help the company as issues that could be identified as hindering the communication process. It however reminds us that we still have the mass/slave mentality and we bow to pressure for our pay and say nothing bad. Hopefully we can evolve to meet the global standards which are set in employment and move the Caribbean forward to be one of the most productive regions in the world.

Tweet at the boss: Selecting appropriate technology in the corporate communication mix

I know this headline must be funny and certainly I never liked when I knew my bosses' secretary could show him what I posted the night before on Facebook. However technology has really impacted the way that companies communicate and many companies are really finding ways of incorporating to ensure that there are ways of getting the word out there, in other words communication.
When I worked at Liat (1974) Ltd we had moved from the teletype printer and sending through a third party system such as SABRE to using e-mail to sending flight information. This had two major benefits as it was cheaper for the company as well as more convenient as e-mail moves at the speed of light.

A lot of companies have now looked at how to incorporate several new technologies. There is now use of technologies such as Oovoo which allows six way video calls being used for teleconferencing. This means six persons in six different islands of the Caribbean can have a meeting and accomplish much without setting foot on a plane or spending money.
A company must assess its needs and see where its communications needs lie. They must then select the appropriate technological solutions which work for them. The challenge here is getting them to see needs and not wants. Too many companies see new technologies and just jump to them without looking at return on investment and if it really helps with the communications need of the company.
Within this ever changing technical world, it is important that companies embrace the technology into the mix and look at where they are and where they want to go. Who knows, just now you may have to tweet at your boss about that important idea.

You know you live in 2012

Mr. McDaniel e-mailed us this popular set of things about the way communication is now at the speed of the thought. His copy said 2004 and since that time there has been great technological advances so here is the updated 2012 version with my modifications. 

Communicating at the Speed of thought: Technology and Communications for Business Success

You know you're living in 2012 when....

1. You accidentally enter your Blackberry password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years. Hell, you haven't played solitaire in years. Its now about Bejeweled and Angry Birds.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3. Better yet you have all of them on Blackberry Messenger so you send them a ping saving you money!

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you and then tweet at them to say you just e-mailed them.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses, Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts and are not on LinkedIn.

6. You go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner and then tweet about how you did it!

7. You don't have a landline and then proceed to distinguish which of the phones is the company phones from your personal phone as they are the same model but one has free minutes thanks to the company.

8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies all of which have Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts and believe that social media is the bomb!

10. You learn about your redundancy on your Facebook Newsfeed from On The Ground News Reports. .

11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job because she doesn't have the slightest clue how to retweet that funny joke!

12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home. Then you proceed to Facebook message the kids to say that there is pizza in the fridge and proceed to google where is the nearest Japanese restaurant which serves sushi is located because you are in the mood.

13. Every commercial on television has a website, Facebook and Twitter account at the bottom of the screen.

14. Leaving the house without your Blackberry or I Phone , which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for tremendous panic and you will run faster than Usain Bolt to go and get it.

15. You get up in the morning and go online to see who mentioned you on Twitter before getting your coffee.

16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)

17. You're reading this and nodding and laughing. Then you proceed to put it in a note on Facebook and then tweet it to you best friend.

18. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message via Blackberry Messenger.

19. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

20. You actually scrolled back up to check that! there wasn't a #9 on this list.

AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

Go on, forward this to your friends ....you know you want to!

While the content may have change it is interesting to note that the consequences do remain very similar. 

For the positives it still allows

*           time saving - as it is all done electronically without much manual effort

*           cost saving - Technology has driven down the price of doing business including savings from going green and printing less.

*           prices fall with use - In 2004 laptops were still new, bulky and expensive. Now they are relatively cheaper and have become even replaceable with new technology such as smart phones and tablets. 

*           Telecommuting (e-mail, virtual office) - There continues to be development in technologies to aid in telecommuting. These include programs such as Skype, Oovoo and even an entire virtual office package by Cisco Systems. 

*           removes drudgery of dull repetitive tasks - Hey you can sneak in a game of angry Birds. Just kidding but the old manual way made things a bit monotonous. With the advent of the internet, work has become a little bit more exciting. 

Mr. Mc Daniel's presentation does also give an extreme list of negatives (see below) which are now heightened in 2012. It is however important to note that as they have been identified, there should be a greater awareness and a move to safeguard one's self against them.

Negatives are:

*           increased stress by greater expectations

*           high price of entry

*           steep learning curve

*           systemic errors hard to catch, multiplies pain

*           temptation to waste because of lower unit costs,ease of re-run

*           impersonal - risk

*           identity theft

*           greater access to inappropriate content

*           content not regulated

*           planned obsolescence

*           dulls the senses/initiative, promotes procrastination

*           plagiarism hard to detect - severely

*           compromises intellectual property.

You really live in 2012 when your assignment for a class has to be a blog and the teacher uses a tweetorial to teach.