Collaboration Technology

For this blog I feel that it would be most appropriate to use personal experiences to discuss the use and application of today's collaboration technologies in classroom group-work. You know, it's so commonplace now, but text-messaging is a very effective collaborative tool. In the process of setting up group meetings, attempting to make small changes while not in the group setting, or for simple questions, text messaging has been the perfect solution. In the actual process of sharing information and the compilation of our group's separate efforts, e-mail has been paramount. It's so simple to just do a portion of the work, and then via e-mail, put it all together. In today's culture it's hard to imagine how group work was ever accomplished, pre-technology, we'll call it. However, for all its vaunted convenience, it cannot replace the need of actually getting together to work. That, I believe, is still essential, but, as it pertains to college students and their use of collaboration technologies in the classroom, with all of us, the students, having conflicting schedules, it is the only way to get it all done.

Two Tips to Presenting Well

First, prepare. Prepare once, twice, and thrice. Then prepare again. Preparing as thoroughly as possible can eliminate many of the problems that people face with presentations. Much of the nervousness, stuttering, filler words, or the lack of confidence that many of us feel before a presentation could be eliminated by understanding everything about a topic. Next, it's always helped me to try the presentation on someone before giving the final presentation. It's basically like having someone proofread a paper you've written. A fresh set of ears can help to point out anything that may need tweaking.

Looking for the Good

With the difficulties and struggles of the U.S. economy, it's important every once in a while to look on the bright side. One of the things I've learned through a bit of light reading recently is with regards to the weakness of the dollar compared to some foreign currencies. Raphael Amit, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania said, “It is one of the things that will help prevent a recession. When the dollar is weak, imports are more expensive. So relatively speaking, domestic production and services are more competitive. Simple as that.” Sure, the weak dollar lessens what can be bought within the global market, but it does serve to stimulate our struggling economy by putting American businesses on a more equal footing with cheap foreign competitors. It's just one of many bright spots forming in what has been a dark landscape of national economic woes.

Personally, I think that much of the time indirect letters are in fact a waste of time. If I get something in the mail and it doesn't say what I'm looking for in the first paragraph, I skip to the end to find it. Everything in between might as well not be there. Despite this, I do admit that for a company's correspondence it is necessary to not appear insulting or detached from the situation of its customers. Resultantly, its correspondence is less direct and definitely passive, but like I said, i think it's largely overused. A study done at the University of Ohio suggested the same. After two pretests and two experiments using negative letters the results show that buffers did not significantly affect college students' responses to simulated letters refusing credit and denying admission to graduate school. We just want to get the information we're looking for. So unless a company is rubbing the negative news in a person's face, they can give it directly and dispense with the unnecessaries. I'm for the direct approach.

Letter writing may in fact be archaic, but with the influx of new technologies it seems that the skills necessary to write a well-written communication have been lost all together.  Ironically, just as we are losing the skills necessary to communicate efficiently in writing,, which I see as a byproduct of learning to write letters, these skills are becoming increasingly important.  

A 2006 survey of 528 Canadian workers indicated that 58 percent of them were spending an average of 2-4 hours a day reading e-mails, memos, reports, or internet materials. When asked to identify the costs of poorly written communications 85 percent cited wasted time, 70 percent cited lost productivity, and 65 percent cited errors made as a result of poorly written instructions.

In 2004 the College Board's National Commission on Writing  put a number to some of the costs associated with poorly written communications.  It was calculated that $3.1 billion annually were spent on training in attempts to bring employees' skills up to speed and improve communication.  $3.1 billion!  The study went on to say that writing , for many of the companies involved in the study, is a "threshold skill" for employee selection (getting hired), and promotion.  Susan R. Meisinger, president and CEO of the Society for Human Resources Management, said, "The importance of learning to communicate in writing and orally is paramount. Communication is a critical skill in the workplace and one that many new entrants lack."  

It's obvious that good writing skills, despite archaic origins, continue to be vitally important. In many situations written communications, especially e-mails, have replaced verbal communications. With their increasing prevalence, good writing skills are more important today than ever before.

Interview Attire Link

Here is a link to a video that details from top to bottom what a person should wear in an interview. It's a video geared toward men but the principles taught can apply to female attire as well.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpUvygEgVk4

Remember, looking our best affects the way we feel in our interview as well as the way we are perceived, so it's in our own best interest to look our best.

Best Dress

All my life I've heard "dress up." When I was 15 and applying for a job at a wholesale tree farm, I was told to dress up. The same was true for a pizza delivery job, a job as a grocery bagger, a job at the county mosquito abatement, and a job installing fence. It was usually my parents telling me to dress up, and I didn't really believe them, and not just because I was a teenager. I didn't see the need to wear a suit and tie when the jobs I was applying for were largely manual and extremely dirty. However, despite disagreeing with my parents on the subject, I always dressed up, and I always got the job. Now, if it's considered necessary to dress in our finest to apply for a job as a bagger, how much more so for a position in our career choice? Bob Skladany is the chief career counselor for retirementjobs.com, he said,

"What's the appropriate attire? Always dress up, even if someone tells you that the company has a casual dress code...Be well groomed and well dressed. If you had been considering it, now is the time to buy a new suit or outfit. If you look sharp, you'll feel more confident, and you'll impress interviewers"

So, for ourselves, and for the benefit our our potential future employers, we need to look the best we can when going to interviews.

Dave Ramsey and Bob Beaudine Video Link

Here is a link to the interview with Bob Beaudine that touches on the importance of utilizing the people we know. As I watched the interview I could definitely pick up a sales-pitchy vibe for his new book, but despite that it was still worth a watch.

http://video.foxbusiness.com/5880839/its-not-what-you-know-its-who-you-know/?category_id=47ab32e5d5dad17a13d4f04e77bb9619e05da9bb

What We Know vs. Who We Know

I think that both what you know and who you know are important but in the end I think who you know is the more important. I think that sometimes it is hard to quantify what we know in the small amount of time allowed in an interview process. Prospective employees can say what skills they know and what they are capable of and even if they back those points up with some sort of evidence, this self-presentation will always be taken with a grain of salt by the interviewer. Now, if that same interviewer hears by word of mouth what the interviewee is capable it's a different scenario. It's credible and objective and it carries much more weight than what we say about ourselves. After a little promotion for his most recent book, The Power of Who, Executive Recruiter and author Bob Beaudine said in an interview on Fox Business that "80% percent of jobs are placed by a friend." If this is in fact the case, and I think it is, the higher up the business world our network of friends extends the better our careers will be.

Blogs: Creating Bonds

One of my favorite things about business blogs is the idea of being able to make your company "reachable". About much of the companies with which I interact, I know very little. I don't know if they've helped in the community or donated to a cause. There isn't anything that ties my customer loyalty to a particular brand or store. I think that through blogging, a company has the ability to reach out to its customers, and through its content, create a bond. Personally, I've found that my favorite blogs are those that lie outside the normal constraints of a company's day to day operations and stray into the other activities of the company. I've noticed that when a company appeals to me on a human level, I am much more motivated to return to them on a regular basis to do business with them. Ideally, on the same page as the feel-good human interest stories, a link to do business should also be found. Working for a local company here in Logan I've suggested that the company begin a blog as a way to reach out to the community and improve its customer base. As of yet no decision has been reached but it will be interesting to see how things play out.

The Power of the Blog

Professional blogs can help businesses in a variety of different ways. Some of the benefits that a company can enjoy are a larger audience base (the entire world wide web), customer feedback, and lower advertising costs. Piper Jaffray, a leading international middle market investment bank, estimated that the cost per lead via internet search engine is just 29 cents. Compare that to 50 cents per lead through e-mail, $1.18 through the yellow pages and a revenue-ruining $9.94 per lead through direct mail. Obviously there is potential here. Now, once you get the customer to your page it's important that what they find is what they're are looking for. The effectiveness of a blog depends on how well the blogging is done. If a blog is poorly organized and does not reflect what the business stands for then a company will lose potential customers. As with all things, if it's going to work, it has to be well done.

My new blog

This is my new blog. It is the first time I've had a blog so hopefully it isn't too difficult to manage.