Category Archives: Technology

Chatting about COM3068

As I wait for Caryn’s post on the course goals for the future. I thought I would add a few thoughts of my own from our chat.

It still seems as if Technology is an important theme to integrate into COM3068, not just as a theme in of itself but to see how the different org comm theories pass through it or give different viewpoints. I think it is interesting to see how it impacts the workplace socially but also the way work will be changed over the next ten years.

I also like the idea of adding more rhetoric of work and the Parker Follet side. I also like the idea of how the argenti and the clampitt books can still be a part of the course content when used to look at the organization as a whole and how the practice of management is also the way the organization communicates internally and externally. I think though, there is still this back and forth between how much overlap there might be between the business management courses and this course. I would love to see what you think Linda.

I, myself have fought the tendency to bring leadership literature into the course and I feel that this is more prone to the COM3102 course.

But the most important point is… that I am going to take the ACTIVITES PAGE, where I have posted my tests and activities and I am going to PASSWORD protect it. You will all be able to post any activity there, tests, notes, paper topics, etc., and only those who have the password will be able to access it or see it.  I will email you all the password. The reason I am doing this is to open up the blog to RSS feed which will allow us to get information and access to other course blogs and websites dealing with the org comm themes and literature.

This means that the blog will be open to them as well. So only the password protected page will be private.

So there you go big moves to come. But what is even bigger is Caryn’,  soon to come, post on Goals for fall 09….(pressure ;-0)

Image of the Internet and More Social Media

The above image is a computer generated image of the Internet and all of its varying world wide web connections…

Jana has sent in a few choice articles from the web on corporations and social media. There is a most interesting longitudinal study on the increase in top performing private companies’ use of social media as a major part of their marketing and business strategies (Social Media in the Inc. 500). There is another interesting study in the amount of time people are now watching online videos. This has also increased at a rapid pace. Time spent watching Video… I will post both of these articles under the Technology Corner.

I think though we need to find some research on how all of this social media effects the individual in the workplace and even work itself…

Spring 2009

So we are off to our new start, a new semester, where I will not be teaching and Linda is now joining us as one of the thinkers and shapers of the Managerial Communication Course. Though I will not be teaching this semester, I am committed to doing research and posting information and ideas for the course. I also will push all of us to post ideas and teaching experiences so this can be a community project, not just each one of us alone in our corners trying to do the “right” thing.

I have started a new Page on technology where anyone using this blog can go to look up articles on organizations and technology. “Pages” are located on the upper right corner of the blog home page and are  reference areas to find research, articles, chapters, and URL links all of which in someway relate to Managerial Communication. The definition of how they relate to the course is open to interpretation, so do not feel compelled to just post or link credible information. It can be something that just makes us think or laugh as well.

Last semester Caryn and I had talked a great deal about how IT and communication is a new field of study in Managerial Communication and that it will probably keep growing as an area of interest to students and scholars alike. So I will look into some of the work out there and hopefully post a few interesting pieces. And again feel free to add to the collection in any of the Pages.

I would like to suggest to everyone that we begin to link our blog to other blogs dealing with some of the same faculty development questions. In order to do that we will have to take off the password protection, meaning anyone who wishes to see out blog will be able to do so, in short open to the world. Yet to see it someone will have to actually search for it, as we can make it only available at Baruch and not on a google search engine. I will let you all think about it, but I want to hold up the idea of how this is one of the new uses in IT and organizations; how do we work in a format that is semi public? Many educational institutions are beginning to look at these questions, IT now allows the transmission and development of knowledge across the world. So how do leaders, teachers and researchers continue to work and teach yet use the far reaching elements of this new IT communication world?

This is all just food for thought….

Communication on the campaign trail!

I am finally getting back to a question that Caryn asked weeks ago. She was looking for some ideas and articles for the chapter on technology and the impact on the workplace. But I just realized that the use of Internet and all types of technology are at this very moment redefining the electoral process let alone the current election. And a political party or a political campaign is by definition an organization. The following two links are just simple but real life demonstrations of how the Obama campaign has really gone into the use of technology to reach out to stakeholders of the electorate rarely reached before.

TTY is a very old technology being used in a new way to contact an electorate that has rarely been taken into consideration. And the second is the use of an ipod function, perhaps the newest political campaign tool, just created a few months ago! And it is being used to target the newest of members of the electorate.

I think that we can not ignore the teaching tool that is right in front of us for this entire semester, especially when the political campaigns’ use of new and old technology and communication is fascinating and likely to influence the business world and the greater organizational world for years to come.

I am finishing by adding a link to a post on cac.ophony.org that talks about the same thing, it sort of inspired me towards this conclusion that organizational communication is right in sink with technology and the big political parties. I’ll keep looking for some articles and electronic happenings in the two campaign camps.