Integrity (Ch11)

Leadership and Integrity go hand in hand. Having integrity means to fulfill the commitments you make to others. A politician is usually not regarded to be an individual with integrity because of the way he or she is portrayed by the media. Unfortunately, politicians are usually seen as leaders and because of their bad social rapport. In contrast, people who are not in political positions and are organizing a people are seen as righteous people. I write of this mainly because it is something that I think of everyday in my line of work.

Computer-Assisted Communication Technologies (Ch 10)

These include fax, e-mail, video conferencing, voice mail and others. It is surprising to think that businesses ran without these devices. Organizations are definitely running much more efficiently because of these devices. Unfortunately, these technologies have probably also left many people without a job. Once technologies take the place of someone's job the person usually becomes indispensable. This is definitely something to consider when we are developing more forms of communication. Personal contact was also eliminated with these forms of communication. Due to these developments some were able to start or expand their businesses more efficiently and possibly at a lower cost.

Habits of Mind (Ch 9)

Habits of mind according to Robert E. Quinn from the Harvard Business Review, are patterns ways if thinking that define how a person aproaches issues. This relates to leardership, because this could be a a way of how leaders can be efficient. He goes on to explain how most books about leadership show the reader how to be like other leaders instead of drawin on their own insticts and values.

I tend to belive this is true. A true leader will be their own person and will draw on what is natural for them, this way they come out transparent and build up credibility and respect from others.

Competitive Democracy (Web Lecture)

An election can be considered Competitive Democracy. I thought this was particularly interesting, because how can it be a democracy if only two candidates have a good chance of winning, as it is the case at every US election. One could argue that there are various other people running for the presidency. However, reality is that most don't have a good chance of winning. Some of the reasons we have a bi-partisan election is because of lack of economic resources from other parties like the green party and socialist party etc.

Team-Based Organization (Chapter 8)

The author speaks on the team approach as encouraging formal communication and view all employees as capable of making decisions. Instead of separating the managers and writing off the workers as non-thinkers. When you empower a worker with the ability of making their own decision, rather than dictating to them, you build up their sense of belonging in the company. Everyone wants to have a sense of belonging and workers get this sense when they are working with teams.

Gender Differences at Work. Chapter 7

The two most important statements in this section are: Men seek status by engaging in report talk. Women use conversation to build relationships using rapport talk. Women and men do have two different ways of communicating. Most of this is because of the way we are socialized. Unfortunately, the workplace and other institutions measure us by the way men communicate rather than women. This is one of the many reasons men tend to be promoted before women. As women I feel that we need to adapt more of the form of communication of men, but still be true to ourselves.

Web lecture: Virtual or Real Communication

I think that most people put both Virtual and Real communication in the same category. Proffessor Coopman asks if this class is real even though we meet online. This class is still real. But, I personally have had a real hard time connecting with the material. Eventhough, it is very interesting to learn about all of these topics. It doesn't feel like I'm interacting with anyone. As a result I probably will not be taking any online courses in the near future.

Technology is important for the development of a country. But, what kind of society will we have if people will continue to communicate through myspace messages, text messages or e-mail instead of in real life.

Web Lecture- Pervasive Communication Environment

One of the key points made in the web lecture on Pervasive Communication Environment is that "time and place no longer constrain a group's activities." This is particularly important to me, because of the activism that I take part in. For example, we have organized rallies across the state with one meeting, and many e-mails, text messages, phone calls. Another example of this is President Obama's campaign; he used all of these mediums to gain supporters and volunteers for his campaign. For the first time it was as easy as checking e-mail to advocate for a particular candidate.

It is also important to note that we need be careful not to lose the physical interaction part of communication. In my opinion, this is very important and imperative to developing a healthy sensitive society.

Fragmentation (Lecture)

When I read the definition of Fragmentation it made me think of how politicians tend to have this practice. In fragmentation meanings change depending on the circumstances or issues at hand. This is also possible withing an organization. It can work in a positive or negative manner. I keep thinking of a time when I volunteered for a political campaign ; and I think this would be the kind of setting where people would have to practice the fragmentation ideals. You have to be flexible with what is going on in the campaign and many times there are several issues you have to look at before you can make a decision, but these are all factors.

Organizational Assimilation (Chapter 5)

The concept of organizational assimilation is one that most of us have encountered. As the reading describes it it is when we begin a new job and we are welcomed with open arms by the CEO or top management and they speak on how they have an open door policy. Then you seem to never be able to get hold of them or when you do they are not helpful. But, then you reach a level of familiarity with the different dynamics of the company and you feel much more at ease.
In my experience it depends on a person's personality as well. For example, I hired two new interns at around the same time and one of them is much more outgoing than the other. She had an easier time adapting to the culture of the organiztion than the other one. They both do outstanding work, but I can tell that one of them feels much more confortable than the other one at the office.

Manufactured Consent (Chapter 6)

Manufactured Consent is when an employee willingly accepts and enforces the legitimate power of the organization, society and capitalism. The reading speaks of how when this power is not recognized its power just expands. I believe that this conditioning of workforce happens before an employee becomes a part of an organization. This process begins occurring at our public educational institutions. Young children and youth are conditioned to not question authority and follow directions. In some cases it is more noticeable than others, but I'm certain that we can all think of an instance when we knew the right answer but we were afraid of saying it because we didn't want to make our superior's look bad.

Bias for Action (Chapter 5)

When I read about Bias for Action and how top-performing companies are not characterized for taking a long time for making decisions, it reminded me of an organization I used to be a part of. This activist organization would take, what seemed like light years to make decisions. I felt that we needed to make decisions quickly enough to take action right away. I value everyone's opinion in a group, but I feel that when we take long to make decisions we will never catch up to the competition. Finally, I decided that this organization wasn't for me and I moved on. But, it left me thinking about how social justice organizations need to take more of a business approach to organizing.

Systems

I've never been a fan of systems. While working with monolingual Spanish speakers I have become less of a fan of systems. It is very challenging in trying to explain a new system (in my case the educational system) to someone who grew up in another country with a different set of systems. I also see that all of the different systems have left many English learners without as many opportunities as English speakers. Specially in the region that we live in where there are so many people that are from all over the world!
We can look at companies as little cities or worlds even here in the Silicon Valley. Each with a social, economic, environmental and even political system. We can really examine what all of these little systems say about the larger perspective of our role in the world as one of the largest economies here in California.

Chapter 4

Feedback is one of the most effective ways I use to become better at my communication skills and also at any task completed. Not everyone finds it productive to receive or give feedback, but regardless it is important to be able to be able to analyze one another's work. Giving feedback in my opinion is also an art, because many times you could come across as too critical and may loose a connection with a coworker or teammate. It is important to learn how to receive feedback and use it to one’s advantage to grow as a professional and teammate.

A couple of years ago I was helping organize a conference for women in the community college system. It was a great experience and this was a situation where I remember thinking about how useful it would have been if we had received information of the previous years' planning committee for this conference. We would have learned what our audience wanted and how they felt about the message the organization wanted to portray through the conference. In general we can say that students, professionals and everyone can benefit from feedback.

Work Story - Recruiting Students

I went to a local community college and before I graduated with an AA in Business Administration I was offered a position at this same college. I've been recruiting students for this community college for the past two years. I really enjoy it! I work with minority students helping them and their parents parents become familiar with the matriculation process. I'm one of the very few people that actually love their job! Although, sometimes it gets emotionally exhausting because there are very few financial resources for students that I work with (for reasons that I MAY go into detail later).

I supervise two student workers, who have become my right and left arm, figuratively speaking. They are two talented young women (about my age) that love their jobs as well. Our offices are located at a local non-profit's site and that office is my home away from home.

In a sense I can say that I'm the bridge between the community college and the non-profit organization and this has allowed me to learn how a mid-size non-profit and a large community college are managed effectively.

I hope to learn from everyone and I'm looking forward to sharing my experiences with you.

About Me!

Hello Everyone,

I've been missing in action, my apologies! I'm a local transfer student and this is my first time taking an online course :)! I'm a Public Relations student and college has been a great experience for me. I just moved out of my parent's home into my very own apartment near campus. It has been an awesome experience since I'm sharing a two bedroom apartment with my best friend (we will call him BFF).

I come from a non-traditional nor conservative Mexican family which is why I get to share an apartment with a guy and still be my parent's daughter! Except everyone else keeps asking me why him and I are not married. Apparently many people think that when a man a woman share an apartment they 'should' be married. Anyway, I plan to finish my undergraduate degree within a year and then continue on with my graduate studies! My goal is to become a community college chancellor and continue in the fight for social justice through higher education.

I also tried blogging before and couldn't really get the hang of it, so we'll see how this turns out. Hopefully great! :D.