Author Archive for James Drogan

New Rules: Convention and Change in Communication

Published
by
James Drogan
on January 27, 2007
in Communication Intensive Courses (CICs)
. 2 Comments

I’m browsing through my blogroll and Dave Pollard has once again written a post that relates to our discussions. You may want to take a peek at Communication Technologies — A Decision Tree for Users.

I also draw your attention to the decision tree at the beginning of Dave’s post, not its contents so much as the concept. Perhaps this presents us with a model for organizing discussions or, even, the Symposiums.

The other thought about the decision tree is that if there was a way we could assign frequency and importance of communications to the various links and nodes in the tree, we might develop additional insight into the manner of communications. Maybe Pollard’s idea represents a useful diagnostic for understanding communications within a community.

Weblogs — Why They’re Still Not ‘Happening’

Published
by
James Drogan
on October 14, 2006
in Blogs and Blogging
. 5 Comments

Here is a view from one of my favoriate bloggers, Dave Pollard. It is, as most of his posts are, provocative. In short, he suggests that since blogs are not filling a need, but a want, they are not having the impact one might think.

That may well be what I am observing with the SUNY Maritime Masters blog. The ramp-up in former and current graduate students becoming members of this blog is lower than what I expected.

This brings me to best practice versus popular practice versus what is needed, a theme my students and I have been discussing. Perhaps blogs fall in the popular practice category. I have earlier expressed dissatisfaction regarding tne involvement of business in cac.opony. Maybe that’s true because the blog doesn’t fill business need.

Anyway, we all needed more to think about over the weekend.

Purpose-built Wikis

Published
by
James Drogan
on September 29, 2006
in Group Composing, Peer Review, Revision and Wikis
. 0 Comments

EdTechPost brought me a post NoteMesh - another student-centric note taking service.  Upon first read, I thought this sort of collaborative approach to note-taking — an essential skill in my estimation — to be detrimental to learning.  Maybe not.  Maybe collaboration between the stronger and weaker students could result in “the rising tide lifting all boats.”

After all, an essential element of education is, in my view, the development of knowledge, skill, and experience in working on teams.

Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration

Published
by
James Drogan
on September 27, 2006
in E-mail and Technology
. 0 Comments

I draw your attention to an article in the Spring 2006 issue of the Sloan Management Review.

If communication has any major outcomes at all, it certainly must be one of fostering collaboration. Indeed, many of the posts on this blog deal with collaboration technologies.

Peter McAfee’s article asks whether we have the right technologies. Perhaps, but I also wonder whether we have the right change management processes in place to provoke and/or incent the use of the technologies.

For me, the catchy quote from McAfee’s article is “While all knowledge workers surveyed used e-mail, 26% felt it was overused in their organization, 21% felt overwhelmed by it and 15% felt it actually diminished their productivity.”

Yikes!

Technology Induced Communication Issues

Published
by
James Drogan
on September 4, 2006
in E-mail and Interpersonal Communication
. 2 Comments

I’m on-line with my distance learning students in TMGT 7200 Management Information Systems in Transportation discussing the future. One of my students, using a subject line of “Lazy Culture,” has written:

I can definitely relate to the gap in the workplace but the issue I want to bring up is not so an issue of gap between old school and new generation but rather an issue of workplace gap where people are so involved in technology which allows them to do more in less time that often times there is no company spirit or friendly workplace environment. People are getting lazy to be human. Now its too hard to stop at someones desk and talk but most common way is to send an e-mail to person who sits right next to you.

She describes what I consider to be the dark side of technology, the decline in critical social relationships. Furthermore, and perhaps more worrying, is the tendency to believe that if you have shot off an e-mail you have completed your responsibilities with respect to communication. How many times have many of us encountered the phrase; “But I sent you an e-mail?” Or; “Sorry, I did’t see your e-mail?”

Technology has become a convenient scapegoat for our failure to accept the responsibility that communication is more than message flow, it is achieving understanding.

Bloggers and Writing Skill

Published
by
James Drogan
on August 24, 2006
in Blogs and Blogging
. 0 Comments

This is an interesting piece by Bob Sutton of Stanford. It’s not all doom and gloom out there.

Cross-Cultural Communications

Published
by
James Drogan
on August 19, 2006
in Cross-Cultural Communication
. 0 Comments

I received an e-mail from Presentation Excellence, Inc. (20 West 33 Street (9th Floor), New York, NY 10001,P: 646-827-0009 F: 646-827-9009) this morning saying, in part;

‘Think of all the miscommunications you experience in an average week - and realize that most are with people who share your culture. You can then appreciate how much more complex it is to be an effective communicator in a world where we interact with people in China, India, Latin America, Russia Mideast, etc. who don’t share your cultural norms and business traditions.

…
Different cultural values, beliefs and norms

Every culture has its own set of shared values, beliefs and behavioral norms. For instance, while Americans generally value individualism/independence, focus on time to control the future, tend to be direct, open, honest and practical, other cultures are more concerned with the group’s welfare, respecting the past, people’s rank and status, indirectness and ritual. People’s value of time, deadline, accountability, etiquette when engaging others of differing ages and characteristics, all impact on direct and indirect communications, relationships, decision making, motivation, leadership and organizational structures. Most of us develop our personality and communication styles as we grow up within our culture. But when we interact with people from different cultures, conflicts can occur unless each party is sensitive to the cultural discrepancies and language differences, and adjusts to them. For instance, when doing business with people in India, it’s advisable to be properly attired (wearing non- leather products), avoid beckoning with the palm up, wagging a finger, whistling, winking or pointing one’s feet at a person, and know when and how to use words like “no” and “thank you”.’

It prompts to ask for suggestions as to how we should address these issues in our education and in our businesses.

BLSCI as a Center

Published
by
James Drogan
on August 18, 2006
in Baruch College and Communication Intensive Courses (CICs)
. 0 Comments

You will recognize “The Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute’s mission is to infuse oral, written and computer-mediated communication into the curriculum at Baruch College.” from the Center’s home page. BLSCI is at least one of perhaps several centers at Baruch that focuses on excellence in communication.

BLSCI, it seems to me, is a center for members of the Institute, and Baruch faculty and students. The Institute’s BAC (Business Advisory Council) and the Annual Symposium attracts limited involvement from the business community, but certainly the claim cannot be made that BLSCI is a center for the business community.

My sense is that BLSCI and the business community are missing out on a relationship of potentially significant mutual value. This is, of course, a hypothesis. One might argue that the somewhat low level of business involvement disproves the hypothesis.

I’m not so easily persuaded.

I’ve been noodling on this notion for some time and want to raise it as a discussion topic.

Communication as a Bond

Published
by
James Drogan
on July 13, 2006
in Audience, Language and Pedagogy
. 1 Comment

One of my international students wrote the following line:

Communication is something more than a business tool, is a bond; a bond that brings closer, people with the same interests and goals (such as - but not limited to - a business transactions.)

She has provided an interesting perspective which I think should color the way we communicate. Tolkien, one of my favorite writers, forms a bond with me through his writing. The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance does not.

I advise my students and others to try to put themselves in the mindset of the reader. To read what they write to see whether the reaction of the reader is what the writer intends. It seems to me that we can write what we want to write, but not communicate what we intend to communicate.

Perhaps this is all old hat to you Writing Fellows, but my 40 plus years of business experience suggests that those of us not in academia need to be reminded from time to time of this notion of communications as a bond.

Enabling Constraints

Published
by
James Drogan
on July 8, 2006
in Pedagogy
. 2 Comments

One of the attendees at a recent meeting at the BLSCI (Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute) raised the phrase “enabling constraints” in the context of discussing how technology forces changes in communication. In particular, she referred to the small screen used for the presentation of messages as a constraint.

My first, admittedly flip, reaction was that “enabling constraints” was an oxymoron. But as we got deeper into the discussion I backed away from my initial thinking. While a small screen may be a constraint, especially when we approach communication from a traditional point of view, the enabling aspect of this constraint is connectivity.

The inevitability of technologial advances will, it seems to me, cause us to rethink communication. If communication changes then our approach to teaching communication also needs to chnge. See Another Look at Communication Effectiveness for additional points on this issue.

What actions should we in academia take to determine whether this is an issue that needs to be addressed?